Texas World Speedway

[DR_]

Even though TWS in College Station Texas is over 200 miles away from my home in Dallas, I still consider it my home track. It’s just a few miles from where I grew up and my parents still only live a couple miles away. I started driving this track back in college in 1993. Back then Texas A&M Sports Car Club would corner work for the Porsche Club of America events at the track. Our payment for corner working was one session each day with an instructor. This was a great deal for a broke college student and so I got my start at this track in my old 280Z.
So move ahead 20 years and now I'm the one instructing and now I'm in a 370z. Here are 6 laps in the clockwise direction on the 2.9 mile track. My GPS wasn’t catching the finish line every lap and would group 2 or 3 laps together. My fastest lap was the last lap on this video but I was over driving the car and made several mistakes so I know there is lots more time to be had.

[wstar]

Same event/track/direction, same day, more work done to the car, and I'm more than 10 seconds slower than him even on my best lap. Shows you what a difference skill and experience makes

[chrischhorn]

Originally Posted by wstar

Same event/track/direction, same day, more work done to the car, and I'm more than 10 seconds slower than him even on my best lap. Shows you what a difference skill and experience makes

Who cares about lap times?!?! Looks like you guys had some fun!

[DR_]

Yes we had a lot of fun! This was an instructional event so times are secondary for sure. My green student also had a 370z and he did better than any green student I've had in a long time. He's not on our forum but I told him he should visit to learn more about our great car.

[roclive75]

Just curious if you have an oil cooler.. and what was your temp when you were running?

[roclive75]

Sorry for the stupid question!!!

[DR_]

Not stupid at all. I have a Setrab series 9 wide 25 row oil cooler. The ambient temp was over 90 degrees both days and I got to 260 degrees in every session. My green student didn't have one and he would hit 280 degrees and would have to back off for about a lap to get the temp back down to 260 before pushing again. Wstar was reporting much lower temps with the same oil cooler I have so I need to work on my setup to get it to work better.

[wstar]

Yeah I was down at 225 max on the same Setrab. Possible contributing differences:

1) More airflow to the cooler. My grill fins are cut out and replaced with a fairly open mesh, and my cooler might be a hair more towards the center. Also, in addition to the bottom mount to the rad core, I added a top mount to the back side of the crash bumper. That top mount is basically a horizontal wall that prevents air from flowing over the top of the oil cooler to reach the radiator/intakes directly, forcing more through the Setrab.

2) I did upgrade my radiator to CSF's, which is a larger and more efficient core, and I have no condensor (stock or otherwise) robbing airflow to the coolant. Better water cooling undoubtedly has some positive indirect effects on oil temps.

3) DR_ is just driving harder. If you compare the two vids you'll see lots of subtle differences where he had better lines for sure, but then there's a larger overriding difference of effort/balls. You can see it especially clearly starting right after the mini-carousel to the left, when we go uphill on a short straight and then hang a left sweep. From there on for most of the rest of the track, you see me hanging back on steady throttle in a lot of places where he's still deeper in the throttle pedal, or backing off to neutral throttle well before the start of my actual braking zone while he pushes it all the way, etc. A little more throttle and revs all around the track adds up to more heat, too.

[DR_]

Here are some pictures

[SAmilitaryman]

You should try TWS on a motorcycle. I have spent quite a bit of time there on my track bike. Very fast track and tons of fun.

[DR_]

I LOVE motorcycles and have a couple dual sports. I did take a prior SV650 I had to MSR Cresson but never to TWS.

[sig11]

I would love to have data like that on a track around here. Would be very cool to have someone with the same car to compare to.

[YzGyz]

How much is it to race there and what does that include? I use to see all sorts of cars with tape and numbers driving up hwy6 when I went to pick up my brother every weekend at the U. How much would it cost to keep my oil cool (complete, and I did the install myself if it's not too complicated)? Just curious. Tracking looks fun. It also looks expensive with tires, gas, travel, rock chips and all that.

[DR_]

With The Drivers Edge it is $315 for the weekend with an instructor. Once you graduate to solo (without a assigned instructor) your price goes down to $295. The next TWS event with them is in September 28-29 and they sell out very quickly.
You can piece yourself together a pretty good oil cooler setup for under $300 or just by a whole kit from Z1 for a little more. Make sure you get one with a thermostatic oil sandwich plate adapter.

[YzGyz]

Kool beans. I don't think I will be tracking or will be doing any mods soon. My first mod will be a sound system if I can find a super deal on it. If not, I will just live with the stock.

Thanks