Days at the Track - Thunderhill Raceway
Michael "Docta Boxsta" Saal had been raving about the two days he spent at Laguna Seca with an organized Miata owners group, and so when he mentioned that they were going to have a two-day event at Thunderhill, I decided to take a couple of vacation days and do it. This informal Miata group is happy to fill out the roster with a few well-behaved non-Miata drivers. Along with myself and Michael was another Boxster Boarder, Keith Vyenielo all the way from Las Vegas. Add to that a Corvette, a Nissan 300ZX, a BMW M3, and 40 or so Miatas, and we had a healthy but not overly crowded group. We were split into two run groups: A for instructors and more experienced participants (including us), and B for not-as-experienced and first-time participants.
Michael had already been at Thunderhill for the weekend, participating in the PCA-GGR time trial. His was the first Boxster in the time trial series, having added the B-K roll bar extension and hard top, which PCA-GGR requires for Boxsters to participate in time trials (along with the other standard equipment like harness, fire extinguisher, etc.). This was his first event on his Kumho race tires. He did well, turning in a time of approximately 2:31, which is the first and best ever recorded PCA/Thunderhill time trial time for a Boxster -- class "Ti". (The "T" is the Boxster, and I believe the "i", for improved, is because of the Kumho tires.)
For the Street School I had previously attended three times, we used the East loop, where Turn 7 is a hard left directly onto the main straight. But for this event we used the entire 3.0 mile circuit shown below. This diagram is looking southeast from the air and doesn't show the elevation changes or turn angles completely accurately.
We headed out onto the track Monday morning for our first session, a follow-the-instructor session to get acclimated to the track and get comfortable with the correct line. There were four packs of cars, each with about five cars trailing an instructor car at roughly 45-50 MPH. I was thoroughly familiar with the line on the East loop of Thunderhill from my three previous days there, but throroughly unfamiliar with the line on the West loop, having only driven a mere three laps, sans instructor, on it at my very first trip to the Street School. Once everyone had each taken a lap directly behind the instructor, we were waved ahead of the instructor -- basically turned loose to do the remaining part of the session at normal speed.
In this south-facing aerial view you can see the hill between 8 and 9 much better, although the elevation changes as you progress through turns 1 through 6 are completely invisible here:
The rest of Monday's sessions were wonderful. "Turbo", the track steward, would send each of us out from pit lane onto the track with a few seconds gap from the preceding car. Since we only had around 20 or so cars in the run group, and since nearly everyone one followed the passing etiquette, there were many times when it felt like I had the track to myself -- no one in sight. And when I got up behind a slower car, they were very courteous about waving me by in the passing zones (I always wave a follower by at the first opportunity, unless I am being held up by a slower car myself at the time, or if the follower is too far back). Michael and Keith and I were able to run together on occasion, and it was interesting to follow and see what line the others were taking, where they braked, etc. Michael and I had a few laps in particular where there was no other traffic around. At some points I felt like Michael could outrun me; at other points I felt the reverse. I suppose it probably depended on who made what kind of mistake on a given corner that would allow the other to gain distance. Monday night I played back some of the videotape where I had run a couple of completely unencumbered laps (no traffic holding me up), used my stopwatch against the videotape, and estimated that I was running about a 2:26 or 2:27 lap time. Not bad for street tires!
In what turned out to be the last session of the day, after a few laps I rounded Turn 2, headed toward the crest approaching Turn 3, and the corner working there was waving the yellow flag. I slowed down, expecting to see a spun out car in the dirt -- Turn 3 is a fast, hard, near 180-degree off-camber turn that is where most spins occur. But instead of a spinout, I saw a black Toyota MR2 driving slowly with thick gray smoke absolutely billowing out of its mid-engine compartment, leaving a trail of coolant or oil on the track behind it. Clearly some kind of blown engine. Very sad! Since it was late in the afternoon, and it would take a while for the track crew to clean up the slippery mess and tow the poor car away, we ended the day.
It had been hot out there -- over 90 degrees. I kept drinking water and soft drinks all day to stay hydrated, but when I got back to the hotel, I was wasted. Not to mention my mere 3 hours sleep the night before. The air conditioner in my room was cranked up all the way, and I felt so bad I raced to strip off my hot sweaty clothes and crawl onto the bed next to the air conditioner. I woke up late and so arrived late for the dinner buffet, but it was OK and the food really hit the spot. I was well-rested for Tuesday.
Tuesday was not as brutally hot as Monday. We started out with a few slow laps and were then turned loose. Michael and I got in some good traffic-free laps and also tried running together, switching lead and follow positions to compare techniques as we had done Monday. At one point the guy in the Corvette held us up for two complete laps without waving us by. He had enough raw horsepower to prevent us from passing on the main straight (and didn't wave us by to begin with), but we were really on him on the rest of the course -- he really didn't have a good line. Finally he waved us by. When we pitted at the end of the session, he came over and chatted with us, totally oblivious to his poor etiquette, and remarked that his buddy had timed us at 2:24 to 2:25 lap times. A couple of seconds improvement from my video check of Monday.
