Streets of Willow Again?

So I can't seem to get away from Streets of Willow. My most despised course. The bunny hill of socal tracks. It really doesn't fit my car and continues to beat the shit out of just about every part on the car, but people insist on going to SOW just when it happens to be the time my car is ready to run. But the course choice was not why I went this time.

Early 2012 I hooked with Honda R&D doing what I do as a CG/Visuialization Designer in Torrance. It's a great place and a great job. One of the perks is a racing enthsuiast club where any of the stlyists, engineers, CAD modelers, painters, marketing dudes, accounting guy or even the mail room guy can sign up and hang out at the track or different events. Honda will sponsor a little chunk of the event to help with the cost which is awesome. A lot of the guys have s2000s which in turn means they like Streets of Willow.

So the first event of the year was SOW and the car was ready to go so I decided not to be a party pooper and just go to have fun with everyone. And that's what I did. It was extremely hot and I hadn't made any adjustments to the car since last SOW other than the wing and the race seats. The wing was totally unnecessary for this course since it's pretty low speed.

I guess the highlight of the day came when I learned someone had a bigger wing than me so I took a ride in this car, Mike Tsay's s2000. If you don't know Mike, it's probably cause you don't have an s2000.

Here's a video from a different event of Mike doing 1:26.0 at Streets in the fucking dark. This is CW with his best day time at 1:24.2 If you don't know Streets his Buttonwillow CW13 best is 1:58. So he's fast and taught me a few things.

We were racing CCW which is also not really my preferred route as you're hard braking into the skid pad which can be fun but gets boring. T1 in the other direction (CW) is probably my favorite corner of the track.

And you're running up that hill. When you get to the top of the hill (I don't know corner names T8 I think) and have to brake for that bowl it can be kind of scary. This is the one section I could probably gain a second or two on. Mike waits WAY late and trail brakes deep into the corner. Scared the shit out me to say the least.

This is footage from the event. I am in the car and around 1:30 Mike drops 2 wheels and comes within stopping distance of the port-a-potty.

The rest of the course is a lot of tight corners that benefit from sticky tires and a lightweight vehicle  Two things I did not have. I didn't push the car. Just enjoyed the day. Didn't best any times from last SOW event. I can't remember what they were but they didn't break 1:32.

HPD was there messing around with their Acura RSX. It was cool to talk to the team and some of the techs and ask how they got into it. One of the guys used to work for Turner! We talked BMWs. He said there's a large turnover out there. I'm happy to be where I'm at now, but always think about being more involved as a race tech and what that's like. Working at Honda gives me the chance to actually talk to those guys and see what they do.

I've seen designers build splitters in the workshop after hours. Another guy is a CAD modeler and essentially built the ILX raced at NASA 25 hours of Thunderhill. There's a lot of guys doing design related work who have track cars and love racing but don't work directly with race cars. It makes me feel more than satisfied about my position. Maybe if I worked directly in racing I'd get bored. It wouldn't be a hobby anymore. Plus all the race engineers, mechanics I've talked to are like you and me. They want to be behind the wheel but it didn't work out that way. Only a select few get to drive around in circles for a living.

There's a lot in the works coming up for 2013 track season if I find the time. New tires, brakes, fluids, rear end refresh, diff, bushings, shifters, mounts, coilovers etc. A lot of basics I didn't know about until the past year or so. I have some s2000 catching up to do.