With your new cell-tuation you'll be good for 3 laps.

Thunderhill - New Track Paved
 

Here's a fly over of the new addition to Thunderhill.... We walked up and took a look at it in May -- and it's a WOW!

Several of us from the Portland area are going to be there this weekend for a two day Hooked on Driving event. HOD sent out an email earlier this week telling us we'd be the first to use the 5 mile course :thumbsup:

I've never been to T'hill before, but from looking at videos it doesn't seem like an easy course to learn even without all those extra new turns! Good thing we have two days ... Looking forward to it.

Here's a driving version of the WEST side addition....

Lucky you!! I have to go to San Francisco --- and then drive a new hot rod with 35 other hot rodders to LA for the Roadster Show... If I wasn't doing that - I'd prefer to be with you guys!!

Man, those are some tough life choices you're having to make these days :D

Thanks for that link. The track looks spectacular.

The elevation change looks dramatic even on video, which always tends to flatten things out. I'm gettin fired up now!

When we walked up the hill from turn 9 and looked at that DROP into the new track I puckered up and I was walking!


The VIEW from the corner workers station up there made me want to see if I could build a house up there... its' just spectacular -- but then the grass was green too....

What a great addition to the track. Cant wait.

Just got back to Portland after the HOD weekend. First time I'd been to Thunderhill, and I have to say, it's a great track and easily the best facility I've ever been to (although I've only been to the three near Portland). Spacious air conditioned clubhouse, big shade canopies to park under, pro shop, repair shop, on-site fuel including race gas, food vendor, etc. Even the PA system was really good :) And it's 6 miles from a real town with some restaurants, hotels, Walmart, RV park, and other trappings of civilization.

The downside: it's in the desert, essentially, and it was freakin' hot. It was 105 when I left the track on Saturday, 107 on Sunday. The estimated asphalt temps were in the area of 160! Not only was it uncomfortable for people like me from colder climes, but the cars get hot too. My '69 has a new C&R radiator/oil cooler combo from DSE, and I was shocked to do a gauge scan in my third session and see oil temp of of 320! Needless to say, I cut that session and a couple of others short. Will be working with DSE to get those temps down ...

About the track. It's pretty great even in the "old" configuration, which is both fast and quite technical, with lots of elevation change, off camber, blind exits, etc. The new section is mostly a lot tighter, and even more technical, with even more elevation change and blind corners. Combined, the 5 mile track has 27 numbered corners, and a few more that aren't numbered (see the picture below). Plenty of places where the difference between screwing up and getting the flow perfect is small.

Unfortunately, the really high track temps were not good for the new asphalt, and the new track section started to break up after two sessions, especially the downhill section into turn 23. We reverted to the old track for the afternoon, then got one more session on the 5 mile next morning. Even with three sessions, I still got lost trying to remember what was coming next - partly because of the numerous blind sections. It was a total gas, and I could spend dozens of sessions happily learning the subtleties.

Anyway, here's the aerial photo of the new track with turn numbers. It ain't the 'Ring, but there probably aren't many tracks in North America that present this kind of challenge:

https://lateral-g.net/forums/atta...1&d=1402532117

I'm somewhat surprised they'd run cars on the new asphalt at those temps. Bikes maybe, but 3000 lbs cars? :sieg:

Well, you have to understand all of the dynamics in play. HOD sold the event at a slightly higher price for the opportunity to be one of the first at the new track. T'hill track management couldn't know that the temps would be even hotter than normal for early June. And the breakup started in the morning, long before the peak temps, and only in very specific parts of the track.

IMO, it's just the kind of thing that happens with new stuff in motorsports, be it a new car or a new track. T'hill has an SCCA event on the 5 mile track there in a couple of weeks, so in a sense we were guinea pigs finding whatever problems were going to occur in sanctioned racing. I'm actually perfectly OK with that. We got a first-time chance to drive what is certainly one of the premier tracks in this continent, and got some significant track time. That's glass more than half full, in my book.

I'm not trashing them, just a bit surprised assuming the curing time of a high-performance surface is somewhat critical. Hopefully it doesn't turn into a long term problem down the road. :thumbsup:

On newly placed asphalt once the final lift is placed and compacted we usually wait until the temp of the surface has dropped to 140 before opening up traffic control to through traffic..

With the asphalt temps at 160 the asphalt binders soften up and there could be a potential for rutting but then again I'm sure the folks up in Willows know how hot it gets up their so I'm sure they chose the correct mix design for that region.

Was that video parade laps or what...

haaaaaaaaaaaaahaaaaaaaaaaaaaa


I offered to put in a sun roof so he can wave like the queen.

Some of those drivers clearly didn't belong in advanced group. But when this guy was on open track, his lines were quite good. Better than 90% of the rest of us out there, anyway. If you want a reference for the "school line" on the new section, you could do a lot worse than that video.

It will get cheaper, and hopefully, they'll fix the pavement... I hope to get there for the extra mileage on a weekday some time.

On a side note, the road I live on had been resurfaced shortly before I bought my house about 2.5 years ago. I moved in at the beginning of the year, and the surface was fine until the summer, when the river raft buses started coming through in droves. They destroyed the surface in several lower-speed (like 15-20 mph) turns. The main problem was the heat (in combination with the weight of the vehicles), rather than the age or compaction of the pavement.

I carved divots in a new parking lot in Palm Desert once with an 18-wheeler in my mid-20s. It was damn hot, but the lot was open to the public. Sometimes, it's just the heat...