My friend Matt and I attended college together, and after living on the East Coast for quite a while, he was now living in Boise. As he is an aviation enthusiast and pilot and he flew his Van's RV-6A over to meet us in Washington State. He had done some autocrossing with an RX-8, but had never actually driven on track. He was going to ride down with us while we drove to Laguna Seca.
This was a three day event spanning Friday to Sunday. We drove down and arrived on a Thursday, went through tech, then loaded our car into the garages. This was our first time having an actual garage and it was really nice! Even though we had nothing to plug into it, it was cool seeing the nitrogen plumbed on the wall where the pros use it. We had racers coming from all across the country for this race, including Tubby Butterman Racing. They have some Hawk Blue brake pads for us they brought with them, but we decide to leave the mostly good pads on the car. Our first race is only a six hour, and with Matt in the car we figure he won't be using nearly as much brake as we do (Bad idea! Bad idea!)
To Finish First, You Must First Finish (7/3/15) - 6 hours - Laguna Seca:
Since the race starts under yellow, we put Matt in the car first so he could have a chance to feel out the car a little before racing. Going from autocross to straight to a race start at Laguna Seca is definitely a way to jump straight into the deep end of the pool. Not ideal, as it is very intimidating. There are plenty of walls, elevation change, and gravel traps at the track. Luckily since it's also one of the most famous race tracks in the world.. Matt knew the layout from various video games.
Matt was very nervous about wrecking our car and was trying to get used to things while not getting in other people's way or cause any problems. He runs a very respectable 2:00.8 lap time, excellent for never having driven this car or on track before! He's doing a great job of watching his mirrors and giving people room when disaster strikes on lap 16. Matt is going into turn 6 when he downshifts into 3rd, and it's just enough to upset the back end of the car. He tries to catch the slide, but it pitches him off to the right and he spins off track. A camouflage Celica Supra dives off track to avoid him, and narrowly avoids the crash.
Matt is spooked and wants to come in, so on lap 18 he pulls in the pits. We talked to the Celica Supra driver later who is insistent that we never touched their car, although their camo paint is smeared up the nose of our sparkling blue front bumper all the way to the hood. I don't even quite understand how there isn't really any damage. That was a close one!
Nathan Feigion gets into the car with a little over 5 hours left in the race. He brings us from 29th all the way up to 7th during his stint, running a 1:51.3!
Dave gets in the car next and he is struggling a bit. He hasn't played all the video games that we have, so the track is not nearly as familiar to him. He spins early on, which shakes his confidence. However by the end of his run he has done a 1:57.6 and we are in 8th place.
I get in the car last, so it's all up to me now. Having a new driver in the car our original goal was to crack a top 10 finish. We had dropped to 14th during our pit stop, but I'm pretty consistently below the 2 minute mark so we are looking OK. The car is working great, the coolant temp is perfect and engine power is up to normal. Adequate, but not great, just like normal. It's now lap 150, there's just 30 minutes left in the race and I'm in 10th place. The brakes don't feel right, not stopping as good as they have been. I have a very fast and aggressive BMW behind me, so I point him by, not wanting to try fight with him with unknown brakes. He goes by me, and I tuck in behind him for turn 11, the extremely sharp left-hand turn before the straight. As I get to the brake marker I hit the brakes, AND THE PEDAL HITS THE FLOOR! Since I'm not slowing down, to avoid rear-ending the BMW I yank the wheel to the right and fly off into the gravel trap.
After I get pulled backwards out of the gravel, our undertray scooped up enough gravel they might have wanted to send us a bill! When talking to my dad afterwards he asked me if I had tried to use the emergency brake. I told him, "There was zero time for that! All I could do was yank the wheel to avoid hitting the other car." The interesting thing was when I watched the video back.. I actually start pulling the e-brake, but because I had just swerved the back end starts coming around. Going sideways into a gravel trap is a major risk for rollover. I put the e-brake back down while counter-steering with my left hand to try get the car going nose-first, and mostly succeed. All of this was essentially reflexes from drifting, as I didn't even remember touching the e-brake!
The cause of all this? Me being cheap/lazy with the brake pads, and thinking that the car would make it six hours on slightly used pads. Once the pad was gone, the piston over-extended and blew brake fluid all over when I went for the brakes that last time.
Tech Tip #12: Brake pads don't have linear life. A pad with 100% material stays cooler than one with 50% material, so once the pad is low it goes quickly! 50% thickness is beyond 50% of it's lifespan.
Now for a late night replacing calipers, pads, bleeding, and sweeping up a massive amount of gravel that we needed to return to turn 11..
And for the video highlights of the race: