August 6th was another day at the track. Another FRI-day at the track, which meant I had to burn another day of vacation. It's a good thing this stuff is fun. I took off on Thursday evening again, so that I could spend the night in Willows and avoid getting up at an ungodly hour to make it to the morning drivers meeting. I had a companion for this trip, which made it more enjoyable. She is able to work while she's mobile, so it worked out well.
We decided to wake up at 5:45 since there would be two of us getting ready at the same time. So much for not waking up at an ungodly hour. Being an old pro, on my second track day, I was actually able to get a good night sleep. Luckily the emergency Big Mac I ate when we got there cooperated too. Once again things went off without a hitch in the morning. I decided to support Thunderhill and buy a tank of 100 octane at the track. We set up in almost the exact same location as last time, and I got to my routine. It's not a complete routine yet, but it's beginning to look like one. Everything came out of the car; luggage, tools, fluids, ice chest, spare tire and spare change. I found rolls of magnetic sheet for sale online at a place called Dick Blick Art Supplies. This arrived a couple days before the track day, so I spent an evening printing out big numbers 2, 5 and 3 on my printer so that I could trace them onto the magnet sheets and cut them out so I didn't have the ghetto numbers like last time. I stuck with yellow, though. [saw another RX-7 and familiar faces from last time]The drivers meeting was at 8:15, and it felt sort of like seeing the same for a second time. I also sat through Hank's lecture for novice drivers for the second time, which means I get a free pass next time around. [only a few people from last time]It's really a good thing how much safety is pounded into our heads at all points surrounding the track day. I'm afraid I'll be spoiled by the well-organized events put on by NCRC, and will be shocked when I go to an event put on my a less practiced club.
Once I was out of the novice drivers classroom, I met up with my instructor for the day, Craig, a deputy in Sacramento county and a driving instructor for the police department he works for. Craig is a Spec Miata driver, and just looking at his Miata and trailer, it's obvious that he's way into it. It turns out he'll tell you as much if you ask. A couple things that I learned last time allowed me to make it out on track on time this time. I put my driving shoes on before the drivers meeting, and I had my new magnetic numbers. So Craig and I made it out to the grid and sat second in line behind a white Porsche 912 -- with the same number as my RX-7. Strange. I took the first lap easy, especially since it turned out that the Porsche's driver was at his first event. Since he was learning the track and there is no passing on the first lap, I had a nice lap and a half country drive until the first passing zone on the back half of the track. After that, I was off and it felt great! I was already familiar with the track, so it was an opportunity to actually work on both my line, and my situational awareness. I had the same feeling the second snowboarding trip I made this past spring. The trip where I separated my shoulder. Oh oh.
It became pretty clear that my rear brakes were in need of a change about halfway through the first session. They didn't give me any problems for the rest of the day, but that's mostly because I cut things short. More on that later. By the end of the first session, I felt quite a bit smoother and faster than when I began, but I still seemed to have problems in the same areas of the track; braking and setting up for turn 3, shifting coming through 5a, exiting turn 9 and entering turn 10. I felt really good through turn 2, around the long section from 6-7-8-9, through the esses and coming through 14 and 15.
[WHOA. Big coffee break here. It's been over a year since I started this article, and didn't finish it. I'm going to summarize what happened and move on.]
In the end, I missed the last session of the day. Or I should say that I opted to skip the last session of the day. During the session right after lunch, coming around T8 and up the hill things didn't feel quite right. I looked down at my boost guage and was hitting a measly 1 lb. of boost from the turbos. I actually decided to drive a couple laps without the turbos and did a bit better now that it was a "momentum" car. I parked it to prevent further damage. It made it home, and it still sits in my backyard waiting for me to work on it. Sad.
The one story I love to tell from this track day was how I was able to get my girlfriend Ronda a ride with one of the advanced drivers who also was running a 3rd gen RX-7. I let her borrow my helmet and away she went! When she got back, she got out of the car, took off her helmet and the first words out of her mouth were; "That was the scariest fucking thing I've done in my life". I ended up grabbing a ride with the same guy, and he was fast. Really fast.
Anyway, I'll wrap this eternal draft of an entry up now. Hopefully I'll have more track day stories in the future.