What’s New

What's New?

I realize that I haven't published anything in nearly two years. That's pretty odd. Here's a brief run down on what's happened since 1/1/2019 when I retired from UC Santa Cruz.

2019

Sonoma HoD 04-12-2022

I went with Hooked on Driving to Sonoma Raceway April 12th. Very windy and cold. Lots of downtime and black flagged sessions due to fluid leaks and a Corevette that hit the wall going out for a session.

Session 1
I got out in front of the group and had lots of space in front of me. Session was black flagged due to fluid leak around the whole circuit.

Catalyst shows ___

Session 2
I got out in front of the group and the track got black flagged. Seems a Corvette spun into the wall and got some rear damage before the entire B group was out of the pit lane.

New HRE FF01 Wheels

Lynda bought me a set of new wheels for my 60th. After an exhaustive search, I ended up deciding to move the car to a 19" wheel from its default 20". This allows for more variety in options for tires.

Here you can see them brand new with a set of Pirelli P Zero's on them.

Thunderhill East GGR DE #1

I attended the GGR DE #1 this past weekend up at Thunderhill. I had run the West configuration 2 years ago, but never had done the East.

I used a combination of Assetto Corso, Ross Bently course walks and some onboard video from Andy Lee to prep and memorize the turns.

On Saturday I ran 2:25, 2:24, 2:19, 2:17 best session times. On Sunday, I ran 2:16, 2:15.9, 2:15.1.

Don’t Panic - Porsche Error Messages

For the third time in two months, my 2013 Porsche Carerra S threw error messages at me. 

This time it was "Sport Mode Not Available" and "PASM Not Available". 

The previous error messages were a check engine light and when I ran the ODBII code there was also a Mass Air Flow error (P0068). After a little panic and a call to Bruce @ BR Performance, I settled down. I let the car sit for a while and then went for a drive. The errors cleared.

Laguna Seca 11-22-2021

I participated in the Diablo Valley PCA DE event this past week at Laguna Seca. A well run event with about 70 participants. I was in an intermediate group with about a dozen cars. Had some traffic in a couple of sessions. Clear and dry weather that got up to 80 during the day.

I had been working with Andy Lee's coaching comments at both the 10-18 and 11-22 dates. The plan I created for the day looked like this:

Laguna Seca 10-18-2021

Prior to a track day with the Central Caliornia Region PCA at Laguna Seca on October 18, I had been through a coaching session via OpenTrack's Andy Lee. During that session, we worked on some opportunities at both Laguna Seca and Sonoma.

I got to drive the first session on a wet track. It hadn't rained around here for nearly a year and things were a little slick till mid-morning when it cleared.

For Laguna Seca, Andy's suggestions turned into my plan for the day that looked like this.

Turn 3