I may try and visit Buttonwillow that weekend. Any excuse for a drive over the 33.
Last time I was there was with my old MG.
Will drop by and say Hi.

Haha! Thanks. I know that I'm making progress when people start to say that I'm cheating. :)

That would be great!

it's that never ever slimming body of yours

New helmet this week!

The inner lining of my 5-yr old helmet is simply worn out from 120+ track days. I've always been a Bell guy so it was nice to find that they have a new M-8 carbon fiber helmet at an affordable price ($800). The M-8 carbon weighs 1.2 lbs less than my existing Bell BR-1. My neck will thank me later. :)

Its been a busy week at work so I am just getting around to posting the results from last weekends racing at Buttonwillow.

Race 1: Started 5th of 10, finished 10th.
Race 2: Started 6th of 9, finished 5th.

Running CCW was a new configuration for me so I attended the Friday practice day and did five 30-min sessions to learn the track and get up to racing speeds. In qualifying for Race 1, the top three cars were 1-2 sec's ahead of 4th-6th so there was a fairly big gap.

The start was crazy with one car being pushed off track into the dirt as the field went 4 wide into Turn 1 which is really only two cars wide. Shortly thereafter, one of the cars in the top 3 went off and I moved up to 4th.

I was running well and making gains until I carried just a little too much speed over Phil Hill which is a combination hill and turn. As I crested the peak, the rear end got loose and I spun into the dirt. Speaking of which, Buttonwillow is in the middle of California Central Valley farmland so the dirt isn't really dirt; its more like silt and when someone goes off, it creates a YUUUGE cloud and the silt goes everywhere. I mean everywhere. It took several moments after I came to a stop for the cloud inside the car to clear and then I had slit in my eyes and mouth for the rest of the race. The car was covered and I spent 30 mins cleaning it as best I could after the race. The video should be fairly exciting to watch!

The second race went much smoother; everyone was more cautious at the start and the pace quickly got into a rhythm. Unfortunately, I accidentally turned my video camera off (I'll blame it on my gloved hands) when I was resetting my lap timer, so there isn't any video of this race.

At the end of the first race, I heard the distinct growling sound of a dry wheel bearing at every left hand turn during the cool down lap. On the advice of Brad Roberts, I went ahead and raced the second race but by then it sounded much worse so I decided not to press my luck and headed home on Saturday night rather than take the chance of a wheel bearing failure and having to ride home in a tow truck on Sunday.

I went ahead and installed new brakes this weekend and the car goes to Tyson Schmidt at Pro Motorsports in Burbank tomorrow for a new wheel bearing and some other work.

Overall, I had a good pair of races and am looking forward to the next round at Willow Springs in early December.

Pics and video to come soon....

Tom,

You are so right about the "dirt"

I just got back from running the weekend CW at Buttonwillow. One of my buddies spun out exiting Bus Stop and the car and driver wee covered is a brown dust. He could not see out the windshield and hi wipers were broken, so one of the corner workers wiped it off so he could see.

In the sprint race on Sat in the same spot a car went off and straight back on further in the turn and pushed 2 cars off. This created a huge cloud and it was amazing that no others cars made contact. As the cloud was clearing, 7 or 8 cars, mostly SPB out of the cloud and back on the track.

(fixed it for ya!) :(

I'll get the video edited this weekend - during Race 1 a car ahead goes off track and then I follow another SPB into a complete brown-out. Its really difficult to decide what to do in that situation.

Editing the video this morning. These images are 1 sec apart.

What did the car spinning do?
What did the car ahead do?
What should I do?

Those couple of seconds seem like a lifetime.

Pray......................

I can't imagine... but then as Harry told Cole, "You can drive right through it!"

And speaking of videos.... Come on Tom... we're waiting.

Here you go!

Next races are Dec 3-4 at Willow Springs.

<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/Xivmqs6kaEk" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

Nice driving Tom

CCW is a lot different than going CW
Lots of dirt flying

When I was there a few weeks ago, one of my buddies spun off just past Bus Stop and his windshield was so dirty a corner worker had to clean it

Thanks Jay!

This was my first event going CCW. I had skipped this event for the previous two years so I had a lot of catching up to do to be competitive (and made a few mistakes!). I was generally pleased with how quickly I learned the track and got up to a decent lap time. From my point of view, mistakes are part of the learning process to go from a good racer to a great racer. One step at a time.

Great video Tom!! Going off is never fun :-) It seems better out west tho as there is dirt not grass. Here you go off and once you leave the pavement, it feel like the car is accelerating with the low friction of he grass. Stopping seems a LIFE time!

Keep up the posts and vids, I love and live vicariously thru them.

Yes, the dirt and gravel is much more forgiving than grass and there isn't usually much to hit (Armco's)!

Starting a 3-day race weekend at Willow Springs Raceway! Practice today, two races Sat, and one race Sunday. Thanks to Brad Keegan and Tyson Schmidt for race prep at Pro Motorsports in Burbank, CA.

Today went pretty well!

Qualified for the first race today with a personal best time - but that still put me 5th on the grid (of 11 cars). Dang, its competitive!

I got a good start and followed the car in front of me into the clear while a few other cars got held up behind a car that didn't get a good start. This moved me up to 2nd for a bit but fell back to 4th when a couple of the faster cars caught and passed me. I did put all four wheels off into the desert at the exit of Turn 9 but was able to get it back onto the course and drive it away with out losing any spots.

In the second race, I started 4th and and finished 4th. I had an epic battle with the #318 driven by fellow forum member bkovac who was in 3rd. I stayed on his bumper the entire race and tired to make a pass but couldn't get it done. That is the kind of racing that makes it really fun.

No video today in either race. I just couldn't get it to turn on. Will try updating the firmware tonight to see if that might fix the problem.

One more race tomorrow!

All i can say Tom is that the front of your car looked so much better in my rear view mirror during the 2nd race, than the rear of your car looked thru my windshield during the 1st race. Great Job, Good Luck today