Gratuitous track footage: PCA Spec Boxster at Thunderhill

Last run yesterday, more or less open track (Red + Black open for a couple hours, nice). Harry's nicely shows speed and G-loads. Yes, my foot is pretty much always to the floor, the old girl is really that slow :-) pedal dammit, pedal!

One Lap of WGI yesterday

Grant

Grant

gee-lenahan-at-gee-mail-dot-com

Here's video from one of our PCA races weekend before last. We had a decent sized group of 12 Spec Boxsters in the race group. This is typical of the PCA SPB field size we now have in Northern California. Some events can have more when we get attendance overlap over from Southern California, either at Buttonwillow or Laguna Seca. Some events slightly less. Then there's also Porsche Racing Club (within NASA in norcal) and Porsche Owners Club (socal) that we can race with using SPB class rules.

This venue is Thunderhill Raceway in the north central valley in California. The track is fantastic, the scenery is beautiful and green most of the year (though dry and brown in summer and fall as seen here) and it's only a little over 2 hours from San Francisco. Sonoma is a our closest track; Laguna Seca and Thunderhill are about the same distance depending on which end of the bay you live at. (Sonoma is the most technically challenging of the three. Unfortunately, PCA is not able to book dates there at the moment.)

A little history and update since I don't post much these days. My first ever visit to a track was at Thunderhill for a HPDE in late 1998 in this same car when I met long time PPBB/Pedro's boarders SMILIN (DougD) and KevinC. We became track junkies. Both Kevin and I eventually started racing in a small club, and then I eventually updated my car, mostly in my garage, to Spec Boxster for PCA Club Racing. This is my original owner / former daily driver car, which might be a unique thing for a Spec Boxster. I'm a mid-pack to front-pack driver; can't turn the same lap times as the fastest guys (not that craz^H^H^H^H skilled), sometimes podium, occasional win. (If the field is small enough ) Consistency and solid performance, with a few race wins, earned me 1st place overall for the 2015 PCA West Coast Series in Spec Boxster. Spec Boxster is a great class. Close racing from flag to flag throughout the field. A good group of friends racing together. A "home built" car like mine can be competitive -- I'm within 30 lbs of the minimum weight, so there's no real struggle to get the weight down. Engine, transmission, and suspension are all spec, so the difference in cars comes down to weight, and the ability to set up the suspension for your driving skill and for the track. Also keeping the car maintained, and not doing too much off-roading that will knock the alignment out or break things.

PCA Club Race @ Thunderhill - Sept 2016 - Sprint Race 2

It sounds like you have fairly few tracks nearby, but the quality is very high. Too bad PCA can't get Sonoma.
That's where the NASCAR boys ( and girls) race, right?

The video is nice in that it shows the "feel" of the race. While the split screen gets me (my eyes keep darting back and forth) its nice to see proximity and action in both directions. Looks like a mostly well behaved crowd. Of course, when i go back to the video i'll probably see a needless pileup and eat my words.

Nice that you've had the car in many guises- most people i know buy a car fully built, or buy a donor car and have it built. You did it (how much with your own hands, by the way?).

Grant

Grant

gee-lenahan-at-gee-mail-dot-com

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grant
It sounds like you have fairly few tracks nearby, but the quality is very high. Too bad PCA can't get Sonoma.
That's where the NASCAR boys ( and girls) race, right?

Yeah, and Indycar too (they're there right now). Fun to watch. NASCAR and Indycar run two different course configurations than the rest of us. NASCAR short circuits T5 & T6. I think it's so they have less cornering, and more laps to circulate in front of fans. Indycar avoids the high speed version of T9/10 (at their speeds, a mistake in 10 would be scary) and moves T11 closer (there is ZERO runoff in in the normal configuration which is a hairpin at the end of a high speed section).

I feel lucky about having 3 great tracks nearby and a 4th within a reasonable evening haul!

PCA is starting work on getting back to Sonoma. My understanding is that one roadblock is some unfortunate prohibition on driver instruction because there is a company onsite that has exclusive rights to do that. No instruction means no PCA DE, which means no way to have a PCA weekend of DE + Club Racing. For some reason, certain organizations are grandfathered in. The first step might be to sub-lease a PCA CR run group in someone else's weekend (like NASA or SCCA) -- that's what PCA has done at Laguna Seca a few times recently. (The issue with Laguna is getting a high sound limit weekend. The easy-to-get dates have low db levels, which means a lot of race cars can't attend. Putting the stock Boxster muffler on works, but it's one more hassle to do.)

Fortunately, in the meantime I can race at Sonoma about as often as I want to with other organizations like PRC/NASA and CFRA.

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grant
The video is nice in that it shows the "feel" of the race. While the split screen gets me (my eyes keep darting back and forth) its nice to see proximity and action in both directions. Looks like a mostly well behaved crowd. Of course, when i go back to the video i'll probably see a needless pileup and eat my words.

I don't think there was any damage this weekend. PCA (especially our group up here) is very respectful and well-behaved. That's not to say nothing ever happens (I think everyone who's been doing this for a couple of years has experienced at least some minor contact) but it is not a constant occurrence. Having said that, there was a SoCal-based guy a couple of years ago who was a menace (but he got banned and is no longer around).

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grant
Nice that you've had the car in many guises- most people i know buy a car fully built, or buy a donor car and have it built. You did it (how much with your own hands, by the way?).

Grant

The initial PSS9 install was done with the help of the friend who sold it to me (used -- and now old enough I think it needs a refresh).
The cage was obviously done by a cage builder.
Other easy suspension things I've done myself (sway bars, drop links, locking toe links) and I've had help with things I'm not 100% comfortable with doing solo (springs, control arms, things where I'm not 100% confident I can put it back together without another set of arms).
Pretty much the rest I did at home over a few months back then -- gutting everything from the interior and trunks, mainly. Removing heater core lines, installing UD pulley, rear bumper heat shielding, fixing the rear wing, etc. There was a lot to do but it was kind of fun! There's about 400 lbs of weight loss involved. If one can get "below" weight, then you have the ability to throw in a cool suit box, or a passenger seat, or a heavier driver, or allowed ballast, and still run at minimum weight.