First off, special thanks to the host Turn 8 Racing and Aries Photo for the cover shot of my car.
So this year like the last is going to be a little different. Normally I would be heading off to Japan and the Tokyo Auto Salon but like most events in 2020 the 2021 Tokyo Auto Salon was cancelled.
This year I've decided to concentrate on track days and getting myself and Project 71-109 to a competitive level. My goal is for this year is to start competing in Time Attack events.
So to start off 2021 right I went Laguna Seca Raceway. Lucky for me I didn't have to go out by myself and was joined by my buddy and his 335i. I had 2 goals for this track day. The first being to improve on my time from last year and the second to get my friend and his BMW up to speed as fast as possible since this was his first time at Laguna Seca.
We arrived the day before and dropped off the truck and trailer. Laguna Seca actually has great accessibility and locations to view the track from. Including perfect views of the corkscrew. So we walked a handful of the corners and were able to discuss the driving line.
So things never go as planned and that's life.
When we arrived on the day of the event we found that it had rained overnight and the track was still damp. The track staff did what they could to try and help dry of the track but our first session would be a wet one.
How did Project 71-109 do on its first session? Well, it was a slip-sliding mess sadly.
So my first session was a lot of trying to control the rear end and a lot of throttle control. After 5 laps I was able to get a little heat in the tires and was able to find a small amount of grip but I was still having to deal with understeer on turn in and oversteer on throttle out. To say the least it was a fun ride (Not Really)
With all the different run groups I had hope that by the second or third sessions I would get a chance to see a dry track. Well, just before my second session it started to drizzle. The added moisture on the track resulted in multiple cars spinning out, with one poor Miata finding the wall after coming down through the corkscrew.
My second session ended with a black flag bringing everyone in and then turning into a red flag ending the session.
Due to the rain the following run group was cancelled with track officials giving time for the rain to slow. The remaining run groups in the second session were able to go out with everyone going easy.
The third session went pretty much like the second with cars spinning out, I even came in early with just how bad things felt. For me the percentage of risk was just too high and I didn't want to end up off track or even in a wall, so I ended my third session early
Turn 8 Racing had an interesting setup for our fourth and final session. The Advanced and three Intermediate groups were split into two run groups with each group getting 1 full hour of track time. This turned out to be really fun and completely worth having to deal with all the other rained out/wet sessions
The hour long session enabled me to do almost 30 straight laps. After about 5 or 6 laps I was able to get a little heat in my tires and found that the track was slowly starting to dry up so I was able to increase my pace. I was able to put down lap times that were consistently close to my previous time out when I ran a staggered setup. With my 255 square setup and a dry track I would have been able to run into the 1.40s I was really hoping for a dry lap around 1.45 or better but today wasn't going to be that day.
Now there was definitely some guys out there running in the low 1.40s and maybe better but for me and my setup I just wasn't able to find the traction. Oh well, next time out the car is going to be very different and we'll see how it goes.
One thing I always enjoy no matter what track I'm at is the other people and their cars. I was able to walk around a little bit and get some pics of the other cars that came out. Lucky for me there was ton of S2000's and I was able to talk to multiple drivers about their setups and what was working well for them. This information is really invaluable as it would take me a stupid amount of time and money to come to the same conclusion that these other drivers had already figured out.
Thankfully my buddy had a really fun time out. It was interesting how the rain worked in his favor. Since this was his first time at Laguna Seca he was able to take the wet sessions slower and really learn the track layout, braking and turn in spots. So by our 1 hour long session he was better prepared and able to really drive the course.
I really love driving at Laguna Seca and honestly any seat time on the track is a good thing. Overall it was a good day, I was able to meet some cool people and get some really good information on fast setups for the s2k.
There are big changes coming for Project 71-109. We'll see if I'm able to get in one more track day.
Everything Else. Enjoy!!
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