Posts from ‘Track Days’
Recent Track Excursions
Finally got the car back into shape and hit up 2 track days almost consecutively. Buttonwillow CW13 and Autoclub Speedway Roval for mazfest. My times improved drastically with the new tires, and a little bit of more driving experience i’d like to think, i managed to knock down 9 seconds from my previous best laps on both of the tracks. Landing me a 2:17 on buttonwillow and a 2:09 on autoclub speedway (yes i know i can still use more work). The RS3s were great, intially they felt a little bit sloppy because of the softer sidewalls, but as they heated they gripped exceptionally. Also raising the car a little bit from its previous height helped the bumpstops to engage less often and made the car more predicatable going from neutral to slight oversteer at track out.
The radiator broke, probably due to tracking the car at high ambient temps, and also the high mileage of the car (over 100k miles, bye bye warranties). The plan is to replace it with a mazdaspeed competition radiator and replace all the stock rubber hoses with SAMCO silicon pieces. Also a new set of brake rotors and brake pads are in the near future.
some random photos
So last Saturday was track day at streets of willow with speed-ventures. This is my first time going CCW. The track seems much faster than going CW. I had trouble with two areas, one was on the skid pad and the other, the bowl. Both involved a long straight at 100+mph going into a slow turn, the bowl is especially difficult since it was banked and also a decreasing radius turn.
In car video made from my Go-Pro before i ran out of batteries, the Evo blew its inter cooler piping mid run so it was getting towed. Best time time of the day for me was 1:36.07, best time in the video was 1:38.7.
So far the car is running great, the BHR coils really helped out and doing the cooling mod managed to keep the car in optimum temperatures. The brakes are phenomenal, the pads bite very hard and every time i can brake much later than before. The bad thing was that my tires are pretty much shot, they are all heat cycled out. After many tire squealing laps they didn’t even gum up, time for some new ones before the next track day!
There were 3 other RX8s besides Lionzoo and I. We met eddie who was awesome and pulling crazy drifts into the skid pad (much better than the drifters in the drifting event that was also happening on the balcony BTW), and also a black rx8 that looked really fast, so while i was walking around the pits, look at who i ran into! mazdamaniaaaaaaaac!
Some photos,
the maniacmobile,
This is a clean Hatchiroku, the interior on this thing is immaculate!
Pretty nice skyline, the driver had trouble pointing people by since he’s RHD haha
This Ferrari was slow! it was holding people up going 40mph in the blue group, and of course the driver wasn’t pointing anyone by. It did this for 2 laps and eventually got black flagged and bumped down to white group.
Later on one of the instructors got its hand on it though and mannn that thing could go, fastest lap time in the group set by the Ferrari.
This thing was hauling ass in the black group, faster than some of the much faster cars. it had no windows or interior and the gauge cluster was zip tied to the steering column, freaking awesome! There was also a stock hyundai accent in the black group that was keeping its pace with a lotus exige, (keep in mind that people in the black group are not slow, they’re all pretty good drivers, the hyundai driver was just insane)
Speaking of rats there was also this awesome car
yes that’s AstroTurf on the roof and hood and in case you can make it out, its also got a dolphin on top of it, LEMONS FTW
darin from westends hatch, i met darin a while back at his shop for corner balancing, and its good to see him out on the track, that guy is seriously fast!
and finally my car chilling a little bit by the overlook near the bowl, i really need to get some magnetic numbers or something the racing tape numbers look so cheap
Woke up at 5am on saturday and headed out to fontana, ca to attend Mazfest at autoclub speedway (formerly california speedway). Built in the 90s the California speedway holds motor sport events of many kinds, notably NASCAR. For mazfest we only drove the roval configuration which consists of a half oval and part of the infield.
Although i cant say im a big fan of NASCAR, but it was pretty awesome to be driving on a real racetrack. The feeling of speeding down the front straight zooming past the stands is definitely exhilarating. The concrete barriers and tire walls are scary also.
The 90 degree weather didnt help performances, my times were pretty slow. Thank god for beach umbrellas. One car actually caught on fire, it was a FD rx7. Several other cars broke down. I found myself off the track a couple of times, and ended up with a damaged wheelwell and toasted brakepads. Overall it was a very fun day, and awesome to be on track with other mazdas.
Click for more images.
Back in April, I attended the Chinese Grand Prix at the Shanghai Circuit. It was a rushed weekend since I flew from Shenzhen to Shanghai, and then after dropping off luggage and eating lunch, it was immediately off to the track to watch qualifying (and the Asia Carrera Cup).
Everyone constantly mentions the piercing sound of a F1 car when seeing them in person, and that is the first amazing thing about them. Their stopping ability is also awesome, but sitting in Turn 1 at the Shanghai Circuit, my ability to witness that is minimized as the drivers have to balance braking with turning entering the corners. Nonetheless, the engines sound like some of the most unholy banshees dragging their prey to hell. Simply stunning, and capable of causing you permanent hearing you.
One amazing thing is how quickly one adjusts to seeing the speed of cars. F1 cars didn’t seem amazing at all until after they were done with qualifying and the Asia Carrera Cup cars were on track. Now I’ve witness Porsche Cup cars running while I was at a track day and back then those cars seemed so much faster than what we were driving. The Carrera Cup is a couple notches higher than anything the Porsche Cup has, but the Carrera Cup cars looked positively slow, like they were stuck running in molasses, after seeing the F1 cars. This was especially apparent in the Turn 7-8-9 complex. Where the Carrera Cup cars seem to transition from corner to corner, the F1 cars appear to just flick from apex to apex. Flick, flick, flick, and they’re gone. Amazing.
Overall, Saturday qualifying came and went with another Red Bull pole and not much surprise in the results. I went back to my hotel weary, but in anticipation of the raceday to come.
Pretty Eventful Saturday at Button-willow Raceway Park.
I didn’t do too well mostly because i was sleepy the whole day, DAMN YOU SUN! Landed myself a time of 2:27 as my fastest of the day. Not bad for a noob, but i hope next time i will be at least 7 seconds faster.
The rx8 was in pretty bad shape the whole day too. I changed every possible fluid in the car the week before, but forgot to check my cooling system. Which lead to me getting close to overheating on the track several times throughout the day. I didn’t want to blow up, so i took it easy.
The track itself is pretty challenging, much faster than streets of willow, which has more sharp turns and less straights and lower speeds which im more used to. The large sweepers and hills make for pretty scary and shaky laps in the first couple of sessions. Especially after the fact that Aaron of Speed ventures mentioned people like to roll on Phil Hill (someone did roll, but that’s another story). Going into that corner at 80+mph and feeling the car slightly sliding made me want to pee a little. Time for better aero (and fix my cooling issues).
At end of the day I sat in a car that clocked 2:09 minutes, thanks Jared. Now i see the way. More to come next time i hit the track, probably in fall. Canyon season is coming =)
Click for more Photos
