Went to Laguna Seca for the ALMS event. Had an opportunity to get a tour of the Penske and Flying Lizzard paddocks. Amazing to see!
128 pictures below.

ALMS Laguna Seca 10/17/08

Summary

Went for another weekend to Thunderhill, excellent weather, nice people and a new track surface!
Had a blast of course.
The main thing was to dial in the new coilovers, went with the recommended settings 3 front and 3 rear to start with and decided that was too soft and not good front-rear balance.
But what a difference the new coilovers made in how the car handled!!! Like having a new car. So much easier to handle the car at the limit when the car isn't wiggling around.
Managed to get a new lap record (for me) of 2:13.7. ~ 1.3 seconds better than before.
Also had a problem breaking hard before turn 1, the car got all squigly. Looks like I need to tighten the front sway bar with this new set of coilovers. That might help.
I tightened the front to 1 (since I couldn't fix the sway bar easily) and left the rear at 3. Now the car handled much better, set a new record of 2:13.001. The car felt really good with these settings.
I still wanted to know how the car would feel with max stiff suspension, it felt like the rear was moving a bit and could need to stiffen up a bit. Well that didn't work at all, now the rear just got loose to easily.
I did a 180 in corner six as a result, was going in fast and the rear let go a bit, couldn't feed more throttle since there just wasn't track enough for that. So I had to let the rear go and travel backwards a bit :-) .
Managed to keep it on track at least ...
Talked to another guy about it and he said he had to get on the throttle even earlier when he stiffened the rear. So what he usually did when changing settings was to dial the speed back a bit, focus on getting early on the throttle and start picking up
speed as he got confidence with the new settings.

So, for next time I'll stiffen the front sway and dial back the front to 3 again and stick with 3 in the back. It's fun when you have settings to play with.

First session without instructor.

So here is the first video from Buttonwillow.
It's the second session, with an instructor showing me the lines and giving some hints.

So here is the first track video, sorry about the sound and the wire to my lap timer :-)
I'm chasing a silver 996 S, having a hard time keeping up with him, pissed off.
Afterwards I discovered he had RA-1s, and 60hp extra.

I did install a new light weight battery!

1:50:8 was the best time of the day for me. Still plenty of time out there. Corner 5 needs a lot of work!

Some cars parked at the Marina autox.

The results form the Marina autox event is in:
http://www.pca-ggr.org/acresults/110407.html

24th time overall or 12th place based on the PAX ranking (handicap system).
There were 61 cars and many of them good, fighting over who should win or place in the 2007 series so I'm happy.
It was difficult driving on concrete, the car didn't slide as I'm used to, need more practise for sure.
There was one curve I failed to do correctly 12 times in a row, 130 degrees decreasing radius.
Have to look through the curve (which is hard).

Next planned event is an autocross this Sunday down in Monterey.
Then there is another one on November 17.

Next track event is Laguna Seca in December if nothing else comes up.
Perhaps something at Thunderhill.

Here are the results from the Autocross I did 10/13/07 at Candlestick.
36th place of 95 drivers. Not too bad but not great.
Less than half a second slower than my instructor in a brand new Boxter S though :-)

http://pca-ggr.org/acresults/101307. html

My daughter explains about paper animals she made. Not really car related of course.

Upcoming events:

Cherry's Jubliee Driving School 2007
PCA - Coastal Driving School(MBR/LPR)
Friday Sep 7
Laguna Seca, Salinas, CA

GGR Driver's Ed/Time Trial #5, 2007
PCA - Golden Gate - Track Events
Saturday Sep 22 - Sunday Sep 23, 2007
Thunderhill Raceway Park, Willows, CA

A clean and newly waxed car!

Me and Tim went to Infineon Raceway today for some autocrossing.
Had a very good time there. The car is really good now with the new sway-bars, tires and alignment.
However I had no chance against the 914s and new corvettes. They go like crazy.
There were two Porsche 914 there, modified for autoxing. They are like go-carts, nothing beats them except perhaps an Ariel atom or similar.
I think I beat all the 996&997s though (GT3s and Turbos). Feel a bit proud.
But Tim beat me with his insane viper. :-(

There was a Ferrari F430 challenge and a bunch of orange GT3 RSs there for a track day.
Kip as there as well, saw him pass everyone on the track but couldn't find him in the paddock.
There were 40 autox cars and ~100 cars doing track. A big mess of cars basically.
Pictures later.

Next even is:

GGR Driver's Ed/Time Trial #4, 2007
PCA - Golden Gate - Track Events
Saturday Aug 4 - Sunday Aug 5, 2007
Thunderhill Raceway Park, Willows, CA

http://www.thunderhill.com/