Maximas w/NASA at Buttonwillow, October 2002
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NASA held an open-track event at Buttonwillow on October 12-13, 2002. A number of Maxima.org members were there, although it was mostly just pre-Maxima.org'ers there at the event; Dennis in his 99SE-L auto supercharged, Cheston in his 97GXE 5-spd supercharged, Nabil in his 96SE 5-spd, Hiroshi in his 97SE 5-spd, Jay in his 99SE 5-spd (by far the fastest driver of the Maxima group!), and at least two others whose names I can't remember! We had a little fleet of VQ30DEs there!
(ok, I know the SE-R guys are laughing right now, but you have to start somewhere...)
Both days at the event were pretty full. The hotlapping groups (for street cars like ours) are known as HPDE- "high performance driving event"- and are normally split into four groups, 1-4 (beginner to advanced). For this weekend they were compressed into two groups, 1&2 and 3&4 because the day was so packed, as several race groups were running, from the brand-new SE-R Cup to more well-known series like BMWCCA, Spec Miata, American Iron, and others. Unfortunately, mixing HDPE groups creates some traffic problems due to the varying skills of drivers and the passing regulations of the groups; beginners (HPDE1) like myself can really hold up faster HPDE2 drivers, while HPDE3 is usually regarded as cool but HPDE4 is "total lunatics", which kept some HPDE2 people in HPDE2 when they probably belonged in HPDE3. Ah well... next time!
Things started off with tech inspection, then a drivers' meeting for HDPE. Picked up the basics on passing zones, flags, corner workers, and stuff. Then off to wait for our run groups.
Session 1:
HPDE1 was promised instructors... unfortunately, I got to grid a little later than I should have and got let loose on a track that I was totally unfamiliar with, driving my car in a fashion I was only vaguely familiar with (auto-x'ing and the lunatic 100mph+ bursts on the freeway do NOT help much at all), and on a stock suspension. Basically, it was like letting a monkey fly a Boeing 747, only more dangerous. Buttonwillow is a very technical track with lots of turns and some nice elevation changes, and in configuration #14 counter-clockwise two turns are very difficult to visualize- Cotton Corners and Lost Hills (aka Magic Mountain). Plus, I had no idea what "tiger teeth" were or much of anything else... I finally lost it going into turn 1, a sharp 90 degree turn. I was able to counter-steer and control the spin though, so nothing too exciting.
Got off the track, promised myself I'd get an instructor next time, got razzed for going off track at the HPDE meeting, swapped in the Porterfield R4 pads and bedded them in... (Porterfield R4S's are great street pads, but I now highly recommend running race pads on the track!) Thanks to Jay for the pad changing tips!
Session 2:
Second session, John (he runs the #91 CRX) hopped in the passenger seat and instantly started spewing information... took me a while to start understanding some of the terms like "tiger teeth" (the corner curbs), but the second session was MUCH better than the first. My car is still a wallowing boat, but he gave a lot of good advice... it's amazing how much faster you go when you car is turned just 10 degrees more in the right direction when you exit a turn. I sort of figured out Magic Mountain, but Cotton Corners still screwed me up.
Session 3:
Third session, John was my instructor again. I'm progressively figuring things out. A big difference between track racing and auto-x is the amount of speed you have. Even with a rear sway bar, my car understeers like no tomorrow when auto-x'ing, but at 70 or 80 or 90mph on the track, I had more than a few moments of oversteer sending me flying into the dirt. (I think I did that twice second session. Oops.) It was a LOT of fun though.
Auto-x... another difference is the lack of blind turns. A course is small enough to walk it easily beforehand, and it's pretty flat. You can visualize it all. Track racing... both Magic Mountain and Cotton Corners are a sequence of turns where you can't see all the turns because some are uphill. Both really, really screwed me up until the third session; Magic Mountain I was able to visualize, while Cotton Corners... man... I can see the line now, but you have to use ALL of the track to do that one properly, and I think I'm gonna need a few more sessions before I can do that one with any vague amount of elegance and speed. Also, you get banked turns on the track, and aside from freeway ramps I'd never encountered those before. (a minor factor in why Turn One kept screwing me up!)
Session 4:
Fourth session... gridded early... crap no instructors. Promptly lost it at Turn One again, only this time I think I was carrying a lot more speed or something and was too scared to counter-steer, I didn't get it straight fast enough, spun BACK across the track and stopped perpendicular, right in the middle of pit lane, next to the one wall at Buttonwillow. EEEEeeeek! Sad to say though, that wasn't one of the scariest things I've done, and I at least knew I was a passenger throughout the entire experience. Yikes.
Officials inspected my car, calmed me down a little, and let me back on track. I have no idea where time went afterwards, but man, it went fast... the next major event I remember is being stuck being the *sstastically slow Jaguar S-Type-R #601 as I caught up to her over Magic Mountain. Thankfully she pulled into the pits just through the Esses, and as I slowed down to take turn one, then hit the front straight, I saw the flag being waved for the cool-down lap.
As for times... none of us had a transponder, and I don't think anyone even brought a stopwatch. Oops! Times seemed to range from 2:10 to 2:59 for street cars, though, with race cars hitting 1:45 and faster depending on the car... e.g. the SE-R Cup cars with a 15:1 power to weight ratio still hit about 2:10 or so.
It was definitely worth it. Maximas are reasonably powerful cars, and to really unwind them, you need to hit the track. It's completely worth it if you have the time and the money to burn.
That said, I'll be back sometime next year... have to let the money part recover for a couple of months at least. Track fees didn't kill me, but it was the initial investments in a helmet ($160) and race pads ($100) which made it an expensive weekend for me!
All images (c) 2002 Brian J. Won (homepage). vq30de.net and brian1.net are property of Brian J. Won. VQ30DE is Nissan's engine designation for their all-aluminum 3.0L gasoline DOHC engine. No infringement or misuse of the VQ30DE designation is intended.
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