After an evening of heavy rains on the 5th, a cool beautiful day at the track, perfect weather for running, cold dense air. The other lads will have to give the detailed report because unfortunately I only got part of the first session in and had to return to LA with a family emergency. But I did get five solid laps in, and it was great. I really liked running the Configuration #1 with the Star Mazda turn. The coupe was just purring and coming through turn #2 the beast was four wheel drifting with tires squealing....just fantastic. Taking the dogleg in fourth gear, upshifting fifth through Riverside, down to fourth and then over Lost Hills, up to fifth, then into Star Mazda, two quick down shifts to third then up to fourth and fifth again in the Esses, screaming down to Sunset Turn, down to gears and hard in third out to the front straight. What a terrific race course that is. On lap six my camera mount came loose and smacked me in the head, hard, going through the apex at the crest of Lost Hills, and I did a major OTE through the mud. Had to get towed out. Oh well, good lesson I suppose. It made the entry to the water on the Universal Sutdios Jurassic Park ride look tame! Thank heavens for Avo who saved me by coming out during a traffic break to bring the tow hook so they could haul my sorry butt out of the sea of mud that I was sunk into up to the axles. Otherwise I would still be there. Guys, post your videos and stories for folks to read. All I can report is that the G was dusting everything it came across in the first five laps....then all went dark!
Got the family thing squared away; priorities.
Cheers.

 

Eagle1:
Glad to hear you and yours are doing good. Hopefully, the next track day won't be so filled with mud or family emergencies.

But yeah, from what little THX723 has told me, i did miss a great day.

Next one... i'm going for damn sure.

 

Ed, glad everything worked out for you even though your day was cut short. Family above all else and you kept your priorities straight, good man. Again it was good seeing you and talking to you and getting to see the BEAST! Those 275 RA-1's with those new Gram Lights were damn mean looking and I bet performed even meaner. It's just too bad about the camera thing and all that mud. I was sadend to see the beautiful coupe all mucked up like that. Good luck in getting all that cleaned out. Probably just more motivation to come back stronger for the next track day I'm sure. I would post my own stories but I really don't have much too tell except that I'm still learning and my learning curve apparently is very steep. But much thanks to Clint again for his patient instruction throughout the day and helping a brotha out. Maybe I should do the same as you Ed and invest in a 1 day class with Skip Barber. I'm sure much more valuable at this stage than a $1,000+ mod could do for me.

 

May 6, 2005 - Buttonwillow … yet another action packed day tracking with Speed Ventures!

My day actually started the evening prior as I perform the familiar ritual of slowly transforming the daily driving G35 to a track star. If I had my way the ordeal would have already been completed days in advance. But at last that is not possible, because her duty as a tolerable people mover does not expires until I literally pull into the garage after work. So began the midnight oil burning begin, but not until I’ve watched the latest episode of ‘The Apprentice’ on TV of course. Yes, I have heard of TiVo and I own two of em, but some stuff are just not the same when not watched live. Besides, the TiVo’s already bloated with ungodly amounts of American Idol episodes recorded for Donny (Dizz). He’d be really upset if I purged them. It was going to be a long night …as always.

The motivation is always high during the ‘preparation’ phase, as happy thoughts and expectations of the upcoming event temporarily blind sight the hippocampus; work (on the car) was perceived as being fun. I made record time performing and checking off the items in the familiar ‘to do list’ I had compiled over the years. Changed engine oil and filter, adjusted the sway bars to track setting, brake pads swapped for race compounds, etc. etc. Next came the brake bleeding routine; typically a grueling two man affair. Thank God for the Power Bleeder, a nifty little pressure inducing system that straddles on to the top of the reservoir tank, squeezing the fluid out with a gentle 15 pounds of force. Two corners into the bleeding process disaster struck. I was startled by a gurgling note not unlike that of someone just finishing off the last bit of their Pepsi. Yikes! I instinctively closed the bleeder valve as fast I could manage, but it was too little and too late. I had let the brake fluid reservoir run down. Precious exotic Motul RBF600 DOT4 racing fluid is now being replaced by nothing but air … literally. Boy this is not good! Behind modern ABS equipped braking system is a labyrinth of passages and hidden chambers. The possibilities of trapped and lingering air bubbles are not uncommon. That is the last thing I need before attempting fate super heating the system performing repeated high speed brakes in less than just 12 hours. Under those situations, the air in the system could produce spongy brake pedals and/or reduced braking performance. I was really upset at that point. That was one rare foul up by this guy, as I’m always keen on monitoring the fluid level in the reservoir. Upon closer examination … I see what the deal was. I had been fooled by the pockets around the tank, giving an illusion of Ľ tank filled. It’s a complete mystery why this hasn’t happened countless times in the past, but I sure got caught like a fly this time. My first attempt to replenish the system produced an unsatisfactory result. The brake pedal might as well be the clutch pedal … it went straight to the ground. I repeated the procedure once again, but now I’ve got another issue. I’m running out of fresh brake fluid and it is now 1am. By the very last drop, I managed to get her to a workable state, but far from track ready. Tired and defeated, I succumbed in hopes of bumming some fluid from fellow trackers at Buttonwillow. The odds are actually quite good and people are always kind around the track. With that thought, I grabbed a quick hot shower to ease the sores from elbowing the grease then it was off to bed to rack up as much Zs (not the 350 variety) as I could.

