Amen Brother: )

As Curtis said great day and a great bunch of folks! It was great meeting Greg and Chad in person. Awesome driving!

Laguna 105
 

Yes laguna was a great day. I drove the
Pantera down just cruising it which does not
happen very often. Watched Greg and Chad run their
cars hard. Greg had Sutton on line giving feedback
for tire pressures based on temps. All four corners were
different and the cool day made things interesting

Paul (rustomatic ) was hanging out and talking about
his Ls powered falcon in transition

Talk about the real things in life like tires,engines and suspensions
were going on everywhere

Good times and low key

Bob

Attachment 56346Make sure you equip it with the essentials.


:D

I agree Curtis! Of course I'm biased as someone who was there driving a car but yesterday was awesome! It was great putting faces to names on the site here as well as talking cars and driving with everyone! I'm really glad I got a chance to drive Laguna Seca and hope to drive it again.

I'm working on my pics and video but in the mean time here is a drive by of Greg heading out of turn 11 and up the straight at Laguna Seca!

Dang.. Greg was getting with it! Glad you guys had a great time and Chad made it back home in true Pro Touring spirit!

HAHAHAHAHA --- I never get to see "my own car" on track, let alone hear it. Thanks!

I never look at the speedometer on track, so have zero idea of the speeds I'm hitting. I'm looking UP -- and looking for my "marks" -- and checking for cars behind etc. But I know when I hit my mark under the bridge (the Z in Mazda).... I'm hauling some ass. Last time I ran Laguna Seca (two years ago before the Sutton suspension re-do) -- cresting there (the kink that is known as turn 1) was "hang on to your hat".... the car was all unweighted and would be squirrelly... and then you're hard on the brakes to get down for T2. You do that once... and you start lifting before the crest. Now.... I'm still hard into it going over (the crest). There's nothing but "solid" feel and the brakes just haul it down as you go to 3rd gear and then down into 2nd... dial in the turn and get back into the throttle.


A trick I learned from David Pozzi.... Late apex T2 (actually -- the whole track is about late apexing) and go straight for the #1 brake point marker for T3, from turn T2 exit. Most everyone I watch, drives from the right side of the track over to the left (making an S out of it). I could absolutely slam the gap closed by just running that straight as an arrow there. You have to crank in a little more turn in to get the car pointing over to the apex at 3.... but then you're pointing straight and late and you just hammer the throttle as you pass the guy you just about rear ended at corner entry. You run up on them so fast that they KNOW you're going to pass their ass on the short straight leading to T4 !! They just fold and stay far right as you blow by. LOL

Accurate statementmon going over the kink on the back straight. I Always target the "z" as well. Even in newer cars with good factory suspensions the cars get light over the kink. One time I was going over the kink and a bmw was going about half my speed on the other side and hit the brakes too hard and almost had the car come around me.

I'm hopeful to make the first shelby event next year in my 66.

Can't wait to see move pics/ videos

Meeting up..
 

:star:


Greg , You were definitely screaming thru those turns, I got to see you coming in turn 5,6.. then 9-10. Love the set up in that Mustang.
Good seeing you again.
Can't believe you were talking about freshening up that motor, as it seemed to be screaming, and I believe you said you recently got it rebuilt.
Do those motors really need a freshening up at +/- 7k?
What encompasses a freshen up?



Chad, nice meeting you.. My buddy definitely enjoyed the ride. Says you had those lines down. That motor sounded tough.

I like that you drove your ride down from your hometown. Just don't know how you did it in that fixed seat. Ouch. I'd be cramped up after about an hour. I guess it goes to show the trust and reliability on the LS motors.

Ultimately that is exactly what I would depict pro touring is. Drive your car to the race track, enjoy a day seeing what it can do, and drive it home.
I was equally surprised that a local team member trailered in his car.. 427 Chevelle.. I wont name any names (Jessie). :poke: and he only lived like 40 minutes away. lol.... this is a daily driver.
So Kudos to you Chad for that adventure. :D



http://i477.photobucket.com/albums/r..._23_43_Pro.jpg


http://i477.photobucket.com/albums/r..._19_12_Pro.jpg

Mary Pozzi posted a bunch of great pictures from the weekend in an album on facebook in case any of you that were there are interested in getting some pics of your car on track.

If you don't have a facebook, well...maybe she'll post them somewhere else for you. :D Looks like a lot of fun was had by all, would love to drive on that famous track someday myself.

