Spec Boxster Build

[thstone]

The #254 House Automotive Spec Boxster is back!

Beyond the suspension components, there was no chassis or sub-frame damage, so it was just simple body work to get it back to looking brand new.

There are a couple of small things left that I will do myself - install a new right radiator screen, replace the short shifter bushing clip, swap the alternator, and have new House Automotive graphics installed on the passenger door. Other than those items, the car is ready to race.

Thanks to Brad Keegan and Tyson Schmidt of Pro Motorsports in Burbank, CA for the top level professional repairs.

The plan is to do a shake down test at Willow Springs next Friday (10/11) and then do two back-to-back PCA races; Oct 25-27 at Sonoma Raceway (Sears Point) in NorCal and then the following weekend, Nov 1-3 at Buttonwillow Raceway in Central California.

Sonoma will be a new track for me so I've been studying video and getting generally familiar with the track via Forza. I've practiced learning a new track extensively through karting so I am hoping to get up to speed quickly. With that being said, I'm just hoping for a good solid weekend at Sonoma. Expectations will be higher at Buttonwillow where I've raced quite a bit.

[Burg Boxster]

Excellent - glad you are back in action.

Congrats and good luck at both Sears Point & Button Willow.

Keep us posted on your results!

[thstone]

Well, that didn't go as planned!

I spent 1.5 hrs trying to get from South Pasadena to Palmdale this morning (normally 45 mins) to test at Willow Springs Raceway. No bueno!

All of the freeways heading north out of LA; I-210, I- 5, and CA-14; all had fire closures, but Hwy 2 showed as open (but with slowing). After about an hour of heading north, it was blocked solid with no movement for 30 mins. I gave up and came home.

But I had a beautiful morning drive through the San Gabriel mountains!

The Boxster ran perfectly and handled great in the canyons. That car can seriously haul ass on a canyon road.

Onward to Sonoma...

[maytag]

Yer kinda my hero, y'know?
I'm probably not the only one living vicariously here.....

Sent from my SM-G970U using Tapatalk

[thstone]

Originally Posted by maytag

Yer kinda my hero, y'know?
I'm probably not the only one living vicariously here.....

Sent from my SM-G970U using Tapatalk

Thanks for the kind words. Just an average Joe trying to make a go of this racing thing.

One of my other racing friends commented today that I seem to be cursed with bad luck lately. Some days can certainly be frustrating when things don't go your way despite putting all of your effort into them.

I think that there is some sort of life lesson that I was supposed to learn from these recent experiences. But I am pretty hard-headed when it comes to life lessons - which means that I'm sure to have several more future opportunities to learn this same lesson!

[thstone]

I had the House Automotive sponsor graphics re-installed this week. That's it. All of the damage has been fully repaired. A little prep this weekend and we'll be ready to race at Sonoma in 10 days!

Thanks to Greg, Alex (pictured), and Joey at House Automotive for all of the support.

[maytag]

Originally Posted by thstone

I had the House Automotive sponsor graphics re-installed this week. That's it. All of the damage has been fully repaired. A little prep this weekend and we'll be ready to race at Sonoma in 10 days!



Thanks to Greg, Alex (pictured), and Joey at House Automotive for all of the support.

Very nice. Well done.
Out of curiosity, did the driver who hit you end up kicking-in to help? I know you said he was apologetic.

Im watching a trend, recently. That's why I ask.

Sent from my SM-G970U using Tapatalk

[husker boxster]

Isn't it great to be done ahead of time? That way any little items that pop up are just that - no big deal. Makes for a much more enjoyable race w/e.

[thstone]

Originally Posted by husker boxster

Isn't it great to be done ahead of time? That way any little items that pop up are just that - no big deal. Makes for a much more enjoyable race w/e.

Haha! Yes! I hate rushing around at the last minute to get everything ready for a race weekend. This makes everything so much less stressful.

[PaulE]

Originally Posted by thstone

Haha! Yes! I hate rushing around at the last minute to get everything ready for a race weekend. This makes everything so much less stressful.

Looking good Tom! Glad you are back!

[thstone]

Originally Posted by maytag

Out of curiosity, did the driver who hit you end up kicking-in to help? I know you said he was apologetic.

He helped with ~10% of the total bill (which had 5 digits to the left of the decimal).

And even that was bizarre. About half of that amount was comprised of used air-cooled 911 parts. He offered them to me to re-sell. Thanks, but I thought that he should have sold them and then offered me the proceeds. Ultimately, the repair shop took the parts and gave me a cash credit that was less than the re-sale value of the parts since they had to store, list, sell, and ship them.

[seningen]

Originally Posted by thstone

He helped with ~10% of the total bill (which had 5 digits to the left of the decimal).

And even that was bizarre. About half of that amount was comprised of used air-cooled 911 parts. He offered them to me to re-sell. Thanks, but I thought that he should have sold them and then offered me the proceeds. Ultimately, the repair shop took the parts and gave me a cash credit that was less than the re-sale value of the parts since they had to store, list, sell, and ship them.