The alarm fired promptly at 4:45am sharp. I finished the very last bit of packing and it was off to rendezvous with Tony (Hydrazine from Motordyne) in the Magic Mountain area roughly an hour away. We met up and made a brief pit stop at the local Carl’s Jr. and Shell gas station tanking up our body as well as the car for the day. The trek up the I-5 towards Buttonwillow was fairly eventless. The sky was grey and the air was cool. Some may see it as being gloomy, but I find it as calm and relaxing. Upon entering the Grapevine we were sprayed with a light shower. It brought back some of the concerns of a possible spoiled event (rain) at Buttonwillow. I was hardly fussed, however, knowing as history have often played out in the past, a 30% rain forecast is about as good as 0%. Knock on wood. We made good time tucking neatly behind fast traffics, minimizing visibility to the local troopers as best as we could. V1 was always on the alert and only one bogie was picked off on the way. He was already busy busting someone from the incoming side, so no worries. We arrived promptly and in one piece.

Pulling into the pit area, we see a group of G35s have already settled themselves in quite nicely. It was a warm and welcoming sight; felt a lot like seeing old family members after a long time apart. Oh, did I mention the sky and weather couldn’t have been lovelier? It was no surprise for this veteran. Amongst the middle of the pack sat a strikingly sharp Daytona blue 350Z. “Cool!” I thought to myself. For once, another Z came out to play with their cousins . It is still a complete mystery to me why I don’t see more 350Zs track side. Then again, there wasn’t much of a G35 showing before I came along either. Perhaps, other track clubs have better luck with the VQs participating??? In any case, I didn’t get to meet the owner of the Z in person until much later in the day. As it turned out, he’s a local from Gardena and was a nice fella. This was Mark’s very first track event and he’s had quite an experience to tell; more on Mark to follow. The group did quickly befriended him and also invited him to join us for dinner that was to follow later.

After signing in and attending the mandatory driver’s briefing and getting assigned the appropriate students for instruction, I scrambled back to the car to begin further air purging of the brake system. But first, I needed to find someone with some DOT4 racing fluid. As luck would have it, our good friend Ed (Eagle1) had a spare bottle of ATE (good stuff) … so that was easy. Thanks buddy! I decided to do this bleed manually. While pressure bleeding does work very well, it is not the best way to go about ridding the air trapped in the master cylinder and ABS reservoir. I decided to go manual style and quickly recruited AJ (Zazaracing) to be the pedal operator, while I worked the valves in a very concise synchronized dance. Now I remember why I hate manual brake bleedings ... slow and lame! Thanks for the help Avo! At last, we managed to get my brakes back to it’s original firmness and the rest was history … for the good that is. The brakes worked flawlessly all day. Thanks again to good people.



… to be continued.

 

By the way ... did anyone see my neck collar (blue)? I remember taking it off and setting it in their backseat.

 

LOL! I just noticed it this afternoon on the way to Taft.

Should I ship it or bring it to the next meet? LMK

Thanks for the ride in your SICK sedan Clint. Wow, you really transformed it good. I also soaked up how you took the lines. Branded into the memory banks. It helped me quite a bit when I went back out on the track.
It was very educational and fun to say the least.

 

Oh good. No worries Tony. Just hang on to it untill I see you next.

You're welcome. I do what I can to help. I enjoy showing the ropes to others ... it's a rewarding experience.

 

THX clint for the ride! Man your Stoppies are f'incredible! See ya around!!

 

Aint that the truth! f'incredible! Particularly when coupled with the gummy tires. WOW! I went flying into the seatbelt every time the brakes were slammed.

I was all happy with my little Stillen slotted rotors untill I rode with Clint. There's absolutely no comparison. None!

 

Here's some pictures of me running that day. Even though we got cut short of one session it was still a blast. Enjoy.

 

My name is Mark and I'm the guy that Clint was taling about in his post. I drive the Daytona Blue 350Z.

For anyone interested, I just posted the link to the thread where I wrote down my own personal experience. I have a reputation (not just on the forums) for writing in-depth and informative\entertaining stories (my forte was always English and writing) so I hope you enjoy it.

http://www.350zmotoring.com/forums/s...8&page=1&pp=15

 

Hey Mark!

Good to have you drop by. I enjoyed your little write up too. We were all very excited to have another Z join the fun. We'll definitely keep you in the loop and do this again soon!

Cheers,

 

Nice write up Mark. Glad you made it and had a good time. Sorry I had to leave.....and to have had first hand experience with blowing off goop on my car with the pressure washing wands such that I knew how to give you directions to get there!! Ah the allure of beautiful downtown Shafter!!!
See you out there again real soon.

 

I forgot I had these pix on my camera http://members.dslextreme.com/users/.../buttonwillow/ I made an ooopsie and saved the files w/ the same name .. batch job.. so the high resolution originals are gone. =/

 

THanks for posting the pics Eldy. You got some good ones in there.