Thunderhill 8/19

[widebody911]

Had an interesting day @ Thunderhill today with http://trackmasters-racing.com

To start with, I was instructing for the first time, which was interesting. My charge was a stereotypical Honda kid in a tricked-out Prelude with the big exhaust and all the bling. He even had a computerised thingie to tell him his air flow rates and temperatures. I guess you need that when you're pulling 90ft/lbs of torque. His first questions were about how his adjustable springs and whatnot should be setup. I gently explained that none of that was really important at this point. To his credit, he actually did listen, and ended up being able to drive fairly well.

With the new Bilstein sports, my car handled much better! I had to tighten the rear bar slightly to overcome extra understeer, but after that it was like butter. I was 3s faster than my previous best time there. I need to make a new front splitter; I'd mangled mine on a driveway a while back, and just spaced it.

I did have mechanical issues though; I had a persistent oil leak in the oil filler area, and I would spew smoke on hard left turns. That, and my front right wheel bearing expired on the way home. I thought I heard it earlier in the pits; by the time I got home, I could really hear it!

I had a fun time chasing Jim "Addiction MS" and some other guy I thought was him who was driving his car. There were a few 911s, but it was mostly M3's and Corvettes.

..and I'm spent!

[jim72911t]

Congrats on the instructing gig, Thom!

I was going to pursue instructing with the BMW CCA (at my instructors' suggestion) this season until buying a house swallowed up my track budget for the year.

It's true about first timers on the track (I was one of them). It seems that they are more worried about how take advantage of the mods they've done then how to learn how to drive what they have. I did my first two schools in a bone stock car with skinny street tires, and it really taught me worlds about car control.

Sounds like you had fun.

Jim

[Jack Olsen]

Sounds like fun, Thom. The next time you're going to drive there, let us know. We could get some Southerners together to come up and chase you guys.

[Tyson Schmidt]

Yeah, I've been there twice now, but still haven't gotten to drive there yet. Jack took me as a passenger on the first Open Track Challenge, but that's all I've seen. Looks like a fun track.

[dtfastbear]

Alright, Southerners! Gather your belongings and head North. There's no excuse not to come up for an entire weekend at Thunderhill in November!

http://www.ncracing.org/th031122.html

NCRC is an excellent organization to run with. They're even setting up a skidpad, so you can do some real suspension testing and skid control practice.

This should be an awesome event, and it would be great to have a crew of you from the South join us.

Let me know if you're coming!

Dean

[addictionMS]

confirming it was a fun day, I really enjoyed at the end of the day watching Thom chasing my car with Paer at the wheel. Rare to see your car on the track, let alone in a chase. It was interesting that at the end of the day there was Thom chasing Paer, 2 911s, and two BMWs in similar chase at the opposite sides of the track.

Four die hard drivers in two great breeds of cars using all the track time availible

Jim