Mt Tam I am's Driving Journal

Originally Posted by Mt Tam I am

My R888 tires have been unavailable and they arrived yesterday and look great. Unfortunately I was at Laguna Seca the day before. So this event will be on my regular everyday street tires, like always.

My best gal and I drove down to the track on Saturday had dinner with some other drivers. Sunday morning was misting with fog and thought my Michelins might be the winning option but by 9AM the sun was out and while cool the day was perfect. It may have hit 70 Degrees (maybe 67*) by 4PM but with a light cool ocean breeze who cares.

This was my first Laguna with my new Z1 front brake rotors. I have warped my brakes 6 out of 6 times here up until now. I had trouble at Thunderhill as I had improperly bedded my brakes but since then have re-bedded the brakes with many hard stops. It seems to have worked as at the end of the day my brakes were fine with the exception all the drill holes are full of brake dust. So I must go around and clean them out with a chopstick. The rear OEM brake rotors now have a blue tint of heat which is new. I plan on Z1 rear rotors soon.

I have a buddy who always passes me in his E46 M3 at every event; Granted he is far more experienced and a much better set up. I asked him how the day went and what group he was in. He answered my group, and we agreed we never saw one another all day. I crossed some threshold where a couple seconds a lap gap leads to being passed or not. I did knock 2 seconds off my previous best time, now 1:52.250. But my average time without traffic became 1:53'ish, until my tires heated up.

I got a little squirrely at one point getting on the gas too hard but the worst thing was missing a down shift and going into neutral instead of second and revving hard instead. I quickly drove off track so as not to be rear ended. This is turn 11 at the beginning of the main straight where everyone stands on the gas. The car behind saw everything and let me back on in front of him.

I stayed alert all day and with permission even ran a sixth session, 5 is all I paid for. I was shattered by dinner time but perked up with food.

The best part of all was meeting a vet from Korea and Vietnam and thanked him for his service, and later where he was. He teared up with my thanks. I was in the presence of heros as he told the tale of being dug in on the Chinese border. I knew what that meant. He had some of the worst and hardest duty ever. I said Chosin and he said yes. I told my gal what this meant and she was totally unaware how a handful of Marines and Army fended off division after division, Corp after corp until an Army was destroyed. Poor fellows. My hearts bleeds as I write this for those guys. This is how I felt at dinner and secretly asked the waitress for his check. I am sure he knew who it was that paid for it, but we left first.

It really was the best day in years.



Passing Fool at Laguna Seca in a Nissan 370Z - YouTube

Tearing it up at Laguna Seca in a Nissan 370Z - YouTube