Terrific day at the track! one of those days that makes me really love this Z! For starters, I was able to shave ~4 seconds off my time at Chuckwalla Valley Raceway. Dropped from 2:03 to 1:59 and change, finally breaking the 2 min barrier!
I believe the course record for a production car is held by a new Z06 w/ slicks is 1:53.xx. My 1:59 was on NT01s, so I think it is feasible that I could close that gap with the right setup. How sweet would that be for a 370z to own a track record?! Slicks should be worth 3-4 seconds, then perhaps 1 second in weight and 1 sec in balls!...
As a bonus, there were some really cool cars at the track... I got to pass a fleet of mustang challenge racecars... credit to the drivers, they were on street tires, so must have been frustrating to have me buzzing around them... a couple of them wanted my group to hang out until the next day when their Porsche cup cars would show up so they'd have a better shot at us... I also go to drive with and overtake the new Ferrari 458 Italia and a Lotus two-eleven. Yes, I realize this is useless without video! Sorry!!! My traqmate is at the factory being repaired... I'll post some pictures up later once they are processed by
CaliPhotography.
Got lots of compliments on the new Stillen fascia. Some folks recognized it by name - so clearly Josh your magazine ads and what-not are making an impression. I'm very happy with it overall. Pros: the front hangs just a bit higher than OEM which leaves more clearance for my splitter, creates a lot more room for cooling components - helpful even for NA cars, perfect setup to create brake duct cooling, looks great... The only con is that it weighs ~4-6 pounds more than OEM, but I would recommend regardless
The rear diffuser is now powder coated black and I trimmed down the vertical fins to a rounded 5" max... before they extended as much as 7.5" It now looks much more integrated on the car...
I have to say that lowering this car works wonders on a fast track. I am now dropped about as low as you'd ever want to go and will prob bring it back up 1/4" in rear, but it has definitely helped with carrying speed through corners and corner exit speed
Next up... a shop I trust has agreed to go on the hunt for the next 100 pounds! that would be so sweet! we have some ideas on where to get it - I'll be reporting back on that soon... will be gutting the hood / latches and replacing headlights with blanks, for example... all NVH stuff is going to be nix'ed
The AP Racing brakes are still great... and the new pads are fantastic... but I'm not getting the most out of them for two reasons... 1) my ABS is disabled right now, which given my improvement in time maybe I should keep it this way??? 2) one of the front rotors is severely warped and when I brake there is a major shimmy through the steering wheel... going to need a new set of front rotors... Josh!!!!???
Also, given the planned weight reduction, I am very tempted to get some Hoosier 80s and run my next PIR event in NASA TTS trim... goal would be to get into the 1:05s... we'll see!
For those that want to learn more about this great track...
CVR is the first new California road course since 1961. Designed as a private club (think Spring Mountain Motorsports Ranch), and situated on 1,100 fenced-in acres, the final build-out will include 2 additional tracks, a clubhouse, pool, lots of garages, viewing stands, RV parking and every other amenity a private club should have. But all that fancy stuff is still in the minds of the builders. At the moment, all you’ll find when you drive through the front gate is an open paddock area, the foundation for a fuel farm (diesel, unleaded & race fuels, to be up and flowing in 2 weeks), hot pit and a 2.7 mile ribbon of perfect, black asphalt. The track surface is a marvel of modern engineering, 40 feet wide and absolutely seamless. It was graded and compacted and constructed of materials meeting or exceeding FAA runway standards. The entire 2.7 miles was laid and rolled in one day by 3 machines running abreast. Hence, no seams. Boasting safe operations in either direction, the track has 4 decent straights, 17 turns, lovely curb rolls, a few elevation changes, and abundant safe run-off areas when things get hairy. The track is not super fast, but it is technical enough to keep things interesting. Running clockwise and coming out of a 1000 foot straight, Turns 8-9-10 are tricky/technical, with a blind, uphill late apex off-camber turn that quickly captures a driver’s attention and demands precision if he wants to a) stay on the course; and b) fully exploit the track’s longest (at 1330 feet) straight that immediately follows. Turn 13 is a 10 degree banked bowl with a radius much more generous than Buttonwillow’s, and is a good test of car and driver as you set up for a few finishing high-speed turns and your run to the front straight. (I can’t wait to someday read Billy Johnson’s “driver’s notes” on this track. Cricket would be very happy here.) CVR President and Co-Founder, Mickey Grana, claims the track record (1:53:xxx) in his banana yellow Z06. But the track is still brand spanking new, so I have no doubt his record will fall before too long. CVR is located outside Desert Center, the approximate geographic epicenter between L.A. and Phoenix west and east, and Las Vegas and San Diego north and south. I’d be lying if I said Desert Center was anything other than a ghost town. During WWII, General Patton trained his troops here in anticipation of the invasion of North Africa, and I suspect the place has been going downhill ever since the last tank departed. But if CVR’s build-out proceeds according to project projections, Desert Center could well rise from the ashes and become a destination resort location. Well, maybe not “resort,” but at least decent enough to spend a comfortable racing weekend.