It has been a busy week, so I’m a bit late posting this.
Saturday, June 22
I went to High Plains Raceway on Saturday with the Z Car Club of Colorado. This was my first day with the ZCCC. When running a CECA day, they prefer drivers to have their cars run through tech inspection before getting to the track. For that, they arranged for Peak Eurosport to do the inspections. If you don’t do that, they’ll still inspect you at the track before the drivers’ meeting. ZCCC has a couple tech sessions in the week prior to the event. If you miss those and want an inspection at the track, it’s an extra ten bucks.
In addition to getting the car teched before the event, I also did a little additional preparation. I’ve run out of gas at HPR twice. Well, not at HPR but between HPR and the nearest gas station (17 miles away). So I bought a 5 gallon gas can. I had to snicker a bit when I realized that this can holds half a tank of gas. Properly prepared, I should never run out of gas at the track again.
I also finally bought a lawn chair that fits in the car. All our lawn chairs are the old-fashioned kind, mesh on an aluminum frame. The sort they used to sell back in the sixties. The newer type when folded aren’t much bigger than the car’s soft top and easily fit in the boot. So, in addition to not worrying about running out of gas I could also relax in a comfy chair. Let the fun begin!
ZCCC splits drivers into four groups: A, B, C, and D. A is Expert and D is Novice. I elected to run in the B group. I can’t imagine calling myself expert at this any time soon. They had 46 cars turn out, including 21 Datsun/Nissan/Infiniti, 7 Miatas, 6 Corvetttes, 5 Porsches and a variety of others. Part of that variety was two Elises. There were a few familiar faces from CECA days and everybody made me feel right at home. A good group and I’m sure I’ll join them for another track day sometime.
The weather was fairly warm. Mostly sunny, until the end of the day when a thunder storm passed west of the track, moving south to north. On the news that night I learned that that storm dumped golf ball sized hail on the prairie. I’m glad it missed the track!
I had an unbroken string of days at HPR where I improved my best time each day. “Had”, as Saturday was the first time I wasn’t faster than my previous outing. My best lap was in the first session, two laps under 2:20. I keep working on finding a faster way around the track. I’m blaming my slower times on the hotter conditions until I learn the real reason. I’ve decided I can go quicker by taking later apexes on several of the turns. I dedicated my last session to trying this. I think I’m headed in the right direction, in spite of the hard data indicating otherwise. Next time I’ll remember to take my pyrometer so I can learn just how hot my tires are getting and collect some additional data.
I made a video of the day, this time a “Frankenlap”. I ran five sessions and mounted the camera in a different place for each. One was mounted inside the car, directed at me. I used that as the “master” shot (primarily to get the best sound) and spliced in bits from each of the other views.
Sunday, June 23
Michael and I went to Speed Raceway down in Centennial. It’s an indoor go-kart track that runs electric carts. We went with LOCO and had 15 folks turn out for the event.
They time each lap for each kart. Results are purely based on lap times, not who gets the checkered flag first. They tell drivers that if a faster driver catches up, let him pass. That may be counter to lots of peoples’ natural inclination.
We got to run three races, the first two which they characterize as “practice” and “qualifying”. They put a maximum of six cars in each group, so to get times for everybody we had three groups. Michael and I ran together the first two times. I was third, he was second each time. We both managed to improve our times each session. Michael ended up fourth overall while I was sixth.
It was a lot of fun, but I got pretty beat up by the kart. I was still hurting a bit from my day at HPR. I need to get a knee pad for my left leg. Even though I’m securely belted into my seat, my left leg takes a beating, leaving me bruised and abraded. And from experience I know I get thrown around pretty badly by the karts. The seats aren’t exactly made for me and the restraints aren’t the best racing harnesses. I ended up with a giant bruise on my back, about the size of my hand with fingers extended. As they say, “no pain, no gain!”
We even got a little podium ceremony. No champagne to spray, not even airline sized bottles as befitting such a colossal event!
Finally, it was good it was an indoor track, as it rained fairly hard while we were racing. It was hot out, so when we got out of the car I told Michael to leave the window cracked a bit. When we got back out, his seat was dry but mine was fairly soaked. So it goes.