Tracknight

Track days. 

They're the reason I built this car.  Test your driving skill, car's inherit abilities, and your tuning capabilities against the clock and sometimes the other drivers.  I know "it's not a race" and I agree with that statement, but it is definitely a challenge.  One that I've had pretty bad luck with overall.  

My first ever track day, blown clutch.  A few track days later, blown motor.  A few track days after that, crashed car.  My batting average isn't hot.  But when it goes well, they're so damn fun and rewarding.  

It's pretty acceptable I had some apprehension coming into this day.  The car had never been to a track day.  The suspension, brakes, body mods all very new.  Things can fail, did I tighten everything enough?  Will a wheel fall off at 100+mph?  Seriously... will it?

I signed up for the SCCA Track Night in America at The Ridge Motorsports Park.  It's a fairly new, challenging, and most of all SAFE track.  You're probably thinking, "Mike, all tracks are safe."  Well, by safe, I mean that if you get a lil too big for ya britches and come into turn 9 pretending you're Senna at Monaco, you'll probably go off course.  If you do, there's nothing to hit at The Ridge, the trees, big rocks, and cliff drop offs are not close to corners, just car friendly gravel traps and grassy fields.  The SCCA Track Nights offer a cheap way to get on track for limited sessions (3 in a night) and learn the limits of your car and driving.  It's great for my ambitions for the car, which is purely testing right now.  My goal was to survive the night.  I didn't even want to bring the GoPro or time my laps originally, but decided to just in case something glorious happens.  

As I left work early, I had a 1.5hr drive to the track, three 20-minute sessions, then another 1.5hr drive back before work the next day.  Having to tow the car home would not only be a terrible time, it would be expensive.  So survival was key, take it easy on the car, test and tune, slowly ramp up the speed as the car seemed ready.  

When I arrived, I unpacked all the crap I brought.

The more shit your bring to a track day, the less you need to use.  Hand tools, jack and stands, camp chair, and lots of water.  Before my first session I checked all my fluids, tire pressures (dropped to 28 psi), cleaned out the interior, and got mentally ready.  

I didn't film the first session.  I just wanted to shake the car out.  And shake it I did.  After about 15 minutes of running the car at a decent pace, I brought it in due to a slight misfire at high RPMs.  Turns out, one of my spark plug wires was loose.  Click, back in.  That was too easy.  Next the smell of sweet sweet coolant filled my nostrils.  This can't be good.  Traced the leak... the overflow hose from my radiator cap to my overflow tank had a very small crack right where it met the overflow tank.  Easy, pull the hose, cut off the 1 inch torn part, and reattach.  Simple fix, WHEW.  Then, I look down and see my new fuel filter leaking.  What the hell!  I just needed to tighten the top banjo bolt.  Another crisis averted.  All is well, I think.  Let take a quick breather and get back out on track.

The car took a lil tinkle.  But don't cry over a little spilled coolant.  (OK mother earth cried a little inside, I'm sorry)

The next session went better than the first.  No more misfire, and I picked up the pace a bit.  This session I wanted to test my new big brake kit.  And they delivered.  Really nice initial bite on the BP-20 pads, no fade, and finding braking threshold seemed much easier than my old SW car.  

The brakes were seriously great.  No problems, no fade, but quite a bit of brake dust.  I can live with that.  Thanks Wilhelm Raceworks.  Buy here!

This was also my first track day with a proper fixed back and 6 point harness.  The seating setup also helped me focus on driving and not bracing myself for each braking point and turn.  Seriously, it made a difference.  Under braking, you don't realize how much you brace yourself with an OEM belt.  With the 6 point, you're strapped in so tight you can't reach the glove box.  If you're getting serious about your driving, get serious about a harness.  It helps as much with driving as it does with safety.  Plus the red ones are worth +5hp.

So, by the second session, the writing was on the wall.  My turbo was dying.  My turbo is an upgraded CT20 with a billet wheel, nicknamed the CT21.  I got it second hand, killed it when my first gen3 motor died, had a somewhat shady shop rebuild it, and with only about 5k miles on it since, the signs of turbo death had started last year.  On warm starts (like after refueling or a quick errand) I would get a big puff of white smoke when starting the the car.  I attributed it to either the turbo, or valve stem seals, and just thought I'd drive the car until the problem became more apparent.  Well, on track, after multiple long boost pulls, the white smoke behind me was James Bond-esque.  It went away after the first lap or so, but still, the turbo is pretty much toast.  I'm still going out for the third session though!

