Wow, what a blast. For those of you that don’t know Sears Point (now officially called Infineon) it is an AMAZING track.
http://infineonraceway.com/
Decent ride-along vid for reference (not the greatest line, or fastest lap, but its what I found quickly): http://youtube.com/watch?v=NN1zJwI_axk
Sears is known for a few things: - Elevation Changes - and the blind corner exits they cause.- The Carousel - Turn 6 is a long, sweeping, 190ish degree, banked left hander, exits onto a psuedo-straight and you see a lot of Gs and speed through it.- And MOST important about Sears are “The Esses” - Turns 8 and 8A are really the esses, but the back-forth extends through 9 (very fast sweeping left) and 10. The esses require a perfect line, and getting behind is what totals cars.- And lastly, but certainly worth considering is how close the walls are all over the place!
Last year when I went to Infineon it was cold and rainy, and the car just wouldn’t work with me. I had wrenched on my car 'til the early morning w/ JPayne, then drove straight to the track, and slept ~1hr in my car. All-in-all it wasn’t the best experience and I never really got a feel for the course or the car.
This year was a much better experience. I was still left prepping some things on the car the day before the event, but I was done early. I got a good 4 or 5 hours of sleep and got on the road nice and early. My buddy Neil came with me and helped a ton, and we stopped on the way at another friend’s to “rent” his stock wheels with 710s. HUGE thanks to him for getting up at 6:30 in the morning to get me his tires.
So anyway… the track day was put on through work, and was limited to 35 cars. I was in the “High Performance” aka Advanced group which only had 11 cars in it:
- '95 M3 - Modded on Race Tires- '93 RX7 - Modded on A048s- '03 911 Turbo- '06 Exige- '92 MR2 (dropped out of the group early)- '04 STi- '0? F430- '07 GT3- Legends Car (Google it)- '05 Elise- Me
In the AM only our group got to go on course, the 2 lower groups did various drills. We ran the NASCAR configuration in the AM since the lower groups were using a lot of the drag strip for their heel-toe downshift exercise.
Our first session started as a lead-follow (after a few fun laps riding in the Jim Russell driving school Explorers w/ the instructors SMASHING on them, LoL). We did about 3-4 laps of lead-follow before getting waved by the instructor car to finish our session “on our own.” My catch can filled on the 2nd to last lap of the session, and I was about ready to be pissed off again.
For those of you that don’t know I have endless issues w/ the “custom” PCV setup on my car. Long story short, I fill my catch can really quick and then my fun is done. To try to remedy that I sectioned a “T” into my dipstick-tube then ran a line off the bottom of my catch down to the “T” so that oil could drain back to the pan. So after my first session I come in, loosen up the can, and its heavy like its still full. WTF, gravity doesn’t exist? However, as soon as I pull the dipstick I can feel the oil drain right out of the can. Okay… so the dipstick is blocking flow.
Session 2 I plan to run w/o a dipstick, and I secure a rag over the end of the tube to catch any oil mist. Well, that plan couldn’t have sucked more. Oil spits out of the dipstick tube everywhere and oils down my front right tire. I have a “moment” as I try to turn in for 8 and the car just skates straight ahead. It was one of those times I just had to do the right thing, point the wheels straight, go neutral throttle, and pray. I run 4 wheels off straight through the dirt/gravel inside of turn 8A. I just went 4 wheels off, I’m a rolling smoke screen, and my session is done in 1 lap.
Okay… time to fix this. I needed a way to block off the dipstick tube w/o putting the dipstick in. I was about ready to resort to removing the actual dipstick from the handle part but Neil came up w/ a good plan. We took a piece of hose that fit (very tightly) over the dipstick tube and jammed a bolt in one end of it. Perfect.
So session 3 I go out, and get a full session! A little smoke and some oil out of the breather on the catch can, but no black-flag. Neil makes me a sweet shield for the back of the breather so oil can’t spray right on to the header (I had removed my famous Bud Light can shield when I was building the whole “T” dealy-o).
We break for lunch, and they return the course to the full “real” config. We do another ride-along session and head out. I know the carousel (turn 6) will be my downfall since its a long, fast, banked left-hander that will just DUMP oil to the can. So I plan to short-shift into 4th just after turn 5 to keep my RPM down going through 6 and hopefully limit the oil dumping into the can.
I head out for my first session on the full course, with an instructor riding shotty and the short-shift before turn 6 works!!! I get a full session w/ zero smoke. HELLZ yeah. Being in 4th coming out of 6 meant I was down on power going from 6 to 7, but I still had enough to pull on any of the cars I came up on in my group. I get some good tips from my instructor. Overall my line was good, but I was over-doing the late apexes a bit, and (of course) I needed to smooth out my inputs some. He said I was doing very well though, and had “good courage.”
Next session I get another instructor and now my line is pretty much spot on. He helps me clean up turn 10 a bit, and gets me driving faster/deeper into 1. Now I’m really flying and having an absolute blast. In the first afternoon session I was pretty much passing everybody in my group but I never saw the Legends Car or E36 M3. But in this session I’m straight smokin’ fools. 
Yes, I did catch, pass, then ditch the GT3 and the F430. My best battle are actually the E36 M3 (very well driven) and an black EVO that hopped out on course with an instructor driving (the student drove in one of the lower groups). The EVO was going 11/10 and it was a lot of fun to catch him and get the wave by. It took me a bit longer to shake him than I thought it would though. He hung through the esses pretty good with me, but from 11 on I kept moving out. By turn 2 I had left him pretty good.
My last session was more of the same. I went out solo and went about catching and passing everybody in my group. At one point I got stuck behind the Elise for a few turns, and the Legend car caught up to me. I figured the Legend car should be able to smoke me, so I let him by, then we both go around the Elise. Now its time to see if I can hang with the Legends Car. Surprisingly I’m all over him, and he can’t shake me. We go through 2-3-4-5-6 and enter 7 but he gets a bit greedy on the exit of 7 and spins it. I pushed the race car to spin!!! :friday:
What a day, and what a damn AMAZING car this Z06 is. It works well at AutoX, but it really comes into its own on the road course. And Floyd’s 710s didn’t hurt. 
Oh, and the big radiator and oil cooler are great too, I never saw over 210 oil temps and I don’t think I even saw 200 water.
Legends Car:
A couple of shots of the Z06:
-TJ
