[dalyduo]

The second round of F3 SimRaceway action happened this past weekend at Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca.

Weather was perfect with temps in the high 60's and low 70's all three days.

Skippy masters in attendance were John Schauerman, Doug Tuttle, Bill Shields, Quentin Wahl, Gus Doppes and Pat Daly. John Jastremski was scheduled to be there but work and family issues kept him home this weekend.

Gus Doppes and I went out to Kelly Jones RaceCraft1 simulator training and Jim Leo's PitFit for physical training.
Three days in the simulators and working out at PitFit put us in the right mental and physical state to race the F3 downforce cars.

The first session of all 3 days (Friday practice, Sat and Sun practice, qually and race) gave us a cool track with slippery damp spots under the bridge at turn 6 entry, the corkscrew and turn 9. I managed harmless but embarrassing spins both Sat and Sun coming down turn 9 on the 2nd lap each time. Doh! Impressive how twitchy these stiff F3 cars get in low grip situations. It certainly made an impression on me! :-)

Laguna is quite different from Sonoma in that the application of brakes is, for the most part, more nuanced than at Sonoma. You are brushing the brakes at turns 3, 6 and 10 using full grenade/trail at turn 2 and a very brief stab at turn 5. Approaching the corkscrew is also nowhere near maximum as the grip falls away over the top of the hill with very light trailing pressure over the crest.

The corkscrew, though famous, is nowhere near the toughest corner on the track. You want to carrying as much entry speed as you dare to plant you straight and with a solid landing over the precipice so full throttle down the hill is achieved as quickly as possible. It's a rhythm thing.

Braking in turn 2 defies your belief in what's possible. You take the car well past your brake point in a skippy car at a quantum leap higher speed and pound the pedal with as much initial pressure as you're capable of. The downforce and wheel rotational force is so high that you can't lock up the brakes for the first third of a second of application. But... As speed is quickly reduced so is downforce and the wheels quickly lock if you aren't bleeding pressure off quickly enough. When done right the car slows so fast it almost takes your breath away.

Turn 3 can be done in 3rd or 4th gear. 4th is easier and may be a tick faster but the turbo is spooling up fast so you have to use all the radius to manage the cars tendency to understeer.

Turn 4 is almost flat in 4th gear. You feel the downforce holding the car to the track even when the apex curbing upsets it slightly. The downforce increases with speed and the car sticks all the way to the exit curb. Using all the exit curbing to maximize radius you upshift to 5th and head to turn 5

Turn 5 is a late hard dash of the brakes just before turn in and downshift to 4th getting back to as much power as you dare carry to the track out curbing. You can either run 4th up to turn 6 or do an early upshift to 5th to appease the audio gods that sit in the little shack to the right of the track. There didn't seem to be much difference in time between using 4th or 5th but 5th made it easier to focus on hitting your marks at turn 6 and spooling up the turbo for the run up to the corkscrew.

Turn 7 is a short firm stab of the brakes and downshift 2 gears to 3rd as you crest the hill and trail the brakes very lightly into the corkscrew. You want the car straight down the hill so full power doesn't spin you out.

Turn 9 and 10 are hair raising downforce corners . The faster you go the more grip you get. Strength and courage are both tested as all four tires maintain a four wheel high G scrub/drift to track out. Your mind doesn't think its possible but the car will do it!. :-) After 9 you change direction, lift and/or brush the brakes and do it again in 10. With these cars the front wing will bottom out in the apex rumble strip but there is so much downforce grip you don't really need the apex rumbles to maximize the corner.

Turn 11 you stretch 4th gear and again do an initial grenade and quick trail of the brakes while dropping to 2nd gear for the launch out of 11.

Race 1 managed to qualify P3 and after going side by side with Dough Tuttle through turn 5 on the last lap held on to finish P3.

Race 2 qualified P5 and finished P4 behind a good last lap battle with P2 and P3

Best experience in a race car ever.

The downside was this was the first time SimRaceway had come to Laguna so they weren't on top of the sound restrictions. Some cars were brought into the pits regularly because of sound. My car never had a problem but some had major issues that should have been worked out ahead of time.

The other problem was a timing and scoring software glitch that made electronic scoring dysfunctional for Saturdays race day. We had no timing sheets and scoring was done the old fashioned way by hand in the tower. There was data in the cars so times and data were retrieved later but these were symptoms of taking this show on the road for the first time.

The mechanics, cars, instructors and administrators all worked hard to put on the best show possible and we all got out of the cars laughing and hugging each other.

Driving cars in this performance envelope is a special privilege. Having them so nicely prepared and maintained with full support of a disciplined crew and instructor staff was a professional grade treat the entire weekend. And the food was good and plentiful too! :-)

Hats off to SimRaceway group for putting on a great show. We'll do it again in February!