I thought I saw Mary sneaking around in some white, non-descript vehicle . . . I hope she got pics of the "Stick, you Bitch" stickers presented side by side on a certain yellow Mustang and a red Camaro.

Big props to Chad for actually living out the whole pro-touring movement--he has proven to be a cool guy in person. That car(maro) sounded killer headed up the hill toward turn 6/7!

Props to Greg for braving the weather in his rig--as usual, the giant trailer provided a perfect magnet for all of us to hang and go car-tarded for a couple hours.

Thanks for the encouraging comments everyone. Here is my event recap.

As already mentioned the car really lived up to the Protouring dream this past week. I planned to be in the bay area for Thanksgiving already when I originally saw this post by Greg back in September. A quick look up on google maps showed that Laguna Seca was just over 80 miles from my Grandma's house so it became game on! I signed up comforted that I could cancel my attendance right up to the 20th and still get a full refund as I was worried about getting rained out. I will put my car though a lot of different abuse and risk but having been on track during the rain its above my own comfort level.

Using my Grandma's house as a base of operations I put 1,039 miles on the Camaro between Wednesday night and Sunday while knocking down about 18mpg. Wednesday night was a midnight run up the state, while Sunday was lots of stop and go driving. Through all of this and getting flogged pretty hard on the track the only tool I pulled out on the trip was a tire pressure gauge. Winning!

Some of my favorite pics from the event.
http://i1380.photobucket.com/albums/...ps1vi0ugs5.jpg

http://i1380.photobucket.com/albums/...psdemsqfbn.jpg

http://i1380.photobucket.com/albums/...psmtfzc7ri.jpg

http://i1380.photobucket.com/albums/...pswdhx1lco.jpg

Lots of good pictures of the variety of cars on the Shelby Club's facebook page here too: https://www.facebook.com/NorCalSAAC/...12315592203978 including an original GT350 used at the Shelby School back in the day.

This is the second Shelby Club event I've attended and its the only track day events I've been to outside of the RTTC and Optima events that draw a large attendance of classic muscle. Lots and lots of mustangs (old and new), cobras and even a Daytona coupe!

It was a super cold day (morning temps in the low 30's) and I was inititally really worried about tire temps but after my first session I got comfortable with the level of grip available. I think street tires like the Falkens were a little less susceptible to the super cold temps than all the race oriented slicks I saw in the paddock.

The Shelby club has a strict no lap time policy so I didn't push myself as hard as I might have if I knew every lap time but I still pushed pretty good and had a lot of fun. After coming home and reviewing the data and video I saw a number of places I left a lot of time on the table. As it was, without a roll bar I was limited to the intermediate group and was quite a bit faster than most of the folks in my run group.

Here is video of my shortest session (the longer ones are giving me editing trouble). Lots of passing, especially the second half of the video.



It was great meeting up with everyone from the forums and bench racing and getting some driving tips. Best "Black Friday" I've ever had!

Very nice!!! Man i wish i was there!! That trac is on my bucket list for sure...great watchin you tear it up!!!

Did you go home 101 or 5?

Sure missed a great event, too bad oldest child picked that day to get engaged, but hey, family first....excuses excuses....:BlahBlah:

ha ha ha, well as excuses go that is a pretty good one!

I left from Sunnyvale yesterday and went home on 5. It sucked because of stop and go traffic though it could of been worse.

Laguna Seca is a great track! So fun!

Since I was headed to Roseville to drop the Mustang at BMR Racing on Monday morning - I had to leave Sunday afternoon to be there bright and early.... Took me 2 hours to go from Laguna Seca to The Garlic Farm fuel stop... That's 39 MILES..... What should have been about a 3 1/2 hour drive took almost 6.


The good news? I dropped the car off and the motor went to Borello's shop that afternoon. Freshen it and the Jerico and clutch etc....

chad awesome video and pictures thanks for sharing! What did you use to capture the video?

Ugh traffic sucks. I had a section like that were it took a little over an hour to go 20 miles.

The video is from two gopro cameras. The data (speed, g forces, track map) is from my phone with external GPS using the app Harry's Lap Timer.

I started off watching Chad's video on my laptop and knew right away that I needed to switch to my desktop with the bigger screen and more importantly better speakers.

Looks like to me Chad's Camaro was handling the track very well, very balanced, no real issues anywhere, just out there making laps and having fun. That looks like a perfect track day to me, straights in the 110 mph range, mostly 50-60 mph corners, forgiving for the most part, a few challenging spots to try to hone one's craft at...heck yeah! Driving there and driving home were just icing on the cake (besides the traffic).