"Mr. Toad" at Sonoma (10 April 2022)"Mr. Toad" at Sonoma (10 April 2022)
 Exiting Turn 11 |
 (Ab)used race car lot at Château Epstein-Volz |
 Ray gets a good-luck smooch from Eva |
 Good luck for Ukraine and me |
 RED HUN |
 Slow Poke: truth in advertising? (SLOPOWK) |
 MMMSBBY |
 G FORSE |
 Speedbump (SPDBBMP) |
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This was my second track day at Sonoma Raceway with Mr. Toad, after one last November. (I'd previously driven the track in my 1979 BMW 323i in 1990, when the track was called Sears Point.) I've quickly become comfortable with some new-to-me tracks. Sonoma is not one of those tracks: where tracks like Laguna Seca have generous run-off areas, Sonoma has many close-in barriers that at least initially raise specters of impending doom. Add in turns that are eager to mess you up like turn 2 and what feels like a decreasing-radius entry to turn 8a and it's a track which inspires wariness rather than confidence. I got more comfortable with it during this day but it still inspires a bit of fear.
 Best lap of the morning (2:14.952) |
 Best lap of the day (2:13.127) |
During the morning, in between being passed by most of the rest of the field, I shaved over 3.4 seconds off my previous best lap time of 2:18.365 from November 2021. Further work in the afernoon shaved off another 1.8 seconds, for a total of over 5.2 seconds improvement off my 2021 best. Lap times still weren't impressive and I spent lots of time being passed but I was happy with the improvement and, much as I like beating the competition, I gain much satisfaction from substantial improvements over myself.
The following table summarizes tire pressures throughout the day, in PSI, along with front-brake temperatures, as measured with an infrared pyrometer after each session. I rotate track tires between front and rear after nearly every track day so the rear tires had been on the front at Buttonwillow the previous month, which explains the surprisingly low cold rear-tire pressures.
rotor caliper Description Time Ambient LF RF RR LR LF RF LF RF before session 1 0847 50°F 30.5 30.5 27.5 28 - - 31 31 reset after session 1 0919 60°F 36 35 33 33 413°F 352°F 235°F 207°F before session 2 1007 60°F 32 31 32 32 33 33 - - reset after session 2 1048 66°F 39.5 39.5 34 34.5 471°F 422°F 286°F 266°F before session 3 1243 66°F 33 33 32 31 after session 3 1312 70°F 39.5 39 35 35 467°F 416°F 286°F 268°F after session 4 1447 69°F 38 37.5 34 34.5 348°F 344°F 256°F 246°F after session 5 1557 65°F 40 39 34 34.5 516°F 447°F 32°F 276°F
At the start of the first session, before the tires warmed up, the tires were really squirrely and in the out lap I caught three spins before they turned bad. My unplanned spin practice at Laguna Seca last September once again kept me out of trouble! (This learning is a huge benefit of track days, compounding the sheer fun.)
These tires still stick well and probably have a couple more track
days of life to them, which is truly amazing. A previous set ot
NT01 tires which I used for both road and track only survived three
track days.
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Copyright © 2022 Karl L. Swartz. All rights reserved. |
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