Streets of Willow SERCA Event, October 12, 2001

Well, It was a great success. Very well organized with rescue and corner workers. We had no serious off road incidents. No one even scratched their car. The only casualty of the day was Ron Acevedo who spun a bearing on his turbo car early in the day. Apparently the bearing was starved from oil in the infiled A twisty section. I really felt bad for him. His first outing on the road course and this happens!!!

I got my first shot at instructing. Alex P. was one of my students, but he was so hesitant to push his car even below its limit. But he said that he improved by the end of the day. Another pupil was a guy (sorry forgot your name) in a red P11 G20T. Very nice car. He picked up tips and then he was driving on his own.

Streets of Willow causes me MAJOR MOTION SICKNESS. I had to take FIVE dramamine type pills to survive the day. And I was still feeling a bit sick. My body just HATES this track. My stomach was upset for almost the entire day. But I still drove at the limit as I always do :-)

I gave rides to Leslie (Jorge's wife) and Amber (Shaggy's GF). Nice meeting you ladies. I hope I did not scare you. They seemed to enjoy it. But I do not know for sure. I was driving pretty hard when Amber was in the car. Reason being was that Rob, Tom, Mike W, and Myself were bunched up and we were just begining to have some serious fun when. I put a pass on Mike W. and Rob was right behind Mike when the guy at the tower BLACK FLAGS ALL of us. WTF!! We go into the pits and he tells us that we were too close and he must separate us. As Rob told me later they have been having car incidents
with other clubs and they are now extra careful. Maybe when we build more "good will" with the Streets people they will ease up on us.

My car performed flawlessly. I tried a new technique with streets. I stay in 2nd and 3rd gear on the entire track. My car was wailing like a bitch in heat. At the end of the hill on the front straights I shift into 2nd entering the corner and stay in 2nd to the mid of the back section leading to the banked turn. There, I shift into 3rd until I reach the bnaked turn where I shift into 2nd and exist the turn at WOT. Then I shift into 3rd and stay in 3rd all the way to the very end of the back straights. At that point I shift into 2nd and take the whole twisty back section including skidpad turn in 2nd. Then I do it all over again. I did not take any times. But Cookie could hear my car wail :-)

The Kumho performed well. But it seems to me that they cannot take the beating that the RA1s can. This is the first time I used them and one of the front tires has a few pits on its edges. That never happened with the Toyos. The Kumho do not grease up like the Toyos however and they do seem to have a bit more sticktion. I really doubt that the Kumhos will last 8-10 hot lapping days like the Toyos do.

The Cryo treated rotors rock. I have been using them for almost 4 events and no cracks yet. In addition I have been ducting cool air to my calipers from the fog light opening in the front bumper. Hawk Blues rule!!! I had an old set with one day left on it. After I removed the pads, they still had about half a day left.

Thanks to Carlos and Rob and all the others who made this FIRST SoCal SERCA event possible. There will be others :-)