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Laguna Seca track report
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Posted by damien [Email] (more from damien) on Tue, 12 Feb 2002 21:25:28 Share Post by Email
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I spent yesterday at the track for a Toyota MR2 track day...sorry no Saabs but I figured you performance geeks could handle this. My SPG is not together and my SE is not what I would consider track-worthy until I can beef up the brakes.

I co-drove my buddy's 1990 Toyota Celica All-Trac. These are really cool cars, 2.0 Turbo 16V, 200hp stock, and of course AWD. I know a lot of Saab owners cry about not having AWD, but personally I don't think it adds that much. This particular car has a new turbo w/ bigger compressor wheel, ported head, modified ECU, 15psi boost, big exhaust, a nice handling package, wheels, and it still feels like a tank - partly because it is a heavy GT cruiser, partly because of the AWD system.

So we ran through a lot of brakes. Toasted the existing set of MetalMasters in the first 2 sessions. Put on a new set of stock Toyota pads, those were down to nothing in 1 session. Went to Kragen at lunch and got some Raybestos red pads, with metal in them, those lasted the rest of the afternoon, but were basically gone at the end.

Most of the time the brake pedal was at/near the floor, which is not exactly confidence-inspiring. It also made blipping the throttle near impossible, because if you keep your foot evenly placed over the brake and throttle (like I do in the SPG) the brake sinks down so far that you redline the motor -- whoops, that only happened once, I swear.

As you can imagine, trying to hustle this heavy-ass car that has almost no brakes without the ability to do nice downshifts, combined w/ strong oversteer in braking/decel and strong understeer when on power was quite a challenge! And it was my first time at Laguna Seca! Yee-haw!

Mazda Miata Turbo 2001: I rode as a passenger in this Miata w/ a turbo kit (T-25 from Flyin'Miata I think). On the streets he runs 14psi and 220 at the wheels. For the track he turned it down to 7psi to protect it. Kumho race tires and Wilwood brakes in front too. The power was smooth and impressive, the handling superb. I really liked that car.

BMW M3 2002: I rode in this car too - it was 7 days old, stock, and had the fancy F1-style paddle shifters. Absolutely badass. Just as fast (or faster) that the Celica or Miata, and sooooo smooooooth it was unreal. Unfortunately for the owner, during the session after I rode with him, he parked it into the wall on the inside of Turn 4!! The front end was demolished pretty good, airbags out, etc.

Ford SVT Lighting: While I'm telling crash stories, the other wreck of the day was a track-prepped silver Lighting. It had a race seat, race wheels + tires, huge brembo brakes, lowered, etc. This guy was catching and passing the new-style corvettes! He overpowered coming out of Turn 2 and wrecked on the inside concrete wall. Ouch.

Now, I cannot wait to get my SPG down there. The track and facilities are very impressive, and the corkscrew - well, let's just say GT3 doesn't do it justice. Back to the garage!

posted by 63.207.93...
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