If you are interested in taking your Z out onto the Fastest Track in the West? come on out to Willow Springs International Raceway on May 11 in Palmdale, California. Sign ups and other info is found here.

http://www.opentrackracing.com/

$145.00 gets you a morning drivers meeting & instruction, [5] 1/2 hour sessions for each run group (beginner, intermediate, advance), BBQ lunch and a T-shirt. If you are interested check it out or give me PM if you have questions. Caution: this kind of fun is addicting!

Craig & Cindy.

Craig,

Thanks for the heads up! I'm looking into it. Wensday the 11th of May. All I'm lacking is a helmet. Would be a perfect opportunity to feel her (Z) out and discover the limits of my car and of course me as well. I would be running street tires (Yokohama ES100's).

Perhaps you could ask around to barrow a helmet, even a motorcycle hemet would get you in. They don't demand one, but if you do buy one, the SA2000 certified hemets are they rating that you would want for automobiles, and this the latest rating update. Long sleeve T-shirt, pants and closed toe shoes will be fine. We do the whole suit thing but that is because we are little more serious than just a one time deal. There are other organizations we play with that require the complete safety wear. This group is not fender to fender racing, only passing in the straights, but the Red (fast) group has alittle more freedom.

If you go, you won't regret the time & money spent. It is just plain awesome, and by the end of the day you will be drained! We often skip a session so not do over drive our limits and we put double time on the car with 2 drivers.

Street tires are fine, you will hear and feel their limits better than race tires 1st time out. There will be instructors doing lead follow slowly for the 1st session then later on you can have them go out with you and ride as passenger in some of the faster cars. Mrs. Chino-Cindy is doing just that next time with an instructor to picking up some new secrets to kick my butt!

You will have a new respect for driving on the streets after you do an event such as this, I did, I slowed down on the streets.

I'm mailing in my payment for the 2 of us. Weather should be good, and you're welcome to hang out with us for some extra help around the place.

Craig

Yeah, Track days are the best. My two experience were at Las Vegas Motor Speedway in 2000 for the National Z car Convention and secondly at Laguna Seca.

In Vegas it was blistering hot, 95 degreees F outside, and after a 1/2 dozen laps, I lossed by front brakes with a Porsche Boxter S breathing down my neck. I was having a great time holding him off to. Later on he mentioned that I was hard to catch. So, make sure your brakes are in great shape. I think only vented rotors with forced cooling would have helped me on a day like that!.

When I was at Laguna Seca, my car was flagged down for being too loud and I didn't get my timed Solo 1 run in, so make sure where you are going there are no tight sound restrictions.

Yeah, you can have some great time, just make sure your car is ready for it, otherwise it will ruin your day.!

You betcha Byunique, you can sit back a replay your hot lapping over and over again anytime you like! Good Z memories.

There is a self inspection check list posted on their site that you go over your car with sign and send in with your registration. But yes, your car should be in good working order anyways. Even though this is a very fast track, braking here is not that bad and not as extreme as other tracks. You will find that by the end of the day you will be doing less and less braking as you get acustom or use to the track.

No one has ever talked about sound restriction at WSIR yet. Our exhaust is one of the louder cars and we do just fine there. There are some pretty loud monster V8s that show up to run with no problems so far (knock on wood). Laguna is known for shutting down loud cars, that's too bad. I know I would have to put on the baffle to visit Laguna, even then ours might be too loud.

Don't know if this will download for some slower dial-ups, but some guys that went to the March 16th event at WSIR made a funny video with the Top Gun theme. No Zs in it but gives you an idea of the fun. Hope this works,

http://www.pricerev.com/ts-movie.wmv

Craig, Thanks for all the encouragement and advice! It would definitely be a real hoot. I used to hold a racing licsence (motorcycles), did club racing for a number of years and have turned many laps at Willow, so at least I wouldn't have to spend a ton of focus on learning a new track, although I'm sure the lines will be different in a Z car. Man, now you got me all worked up....we'll see if I can swing it this time. And thanks for the offer to hang out. Talk at you later Craig.

Don't know if this will download for some slower dial-ups, but some guys that went to the March 16th event at WSIR made a funny video with the Top Gun theme. No Zs in it but gives you an idea of the fun. Hope this works,

http://www.pricerev.com/ts-movie.wmv

Took a long time to D/L on a Dial up. 34.5 Megs.

Pretty cool video though. Only a little corny, but good editting and overall I'd give it a high 7 or an 8 out of 10.

Thanks