On one of the Tuesday afternoon sessions, Keith took his wife for a ride in B group, so I was able to get a few pictures of them on the track:
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I gave a requested ride to one of the Miata drivers, Mike, who had seen me appear suddenly in his mirrors earlier and was curious how the Boxster handled. He seemed to enjoy the ride and said, "I think I could live with one of these!"
After lunch we planned to do one session running the track backwards. It turned out to be a waste of time, because the instructors had to spend about half an hour learning it first, and because they found it so "weird", we just ran it at low speed in follow-the-instructor mode. No one followed the same line, and so after a few laps I decided to pit in. As I prepared to raise my arm to signal my pitting, I saw that all the cars in front of me did the same. We pitted as our instructor continued ahead.
The Vyenielos were kind enough to use my camera to return the favor and take some photos of me on the track -- much better photos than the ones I took of them!
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The rest of the afternoon was good, although as the day wore on, I definitely noticed my performance deteriorating. I was making more errors executing my brake-shift-turn sequences. Nothing major until at one point I did something messy on Turn 10 and spun out -- my first ever spin on the track. I think that, like my last autocross spin, I experienced oversteer, countersteered correctly out of it, but when the rear end got back in line, it snapped too quickly and spun the other way. In this case, at Turn 10, I was coming down the straight from Turn 9 at around 90 MPH, braked hard as usual, probably down to under 50 MPH, and turned left through Turn 10 where the spin then occurred. It was really no big deal, as I came almost to a stop towards the outside edge of the track, looking backwards. I saw Michael a ways back, approaching Turn 10, with plenty of time to slow down, but I let the car coast slowly a few more feet onto the dirt. After Michael and another car went by, I looked for the corner worker to wave me back on the track, and I headed for the pit lane as required for the steward to reprimand me and make sure I hadn't picked up any debris.
In the middle of the afternoon, Michael and I each took a turn as passenger in the other guy's car. Wow. Even though at this point we knew that we were essentially turning in the same lap times, when I rode passenger in his car, I was scared. It felt so much faster in the corners! The best I can figure, it was a combination of not having a steering wheel to brace both hands on, and not being able to anticipate as well and lean into the corners. And perhaps the Kumho tires gave the car more cornering G's than I was used to. Whatever the case, it was a white knuckle experience.
I really only recall three cars getting in my mirrors either day. The 300ZX with its big horsepower was one, a white Miata was another, and the red BMW M3 was the other. It turned out the M3 was being driven by instructor Dana. Michael had suggested earlier that I should have Dana take me for a ride in my Boxster. I think his words were, "She'll scare you." No kidding.
And so on the next session, Dana suggested taking Micheal up on his suggestion -- that she drive my car while I ride. It was even scarier than riding in Michael's car, perhaps because she cornered harder, and perhaps because I was not in control and thought about the consequences to my car in case of disaster! But then, towards the end of the first lap, on Turn 11 she did something almost identical to what I had done earlier on Turn 10. Oversteer. Countersteer. Spin. Wow. Again, it was a fairly low-speed event, given that Turn 11 is even slower than Turn 10. We came to a stop just a couple of feet off the pavement on the dirt. However, as she turned the key, the engine made a strange clanking noise. For several tries it would crank and not start. I was very worried, since my car has always started up immediately. Finally, it started up and from then on sounded and felt normal. Dana was very apologetic and said that she'd never spun with the Miata club, let alone in a student's car. On the next lap I glanced over at the dash instrument cluster and noticed I was nearly out of fuel. I had noticed earlier that I was getting very low, but now I was actually concerned about running out of gas on track. I mentioned this to Dana and we pitted in to end the session.
What with my tiring concentration, the fright with the spin, engine noise, and difficulty starting, I skipped the final session of the day. I suspect that the reason the car had trouble starting was an effect of the spin on the near-empty fuel tank. Perhaps the fuel system was briefly starved after the stall until the car started. After finishing up, I headed back to town, fueled up, cooled off, and headed home, tired and happy from a very fun two days on the track.
Keith had already left but I had a chance before leaving to take a quick picture of my car and the Docta's:
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PS. My S-02's felt good both days on the track -- I ran at about 33 PSI front, 38 PSI rear, measured cold -- but now after 6000 miles the tread lines are looking a little shallow. Not too surprising, considering my original P-Zeroes lasted about 8000 miles, and I've probably done a little more autocross and track time on the S-02's already.
PPS. My airbag warning light came on the next day.
