SoCal-SERCA at Streets of Willow Springs #3 12/6/03 recap
I'd first like to thank all of those in attendance for making it another successful, safe (98% ;^p) & fun event, & for supporting SoCal-SERCA so that we can continue to hold track days. Next, I want to sincerely thank all of the advanced drivers for volunteering to instruct the newbies, & specifically Mike Kojima & Rob Cadle for assisting in the AM drivers meeting as always. As Sheening says, it's getting back together with dear friends & socializing that makes these things special, well, that & more track time than most know what to do with. To give you an example, the track was hot by 9AM, done (due to daylight ending) by 4PM, & had 5 sessions at ~20 each for all 3 groups. Had it been Oct., it would have been 6 sessions.
I want to just let everyone know I spoke with the track office Sat., & we will be welcomed back, rest assured (I will touch on this later). We were even given notice that a weekend in Aug (HOT!!!!!) opened up, & that we'd have 1st shot at it. The problem here is 2 fold though, the heat & the expense vs. keeping the cost down for SERCA. It's almost impossible to book a *full* w/e, & the club would lose money.
The w/e started off for me Thurs at 1PM, met Greg V for lunch here in Glendora right after work & then headed home & hung out. Sarah Forst & David Evans (b15sentra.net owner from PA) stopped by to have dinner before heading up & Martin arrived a couple hours later. We went to Outback & met up w/ Boonie, and Dave Allen arrived later on. The WAR even joined us! ;^) Kieran Lavin & Ray Kawski, of the northeast SERCA fame, arrived later that night after the oil filter removal party at Kojima's. We chatted for a while then it was off to bed b/c we had to be in 5 hours! Woke up to a gorgeous day, made good time up (towing) &
according to the 350's thermometer it was 29 at the track right at 7AM.
We had a total of 49 drivers out there, 20 beginner, 16 int. & 13
advanced, & there were the usual 20 or so variants of SR20s, Jude Dahi's blue Spec-V, a couple of 350 -Z-s WRXs, 3 Hybrid Civics, a 240SX DET, even a Skyline in the beginner group. There were the additional spectators, even Jorge Peters brought the family up including his mom (very nice lady btw JP!) in her RV!! She said she'd never been out to a track to watch, & said she was having a blast just seeing how happy everyone was. She's also very happy that Jorge is a part of "Such a great group of young people, and not street racing anymore." AMEN to
that! ;^)
I decided not to take my newly purchased, daily-driver stocker '92 SE-R out & not risk the wrath of the WAR if something were to happen to it. So I rode up w/ Greg in the Mossy parts Frontier crew cab w/ his SE-R in tow. I had offers to drive other cars, thank you all, but I just didn't feel well enough to drive in the AM. So I was just keeping an ear on the radio, making group run announcements & keeping an eye on the track, particularly that entry off the back straight into the chicane. We ran the full course w/ the back bowl turn & straight, into the skidpad.
It was around 11:30, & the 2nd session of the advanced group was about to end, so we could squeeze in another session for the beginners in group #1. So we did & all was going smoothly, when the inevitable happened, our first major incident & contact between 2 cars. Things went well, up until that moment. It was a 1st timer out there in front, Annie Sam, driving her Civic Hybrid coupe, and an advanced driver (Cookie) in a newbie's (Brian Hills) car, with a passenger (Kent Hills). Coming down the chicane into the 90* left hander just before the skidpad, he was following too closely & when she lost it, he let off spun passenger side out & bam. So both cars had almost identical damage to opposite sides of the car, hers on the left rear corner, and his on the right rear. Things were kind of hectic right after it occurred, with emotions high, understandably. I know Cookie felt terribly and apologized to Annie & Charles "DET-B12" Johnson (her b/f), as well as
the Hills for bending their ride.
After a stern mandatory drivers meeting just before lunch, where we asked everyone to dial it back a notch, things went fine. We had to actually give the official ASSCLOWN hat (dunce cap out of paper I made) to none other than Kojimasan, for spinning off-road & getting a black flag! After this meeting we had the inaugural season's SE-R Cup (SoCal-SERCA sponsored) trophy ceremony. We had a special plaque made up (great idea Naji, not only for this but the whole thing!) for rookie series director Slim Jim Howard too. The trophies are very nice quality, and all the drivers, not just the winners, should be congratulated!
After sticking around only to be stood up by Road & Track, bwah, I ate some lunch (thanks fellas!). I eventually went out in the intermediate group #2 in Mike FHR Whittaker's classic. Martin, Greg Vogel & I were sticking together pretty good, until I let them both by & Greg walked away from us in the 156.8 WHP N/A beast of his. Then Martin & I went at it w/ James Stanley in his GSR, oh what fun! Your car feels great Whitt, thanks; I owe you a tall Foster's! I also got to drive Amber's Neo-VVL powered, power steering less NX, for oh about 3/4 of a lap. Man I definitely gotta start working out!! I nearly drove it off the bowl!
On the way down the 14 to Chili's in Palmdale, some monkey,
*cough*DA*cough*, had a loose battery connection & I swear you'd think there was a 10 car wreck as *everyone* decided to pull over to help/find out WTF was going on. "Man down, <siren>, man down!" Aaaah, the camaraderie!
We got to the restaurant, 45 min wait to get all 20+ of us seated together, & since the temps in the AV were starting to dip below 50 <gasp> we took over the bar, Mike K started to drink the blue stuff, & it was ON!!! I'd say the *shittttay* list went like this: 1)Mike, 2)Boonie, 3)Martin, 4)Ron, but thank gawd the sober ones outnumbered the lit, so we got everyone to bed safely.
I am sure there will be more to come as people chime in with their
stories but I especially wanna hear from the 1st timers on a track:
Tevs, Clay, Ray S., and Ron "Avocado".
If you missed this, you suck! But really, come on out next time & don't cheat yourself. The *2/7/03* is the Friday of the 1st NASA race w/e at Big Willow, so it ought to be one hella big partay!
Streets pics!
SoCal-SERCA at Streets of Willow #4
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