Track Day: Speed Trials Streets at Willow Night Session 7/23/2011

Date: 7/23/11

So with the new wheels mounted it was way overdue for a track day. The was the first one of the year for me. I had signed up for Buttonwillow next week with Speed Ventures but I caught wind of a night event with Speed Trials from a friend. I figured, when was the next chance to run at night ever going to come around again? I jumped on the last minute opportunity and signed up the day before. I took the pic above from a collection of photos off Speed Trials website. My car is the one with the missing fog light on the driver's side. :P

Check out these awesome photos taken from the event website. SpeedTrialUSA 7/23/11 Streets of Willow Night Event

The track the event was being held at was the smaller course at Willow Springs called Streets of Willow. It was about 95 degrees outside. I got there around 2pm to setup shop. I was one of the only guys with a pop-up tent. Lucky me.

Because of my shade I met quite a few people trying to stay cool. One of them being a nice guy who owned 5 Ferrari's and was tracking his 550 Maranello. Yeah....he was super cool though. Really friendly and helped me out a few times. A few of the other guys I met were a pair of s2000s down from San Jose. We ran neck and neck with each other throughout the day.

So a little information about the track. It is the smaller track that is at Willow Springs. I'm a huge fan of Big Willow and wasn't too thrilled about streets, but the opportunity to run at night was too much to pass up. I also figured since I had never ran there, I might as well check it out.

It's basically a large autocross course. Here is the layout.

My car was just a little too big or just not setup correctly for this course. A lot of lower speed technical corners that I just under-steered through. Turns 1 and 10 ended up being my favorite corners when you could actually carry some speed and feel the car grip. My best time of the day was a 1:34:xx.

We ran three sessions during the day to get us used to the track. The fourth session was really beautiful right at sunset. I don't have any on track shots but here are some more of the paddock.

As nightfall fell things got a little scary. You couldn't see shit. You had to just rely on what you remembered from the day sessions. I pulled it back for the 5th session and just enjoyed the fact that I was running at night.

For the 6th and final session I did what I always say not to. That was to run full 10/10ths on the last session of the day when you're all super tired and not making the best decisions. The s2000 boys and myself were really pushing it. I was carrying maybe 90 or so into turn 1 like I had been doing all day. Unfortunately this time I wasn't straight when I started braking and the rear flew around on me. I tried to save it to no avail and spun off. Here's an idea of the lighting on the track.

The car didn't like that too much, kind of shut down giving me check engine lights and what not. I limped it back to the pits and that was that for the night. 

My overall impressions of streets is that I got whopped by Honda's. FWD Honda's. It's a course that requires you set your car up completely different from the higher speed courses. It's technical with the majority of corners being more low speed. I wasn't really prepared for it but had a great time anyway. I think it is "less dangerous" type of course and great for those who have never been out on track before.

After a long day my tires were thrashed, and my car a little shaken up. I got it home and it was leaking coolant from the radiator and a little P/S fluid. Just Battle wounds. Time to clean her up.