The original intention this weekend was to get my racing license. Unfortunately, my driving suit didn't come in on time, and being a big guy means there aren't a lot of people that I can borrow a suit from, so I decided to just go ahead and have a good time in HPDE4. It' s been over 4 months since my last track day, and almost 9 months since I had been to Thunderhill, so my saturday sessions were fairly slow. I was running a 2:22 in the morning, slowly working the speeds up to a 2:18 late in the day Saturday. 2 other guys with ProSedan (aka ITS) RX-7s were out there in group 4 with me, so we did some lead/chase excercises and just tried to push each other and learn from each other..

They showed me that I was slow in several corners, which I started working on Sunday. Turn 1, Turn 5, Turn 9 and Turn 14 were all corners that I was overbraking for, killing my speeds down the straights and keeping my lap times from coming down. A maintenence problem cropped up mid day, one of the retaining screws on my shift **** backed out, allowing the **** to move, causing me to have big problems shifting, constantly missing shifts, and twice getting the wrong gear. One of those missed shifts resulted in a big 90* slide, as I went from 2nd to 1st (instead of 3rd). The back tires locked up, I started to spin, caught it, and managed to ease the car back onto the track without incident. The RX-7 guy behind me caught it on video, I'm going to see if I can get him to capture it for me.

Anyway, the work Sunday started paying off, I've dropped lap times down to a solid 2:15 with the bypass.

Here's a picture of the car with the new Kosei K-1s on there, I put them on for a session Saturday just to heatcycle the tires, my next event at Sears I will run these full time.



and finally, what you probably wanted to see if you opened this message

http://para.noid.org/~silkworm/thrp-040603-session1.wmv

It' s about 30 mb, please right click and save this to your hard drive.

Regards,

PaulC

 

yet another cool video around thunderhill. looked like fun.

 

woohooo more vids!

 

Dude that was absolutly awsome. You're not bad on the road either. You seemed to have fairly good control of the car at the higher speeds and at the lower speeds. You didn't bang into anyone on the track either which is a good thing

Hope to some of that kind of racing in the future.. The Midwest Motorplex isn't too far away from me.

 

damn that acura isn't bad... it must've been a GSR trim level.

was the white car a 280Z datsun?

 

nice vid ..
yea think it was a datsun

 

Paul, your videos are never a dissapointment, did you take anymore vids there and have them up on you vid sever?

 

Here's another vid, chasing another ITS RX-7, with an instructor..

http://para.noid.org/~silkworm/thrp-040603-session4.wmv

That's it for this last weekend, my video camera died :P 3 years of racing, not too shabby I guess..

PaulC

 

Hey Paul, nice racing. I'm still new to the racing environment . . . would you call that Auto Cross Nice shoes for your 7 & definitely nice 7. What type of Series 4 is that?

 

yea that is autocross, they left out the cones this time :p

 

So autocross are also done on tracks other than parking lots . . . correct? I know that you have to have specific brake pads & helmets. What do other requirements include? Tires, strut bar, roll cage?

 

Sweetness, I was wondering what's been going on silkworm. You have finally returned with a vengence.

 

specific pads and helmets? well you'd better have better than stock pads and you'd better have a helmet.

there are no requirement for autocross except that your car be in good, safe, running condition. you could run in stock class all you want and not do any mods to your car.

autocrosses are mostly set up in large parking lots and marked off by cones.

 

hey silk, how much HP do u have teh car tuned to and how much does it weight, looks pretty fast

 

First, thanks for the complements.

Ok,that wasn't autocross, at least in the most commonly known form, which involved parking lots, and cones. This would be closer to Solo 1 style autocross, on track, except we're not competeing against each other, just out on track driving as fast as possible, learning..

What this is called typically is Open Tracking.. Don't have to have a race car, just get out there in your street car. Just need a helmet and a car in good working condition.

Unfortunately, much to the chagrin of a BMW M3 driver, you can damage your car, in some cases quite badly. Last weekend the M3 was chasing a 1st gen RX-7 when the RX-7 lost it, spun into some rocks and sprayed the BMW with rocks.. Probably a 2-3K repair on that M3 now.

Horsepower? who knows, still haven't dynoed it, but I'd guess 170 or so RWHP.. Stock engine, underdrive pulley, K&N, 2.5" pipe all the way back from the header, no smog, no accessories, Loud as hell

Weight 2450 no driver.

PaulC

 

LOL Silkworm, Good to see you got your car finished and everything. Good work on the track! I haven't been on the forum lately, so I'm kinda behind on things. If you remember, you bought that aluminum hood from me in Fresno. Good luck to you and keep it up!

Rob

 

Pual,

Do you still host the pictures of your car's transformation? That custom rollcage you guys made was awsome!

 

Hey Rob,

Yep, that's your old Aluminum hood on there Nice and light!

Yeah, the pics are still up, head to www.lcaf.com, goto the Check Six racing section, and click the race car buildup button.

PaulC

 

Wow, okay. Thanks!

 

wow... another vid... nice!

nice drift through one of the corners! U didn't even lift... NICE!

btw what rx7 was that you were following later on? was that a TII?

 

pretty good video. but I think u need a close ratio tran. is TII one legal in your class. and adj your brake pressure. this is not normal to see such light weight car keep locking the brake

 

how much exactly is it to do that?

 

awsome man, haha, im bringing an old thread back