Thunderhill Raceway Park – 2:11

Round number 2 with Thunderhill proved to be much more rewarding. After a slow session with B group I got signed off to move up to C group and had a lot less traffic to contend with. C group was notably faster and had 40% fewer cars so it made for numerous unobstructed laps. Towards the end of the day I felt like I was the only one on the course, as seen by the video below.

In contrast to June, it was hot. 100 degree air temperature made for sky rocketing oil temperatures and I hit 300 degrees in several sessions and had to back off a bit. Needless to say I quickly changed oil after pushing the Mobil 1 to it’s limits that day. The remainder of this year’s race budget has gone to the purchase of a high performance radiator with built in engine oil cooler. Somehow I think it’ll be more useful once it’s out of the box in my trunk.

No fires this time, but an unlucky Lotus Elise caught a tire on the edge of the track coming into the pits and spun headfirst into the concrete barrier. The driver wasn’t injured thankfully, but the Elise has likely moved on to the afterlife.

I’m still fuzzy on a few of the best shift points throughout the course, that and the heat are were my biggest limiting factors. A 2:11.70 was my best effort for the day, a 6 second improvement over last time. I can see shaving off another 3-5 seconds after another day here and with better temperature maintenance.