My mentality again for the third session was to slowly turn up the wick and keep pushing the car a bit (after the smoke died down).  The session went well, but was short.  The warm up lap was great, I'd been following a pretty loose M3 and on the third lap he went off on turn 1, probably the scariest off on the track due to it's the fastest (but still safe!).  Once he was clear, I had open track to myself.  

My previous best at The Ridge was a 2:04.  That was with a pretty well sorted car, but pretty average driving.  For the third session I turned on my lap timer just to see where I was at time-wise.  Any car running under 2 minutes is damn quick in my book.  Those are usually modern, 400+hp cars.  M3s, R8s, GTRs, heavily modified STIs, EVOs, and S2000s.  

The third lap was going well, I was taking things past third gear where I usually wouldn't before some turns, braking later, and trusting the car more.  Then, around the last corner (in the Ridge Complex, 50 foot drop and 4 turns) I banked off the rumble curb (like always, I'm an F1 driver) and my alignment slipped!

You can check the lap here.

Watching the lap, I could brake much later and shorter, focus more on rev matching downshifts, and overall use more of the track.  Don't mind the fist pumps as I nail a few corners that had escaped me all night.  See my steering wheel  going straight is after the last turn?  No bueno.  I actually let off on the main straight not knowing this would be my fastest lap.  I came into the pits after a cool down since the car was very twitchy now, and called it a night.  When I checked my timer, my lap surprised me.

A 2:04!  Sweet, considering I was still driving the car at about 8/10ths, was on lower boost (14.5psi) to try and keep my turbo from 'splodin, and didn't even finish the lap at pace.  There's definitely room for improvement, I think the car has sub 2-minute potential if sorted better and a more confident pilot.  

But with my alignment out of whack, and turbo blowing smoke screens, I felt good calling it a night.  

After the third session, my tires were nice and sticky.  The Toyo R1Rs feel stickier than the old Federal 595-rs I ran on the old car.  They give some verbal warning when you're getting a little hot into a turn.  Meaning, they make some noise.  The Federals were silent until you were looking at oncoming traffic, the Toyos screech is helping me find the limit of the tires.  I will keep you updated as I get more miles and heat in the tires.  

After the intermediates last session, the advanced grouping had one more go.  A few pics.

S2000s are beautiful.  I was very close to picking one up as my next chassis.  They have unreal potential, but just plain cost more than MR2s, so I kept to the same chassis.  I met this guy in the paddock, had a great car, but was chasing some serious autos.  

McLaren 570, sounded VERY good brahping through the gears down the main straight.  I guess his CEL light came on before getting to the track, so he was taking it "easy."  The closest McLaren dealer is Vancouver or SanFran.  That'd be a long parts run.  

The truck was faster than you'd think!  I have aspirations of building a drift mini truck someday...

So, after that session I limped the car home at slowly (70mph was twitchy).  Overall I consider the track day a success.  I found lots of gremlins, but luckily nothing serious to put the car on jackstands (except the hurt turbo).  

A few days later the Track Night staff posted pics from one of their staff photographers, was cool to see the car at speed.

But wait, there's more!  The next weekend was a local event called Driftcon at our local nascar track, Evergreen Speedway.  Grassroots drifting is strong here in the PNW, this is the same place that holds the annual Formula Drift event.  Along with the drifting is a car show.  I figured I hadn't breathed any second hand vape in awhile, why not go check it out.  While my car is nowhere close to a show car, I signed up for the VIP parking, mostly because I don't have locking lugs on my BBS wheels yet.

Since the week before was beautiful, I took the opportunity to clean up my fresh paint, and install some more body/aero/fanboy mods..  Along with figure out where my alignment crapped out on me.  Under the front of the car looked fine, no obvious bent trailing arms or expensive steering rack leaks.  So under the rear I went...

Well, that's not right.  See the torn FIPG sealant?  Dead giveaway that the rear tie rod drop bracket had slipped.  That's an easy (and cheap, thank god) fix.  

Re-adjusted, and then I put a line on the bracket to easily tell me if it slips again.  I torqued the sh*t out of it this time.  Time to try a ghetto string alignment!

Pretty simple to fix the toe.  We assume the doors are straight in relation to the wheels of the car.  Set up the strings parallel to the doors, measure the distance from the string to the front and back of the rim.  Then go and match the other side.  Only my rear right side had slipped, so I had a straight wheel on the left to go off of.  This got it surprisingly close, able to drive.  But I soon went back to my local Firestone to cash in on my lifetime alignment (suckers).  

Time to clean up this paint!  I didn't want to go crazy colorsanding the paint, because if I burned through the black I'd have to repaint, and mostly because it's a damn track car and I'm not nearly as picky as I was with my last SW20.  So just light sanding (2000 grit) to get the dirt out, cut, and buff the bolt on parts.  

