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("Track
day # 3" continued from page 1)
wheel
out of the car, I noticed a nice big nail in one of the outer tread blocks.
It had lost a lot of air and I knew that I wouldn't be able to put it on
the car and take it for a test drive. This meant that I had wait
until the drive up to Willows before I found out if the wheel balance was
successful or not. It also meant that I would have to find someone
to run the wheel down to get it fixed on Monday morning while I slaved
away at work. Ever since I brought home a Seven in boxes and literally
took over the garage, my parents have become very tolerant and understanding
of my Lotus antics. So, I had my father take the wheel back down
to Goodyear to get the tire patched. I can assure you that they had
seen more of a brand Lotus wheel in the previous twenty-four hours than
they had in their whole lifetimes!
By
the time I left work on Monday night, mounted the wheels on the car, and
gathered all my stuff for the trip, it was about 9:45pm. Well, I'm
frustrated to tell you that all that work and stress I went through only
made the wheel balance better, but it didn't fix the problem. It
was actually a lot better than it had been, but it's certainly nothing
like what it should be.
It
made the trip up to Willows a little easier to deal with than the last
time, but it's only given me more drive to get to the bottom of the problem.
Look for more updates in the upcoming Chapman Reports as I get to the bottom
of this!
Even
after all the disappointment of the balance problem, there was still a
smile on my face on Tuesday morning as I drove out to the track.
I went out early to help John with the registration and it was great to
see some familiar faces as well as some new ones. Both of us were
a little worried about how the day was going to go as far as the weather
was concerned because, although the temps were fine, the wind was blowing
fairly hard and it was only 9:00am. But the as the morning progressed,
the wind decreased and it turned into another fantastic day. We had
a good variety of cars again with the usual mixture of Lotuses, Miatas, |
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Alfas,
and Porsches, but we had a few more BMWs show up this time. As I
reported last time, those second generation M3s are formidable cars, especially
considering they have four seats and typically weigh in at better than
3000lbs! But despite the volume of non-British cars there, I'm happy
to say that the Lotus marque was represented well. We had Elans (standard
and +2), Europas, a Lotus-Cortina, four cylinder and V8 Turbo Esprits,
and my personal favorite out of the crowd, a Sport 190 Elise. As
usual, our events coordinator John Zender did a great job of scheduling
a ton of track time. We had two run groups with 20-minute sessions in the
morning and 30-minute sessions in the afternoon. This always works
out great because you never feel pressured to be out on the track at a
certain time. There is so much track time that you can come and go
as you please, and still be assured that you'll have more track time than
you know what to do with.
The
morning went well for all but one poor BMW owner who spun in the first
session and had to wear a "BOZO" sign on the back of his car throughout
the rest of the morning sessions. John had warned people in the driver's
meeting that he would personally tape one on to anyone who spun out in
the first session. It proved to be hilarious, and I think quite effective
too.
For
the afternoon, John had something different prepared for this track event.
This time we had a special session in the afternoon for people with driver's
suits and proper belts who thought they were fast. A little seven
lap "race for fun" was set-up to see who exactly was the fastest.
If my memory serves me correctly, we had a couple of Miatas, a Lotus-Cortina,
a 911, a couple of M3s, and John's Flamer Europa. The grid seemed
to be somewhat inverted with John starting from the back of the pack and
yours truly paced the field for the rolling start. We had an aborted
start the first time around because the cars were a bit too spread out,
but the second time they got the green flag and they were off. I
don't recall how many cars John passed within the first two laps, but the
big cheers came when we saw him pass a car on the outside of |
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turn
3! I looked around and I didn't see a single person in the paddock,
they were all at the pit wall or up in the tower with their attention glued
to the action on the track. A feisty M3 proved to be the only worthy
opponent, but even he became a victim with 1 lap to go. We had a
feeling John was sandbagging it a bit, but never the less, he and the Flamer
came through for the Lotus marque and took the chequered flag. It
proved to be a great crowd-pleaser and I'm sure you'll see something similar
at the next track day.
After
the race, we still had another couple of sessions for each group left to
go and I took advantage of it. I can't say enough about the amount
of track time we get at these events, it really is pleasantly exhausting.
And as I said before, this was our third track event this year and at every
event, I have people from other clubs come up to me and tell me what a
great time they had and what a great group of people we have in the Lotus
club. This time was no different, I had a couple of Porsche people
thank us for the day and they remarked how easy going the Lotus club events
were and how they had more fun and more track time at our events than they
do at the Porsche club events. We have a good group of people who
come out to the track days and I encourage everyone to come out next time
and see for yourselves how much fun you'll have.
In
conclusion, I'd like to thank everyone who came out to the event, it was
good to see you all. And I'd certainly like to thank John again for organizing
another highly successful event with lots of track time! Our next track
day will be in February and it will be at Laguna Seca. Winter is
upon us, start preparing for Laguna and come out and have a great time.
Until then, I'll either see you at the Toddler Rallye, or at the next meeting.
Scott |
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