Ouch --

I'll be honest, I don't expect to be paid from an on track incident... I drive what I can either afford to fix or afford to walk away from.

There are some folks I share the track with whose cars cost more than my house!

Not sure what my mental state will be when I cause something.
things can go wrong so quickly on track -- and we're all amateurs out there.

I try really hard to play nicely and in the big picture of things, conservatively.

I think I'm more of a "just stick my head in the sand and hope for the best" kind of racer, as opposed to the "stick my nose in the corner and pray :-)"
I'd rather give space or spots than trade paint.

Probably why I get to watch a lot of good racing in front of me :-)

Mike

[maytag]

Originally Posted by seningen

Ouch --

I'll be honest, I don't expect to be paid from an on track incident... I drive what I can either afford to fix or afford to walk away from.

This has always been my approach as well. I'm coming from the bike world, but it would have never occurred to me to ask someone who ran into me at the racetrack to participate in the repair costs. That's why I asked the question, though. I'm allowing for the possibility that it's different in the car world.
And truthfully: I'm also witnessing a trend that people are now suing track day promoters and race organizers for injuries and damages incurred. It's like they think the waiver means nothing.....

Not talking about this incident specifically, of course... just generally


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[Burg Boxster]

Yahoo - AWESOME! So happy you're back at it, Tom!

Good luck at Sonoma - we'll be cheering you on

[thstone]

Good conversation and definitely one worth having. Now, all of my focus is on getting back out there and having a decent run at Sonoma with the NorCal PCA guys this weekend. Then onto Buttonwillow the following weekend where I hope to do well. Nothing like a screaming flat-six at 7000 rpm to make the outside world fade away. I'm ready to rock & roll!

[JayG]

Glad your back Tom. Go kick some ass

[thstone]

Overall, it was a good weekend at Sonoma. Good, but weird.

First, the good. The car ran and handled perfectly. It felt really good to be back in the drivers seat. This was my first time at Sonoma and I had spent a good amount of time watching video and using the sim (Forza 7). I really credit both of those with making me feel reasonably comfortable the first time that I went out onto the track. Sure, I still had to "learn" the course but it was much, much better than having done nothing.

The most surprising thing about the sim vs the real course was that the sim made the course feel longer, like there was a lot of time between corners. The reality is that the course felt fairly short and kept me quite busy as the corners come at your rather quickly. This meant that it was important to look ahead and plan ahead. This was especially true in Turns 2/3/3a which are a quick succession of blind uphill curves and in the S's, Turns 8/8a/9. Getting the flow correct was key to getting through quickly.

The most challenging was Turn 2 at the top of the hill. You come flying up the front straight (which actually has a turn (T12) in the middle of it) and have to get properly lined up for the blind right at the top of the hill - all while braking and downshifting.

It is downhill into Turn 4 which made it difficult to gauge the proper speed and the exit is deceptively shallow so it was easy to over-cook the entry speed and put two wheels in the dirt. Ask me how I know.

I spent Friday getting to know the track and working on getting some basic speed. My best lap time on Friday was 1:58. The track record is 1:52 and a decent BSR time is 1:54-1:55, so I had still some work to do.

On Sat, I qualified 10th of 12 Boxster's but I only got 1 clear lap. And I apologize to the Spec911 that was caught behind me for half of that lap but I really needed to maintain my line (I respectfully let him by as soon as we passed the Start/Finish line). With around 45 cars of all types in a single run group, there was constant traffic from catching slower cars and being caught by faster cars.

The race went well. I was stuck behind a couple of cars that had more power than my Boxster but were slower in the corners, so I'd catch up and almost pass them, then they'd drive away from me on the straight, only to repeat it again at the next set of corners. This allowed the group in front of me to pull a big gap which I couldn't make up and I finished 11th out of 12.

But I put down a couple of good laps during the race at 1:55 and was hoping that would bode well for Sunday's two planned races.

And that brings me to the weird stuff...

I drove the Boxster up on Thursday (6 hrs) and went for a run on Thursday afternoon and suffered a migraine headache while running. I had to walk a couple of miles back to the hotel and then rest up most of the afternoon. This has happened before while running but it always throws off my routine (which I try to adhere to on race weekends).

Then on Sat evening, the power company turned off the power to most of the region due to high winds and fires in NorCal (even though the fires were 20-30 miles away). The hotel staff went room to room handing out glow sticks prior to the power outage but I always keep a small flashlight in my suitcase. The power went out at 8:30pm so I went to sleep. The hotel made arrangements to get a generator and it came on at 1:30am because that was when all of the lights in my room came on - I had forgot to turn them off after the power went out!

I went to the track at 7am only to find that the track had no power and that all of the ambulances had been called away to support fire evacuation efforts. No ambulances = no racing. Everything was cancelled for Sunday so I packed up and drove the 6 hrs back home.