I tried working my magic on the spoiler, but it needs a repaint.  I'll save that for a summer day in the future.

... and after.

Remember all those drips on the lower quarter panel last post?  Gone!  The pictures make it look better than real life, but I can live with the results.  If I had to do it again, I would probably pay a shop to paint.  It probably cost almost the same in materials, plus A LOT of my time.  But, I did it myself, so that's something?

Now it was time to treat myself to a part I've had hiding in my shed over 6 months.

The Campos Creations F40 style Ask Sport replica engine cover in carbon.  (BUY HERE: http://camposites.bigcartel.com/) I love the look of it, and it's considerably lighter than the OEM turbo lid, rain guard, and side panels.  Probably saves 5 pounds?  Install was easy, only 1 beer!  Pull old lid, swap over the latch to the new lid, and pop it on.

Initial fitment was pretty close.  My right engine side panel was sitting funny, I've since adjusted.  Rear view vision does suffer some... but I have a great solution for another post.  

Once the car was all cleaned up, the wife and I took a spin to grab ice cream.  As long as I'm not aggressively boosting, the car drives fine.  I know it's not ideal... but some summer t-top cruising is why I own the damn car (and track days).

In my element.  Beard is getting pretty viking-esque after 8 months.  

After ice cream I snapped a quick pic that has since circulated the internet.  The two most expensive things I own, a mid 90s outdated sportscar (worth like 10k) and my MUCH more expensive house!

One more mod before Driftcon.  Bring my old diffuser back from the dead.

It was a little rough, but it survived a wall at 55mph.  This is why I don't buy carbon things that will be close to the road/low on the car.  Nothing a can of flat black couldn't clean up.  If you're wondering (I know 5 people will ask me anyways) it's a WRX/STI diffuser (09 or so?) with R32 vortex generators on the ends.  I built my own brackets to attach under the trunk.  

Booty up.  

Cut that crap out.

Install.

Fin.  Also the gurney flap is back, ready to down the force, and score hella scene points.

So, onto Driftcon!  It was a pretty cool event.  I arrived and go a pretty sweet parking spot next to some good company.  I wonder if he recognized the gurney flap?

I enjoyed the drifting, but didn't get any real cool action shots.  I want to build a drift truck.. have I said that before?  It keeps going through my mind.  Only need a bigger garage, more money and time.  You know, the basics.  Here's a few highlights from my phone.

Dream rig.  These guys were competing in the D2 event.  They were running the big boy Formula D track.  Really fun to watch 100mph+ drifts along the bank from basic amateurs giving it their all.  Grassroots motorsports are still alive and well!  Almost all the competitive cars were V8 240s.  But there was the odd IS300, E30, and even a late model Pontiac GTO to keep things spicy.  The E30 had all my attention as he qualified first, but lack of consistency got to him in the elite 8.  

This was part of the line up for the "hoon-off." Basically go out there and destroy your tires and get the crowd fired up.  The Kraken had my eye too, another V8 swap.  I used to think FCs were ugly as hell, and now my tastes have changed, they're really great looking cars, and cheap!  Maybe that'll be my drift car?

The main event was a 3 car team event, actually really fun to watch!  These guys, I'll call them Team Condiments (mustard/catsup/mustard) came in 2nd place, 3 really clean 240s!  You can also see my favorite E30 in the back.  

Throughout the day, I walked the car show a few times but never really took any pictures.  There was some cool stuff, but they had a beer garden.  My priorities were correct, and I had a couple pops throughout the day.  It was cool to see others checking out my car in the parking lot, that sense of pride is fun to treat yo-self to every now and then.  The car popped up on social medias throughout the following week too.

Give Ryan a follow, takes some pretty rad pics!

Towards the end of the day I found out they were actually giving out some awards for the VIP parking lot, who knew we were being judged?  I had a note in my car telling me to stick around, so I did.  I was surprised when they announced I had won the Importmeet.com choice award, decided by the staff.  A showcar isn't always a racecar, but a racecar is always a showcar.

All in all, good day!  I responsibly drove the car home (remember, the turbo is shot), and just enjoyed the hell out of the weather and scenic roads back.  The car is getting very close to my original vision, now it just needs to perform as fast as it looks.  I already have a line on another turbo, and hope to upgrade some things while I'm in there.  

I'm also signed up for a legit all day track day July 2nd.  Again, the clock is ticking to get the car ready to really push it, and myself, and see how close to 2:00 I can get.  Stay tuned, share with your friends, parents, and grand parents!  Follow IG if you aren't already: apex.attack