Auto Club Roval (Fontana, CA) this weekend, anyone going?
 

I signed up for Sunday to run the Roval for the first time. Extreme speed track events is the organizer. Probably the cheapest price to run the Auto Club Roval you will find and with the low number of cars currently signed up I'm guessing there will be lots and lots of clean track time.

Oh and while looking up track videos of the Roval I came across this hilarious video. You are welcome.

Sounds fun Chad but we're already signed up for Chuckwalla this weekend

Nice. I was very tempted to sign up for Chuckwalla but the price and distance for Fontana was too good to pass up. Hit me up the next time you are planning to run Chuckwalla. Do you camp or stay in a hotel?

That vid was hilarious Chadski. Fontana is a GREAT track and you will love it!

I'll seeya both out there next year. :cheers:

Looking forward to it Ron. No tempting you out this weekend eh?

Oh I'm tempted Chad...but heading up North on Friday :headspin:

Will do. We just camp out in the paddock. Closest hotel is 50 or 80 miles away.

Here is my quick after action report:

Whew!!! What a great day! Its been a while since I've had this much fun. Its been a while since I've been this nervous/scared out of mind ha ha. The Auto Club Sports Car course (aka Roval) is one intense track!

I ended up being the only Pro-touring / classic muscle at the track today. Its a bummer no other PT cars showed but it was kind of neat being the sole outlier too. I did see Jake running his daily driver Mustang in the time attack competition. Good stuff.

This was a real test for me and the car as this is the first track day I've done since getting the TCI Engineering subframe and torque arm installed along with the 427" LS3 motor. After many setbacks it was awesome to have a 99.9% trouble free day. I only had two gremlins. 1) My license plate didn't like 150mph and was hanging by one bolt after the 1st session. 2) My ignition relay melted down after the first session (not sure what to make of that yet). Otherwise the coolant temps were 195-200 the whole time and oil temps hovered a hair under 250*

By the numbers:
- 33 Laps driven
- 25 timed
- Over 1 hour of seat time (left early too)
- 6.6mpg on track
- Over 100 miles driven on track
- Fastest lap time 1:59 (ran at least one 1:59 lap in every session so at least I was consistent).
- Highest top speed 151mph

I didn't push the car nearly as hard on the brakes and corners as its capable of but the Auto Club is so damn fast I wanted to still drive home. Yeah I didn't trailer the car!

Here is some data from my fastest lap:
https://scontent-b-lax.xx.fbcdn.net/...49&oe=551A30C7

And a video of my highest top speed and some passes.


Overall the car felt great and though I had some pretty conservative brake zones and g's in the corners I was far from the edge. Its so much more fun to drive a balanced car than my old push monster!

I might do some more video and pics but for now I'm off to bed!

Awesome Chad. Love that track! :thumbsup:

Auto club
 

Chad
Looks like fun
Is there a schedule for these events
for next year. Would be interested
in bringing the Pantera or bird for a spin

What camera system are you using ??
I think Santa wants to get one for me

Thanks for the posting

It was fun!

The two main track day organizers that operate primarily in SoCal that I know of are Speed Ventures and Extreme Speed Track Events. I'm on the mailing list for both and get frequent announcements for upcoming dates. You can also check out their websites.

NorCal racing club (ncracing.org) as the name suggests is mostly a norcal focused group but they run Buttonwillow one or two times a year.

On top of that various other clubs will run an occasional event (Shelby, BMW, Porsche, etc.) and usually let other makes run if they don't get enough of a turn out.

The forward looking video and data are from my Iphone using Harry's Lap Timer and the cockpit view is from my GoPro. I had to merge the two manually using a video editor but if you have one of the newer wifi gopro's the Harry's Lap Timer can communicate with it and control both and do the picture and picture right there on your phone. Helps to have a phone with a big hard drive though.

My car has a good amount of vibration which messes with the phone's picture quality more than my gopro. In smoother cars the phone footage looks just as good as a gopro. I also shoot in 720 on my phone due to limited storage capacity.

Good stuff!! Where's the rest of your safety gear?? :rules:

Yes I need and want some. Suffering a bit of analysis paralysis on what to do about a roll bar. Trying to figure out if I should get a known PT shop to install a prebuilt one or try and find a race shop to do a custom set up.

Plan is for a 6 point so a roll bar with door bars as I don't want to go full cage. Once I figure that out the roll bar set up and shop I use then I can order up a fixed back seat so we can mock everything up properly.

I'm open to suggestions...

Man it looks like your car is fairly dialed in and you got that Harry's lap timer thing working nicely.

Nice laps, Chad. Your car sounds awesome.

That's always a tough one Chad... :confused18:

I think that's the right call based on what you say you want to continue to do with the car.

Cool vid... that's a nice track. good run.

What vido editor do you use?

Vid with the girlfriend is hilarious.! :tv_happy:

Can't wait to be on that track..

Thanks Efrain. Harry's Lap Timer has always worked well for me on the road course. Autocross not so much... Its funny because I didn't make any changes to the car from the Hotchkis autocross. I was having too much fun driving and really only messed with tire pressures.

Thanks! My car got to participate in the Super Chevy Handling Challenge a few months back and getting to hear my car as a spectator roaring down the straight of Streets of Willow was the highlight of the experience for me!

You are telling me. Analysis paralysis for sure. Might ask Ron Sutton for a recommendation.

It was fun for sure. Regarding the video editor, everything except the picture in picture view, is/can be done with my Iphone. It recorded the forward video and the speed, track position and g forces using an app called Harry's Lap Timer and an external more accurate GPS sensor. I used VSDC to add the two starting pictures and the picture in picture view of the cockpit. It was my first time using it and it wasn't too tough to figure out but I don't know why the quality of the video was reduced and why the forward facing video size was reduced.

Auto Club
 

Chad thanks for the info
My Viper buddy said he used his Iphone
with an app... will look into it
I have an Autopower half cage for my bird.. bolts in
with a cross bar, dia bar, two bars back... was
going to add low door bars in front.. was roughly $700

Panteracer