WILLOW SPRINGS "STREETS" TRACK - JULY 1998

First time to willow springs.  The streets track is a fun, tight course.  The track is a 1.6mile course and has about 12 turns, and also a separate skid pad for practicing those high G maneuvers and drifts.  Went out with my integra.

You enter the track from the skid pad or pit lane, along side the straight.  The first turn at the end of the straight is a right hand bend.  You carry a lot of speed through this turn (about 80mph+), and keeping your speed steady is the key.  As someone else put it "you lift, you drift".  You definitely DO NOT want to hit the brakes through here.  You then brake hard down to a right hander, followed by a small downhill straight and enter a left hand sweeper.  Then hard on the brakes again for a tight right hand hairpin followed by another long left hand sweeper.  at the end of the sweeper, the course bends to the right and is followed by two 90 degree right hand turns.  Coming out of the second 90, is another small straight followed by "the kink".  The Kink is where the newer addition of the course meets the original track.  It is best described as a "chicane" or a really quick right-left.  I spun here.  So did a lot of other people.  Basically, you want to
brake before this section of track, because any late braking will have you looking the wrong direction in nothing flat.
Exiting the kink under power, you have to hold your line to the left to avoid going into the dirt, since you will most likely be drifting exiting the kink.  You then have a short straight followed by a 90 degree left, then a bend to the right, followed by really tight section consisting of an S turn - You make a sharp right and enter the bottom of the S first, and then get spit out onto the straight-away where you started.  I found the S to be the place my integra liked the least.  The turns are really sharp and the fwd setup would just understeer heavily.  Stiffening up the rear would help here.



 

1.    A couple of 911s
2.    A couple of MR2s
3.    Me entering the straight-away.


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