Also, the PCA announced that they had cancelled the Buttonwillow race (but Time Trial/DE is still happening) for this weekend due to the low number of racing registrants. In my opinion, they should have run the race regardless of how many race cars showed up - especially since they were still running the TT/DE event and the fact that I selected to miss another racing event to attend this one. In the future, I'll now have to consider whether to skip another race for a PCA race since they might not hold the PCA race. Which probably means that I'll do fewer PCA races in the future. Which is too bad, because the PCA hosts great events but I can't be left out in the cold and not racing.

Overall, Sonoma was a really cool track to visit, it was good to hang out with the NorCal racers (who are a group of really nice and very talented drivers), and I really enjoyed the weekend even with all of the weird stuff.

I'll post up some video soon.

[seningen]

Originally Posted by thstone

Overall, it was a good weekend at Sonoma. Good, but weird.

First, the good. The car ran and handled perfectly. It felt really good to be back in the drivers seat. This was my first time at Sonoma and I had spent a good amount of time watching video and using the sim (Forza 7). I really credit both of those with making me feel reasonably comfortable the first time that I went out onto the track. Sure, I still had to "learn" the course but it was much, much better than having done nothing.

The most surprising thing about the sim vs the real course was that the sim made the course feel longer, like there was a lot of time between corners. The reality is that the course felt fairly short and kept me quite busy as the corners come at your rather quickly. This meant that it was important to look ahead and plan ahead. This was especially true in Turns 2/3/3a which are a quick succession of blind uphill curves and in the S's, Turns 8/8a/9. Getting the flow correct was key to getting through quickly.

The most challenging was Turn 2 at the top of the hill. You come flying up the front straight (which actually has a turn (T12) in the middle of it) and have to get properly lined up for the blind right at the top of the hill - all while braking and downshifting.

It is downhill into Turn 4 which made it difficult to gauge the proper speed and the exit is deceptively shallow so it was easy to over-cook the entry speed and put two wheels in the dirt. Ask me how I know.

I spent Friday getting to know the track and working on getting some basic speed. My best lap time on Friday was 1:58. The track record is 1:52 and a decent BSR time is 1:54-1:55, so I had still some work to do.

On Sat, I qualified 10th of 12 Boxster's but I only got 1 clear lap. And I apologize to the Spec911 that was caught behind me for half of that lap but I really needed to maintain my line (I respectfully let him by as soon as we passed the Start/Finish line). With around 45 cars of all types in a single run group, there was constant traffic from catching slower cars and being caught by faster cars.

The race went well. I was stuck behind a couple of cars that had more power than my Boxster but were slower in the corners, so I'd catch up and almost pass them, then they'd drive away from me on the straight, only to repeat it again at the next set of corners. This allowed the group in front of me to pull a big gap which I couldn't make up and I finished 11th out of 12.

But I put down a couple of good laps during the race at 1:55 and was hoping that would bode well for Sunday's two planned races.

And that brings me to the weird stuff...

I drove the Boxster up on Thursday (6 hrs) and went for a run on Thursday afternoon and suffered a migraine headache while running. I had to walk a couple of miles back to the hotel and then rest up most of the afternoon. This has happened before while running but it always throws off my routine (which I try to adhere to on race weekends).

Then on Sat evening, the power company turned off the power to most of the region due to high winds and fires in NorCal (even though the fires were 20-30 miles away). The hotel staff went room to room handing out glow sticks prior to the power outage but I always keep a small flashlight in my suitcase. The power went out at 8:30pm so I went to sleep. The hotel made arrangements to get a generator and it came on at 1:30am because that was when all of the lights in my room came on - I had forgot to turn them off after the power went out!

I went to the track at 7am only to find that the track had no power and that all of the ambulances had been called away to support fire evacuation efforts. No ambulances = no racing. Everything was cancelled for Sunday so I packed up and drove the 6 hrs back home.

Also, the PCA announced that they had cancelled the Buttonwillow race (but Time Trial/DE is still happening) for this weekend due to the low number of racing registrants. In my opinion, they should have run the race regardless of how many race cars showed up - especially since they were still running the TT/DE event and the fact that I selected to miss another racing event to attend this one. In the future, I'll now have to consider whether to skip another race for a PCA race since they might not hold the PCA race. Which probably means that I'll do fewer PCA races in the future. Which is too bad, because the PCA hosts great events but I can't be left out in the cold and not racing.

Overall, Sonoma was a really cool track to visit, it was good to hang out with the NorCal racers (who are a group of really nice and very talented drivers), and I really enjoyed the weekend even with all of the weird stuff.

I'll post up some video soon.

Quite an interesting weekend. Someday I'll make it the the left coast -- hopefully after PG&E gets its act together...

[JayG]

That was a suckey weekend. Sorry you had to deal with all that, especially after getting your car back on the track.

What PCA region canceled BW? You are safe to come play with us at SDR, we wouldn't cancel a weekend right at the last minute

[bkovac]

This will make you happy Tom, POC is going to Sonoma next year