DTVideo: Mazda Friends & Family Weekend at Laguna Seca
Continuing our theme of videos on Sunday, check out the first “officially official” DT video! Last weekend, I (CFlo) and my wife had the opportunity to join in the Mazda Friends & Family trackday weekend at Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca. I took some helmet cam video with my genuine SJCAM SJ4000 (accept no substitutes!) and put together a highlight reel of sorts. The car is our 1993 Mazda Miata project car, and the full writeup of the trackday prep and roll bar install will follow shortly.
Until then, enjoy!
CFlo is Daily Turismo’s co-founder and Technical Editor. When he’s not driving an “emissions spewing” TDI he’s underneath a Volvo, on top of a Land Cruiser, cursing at a broken BMW, or driving the piss out of a crapcan race car. And that’s all before 10AM.
#trackdaybro :-p
It's kinda funny how slow you look since seemingly everybody else has at least double your horsepower. It would scare me to have that many people passing me that late in all the straights (many on what I'd assume are the preferred line). Particularly coming into the corkscrew.
How do the StopTech pads hold up? I'm still looking for a pad that holds up decently on the track that isn't awful on the street. Might be easier to find if I had a lightweight track car instead of a ~300 horse ~3300# BMW.
I need to work on my braking and turn-in points to take a few more seconds out of my laps, but on the straights – you're right – there's nothing to do but let everyone pass. Doesn't scare me if they pass late, since I've driven in many 24 Hours of LeMons races and that happens all the time. I used to be the one doing it so now I know how it feels from the other car. In the video, I was usually on the line and the faster cars were passing me off-line. That's the standard way that most trackday run groups will tell you to work it out.
The StopTech pads are great so far for this car. I got them on recommendation from Dave, Dan, and the Eyesores team because they use these on their ~200hp Miata in endurance racing, and the pads last for a few races. Not sure how they would do on the BMW you describe but we might try them out on our E36 too.
I just hate watching people dive in late to get past somebody. I've seen too many races where the guy on the outside fares a lot worse than the idiot on the inside. I've got a rule: Never pass an American car on the outside.
Good to hear those pads work for you. The prospect of saving over a hundred bucks an axle on brake pads is highly enticing. I just ordered a couple sets of Carbotechs last night, though. Oh well, gotta pay to play.
That looked like so much fun!
It was! And the goal of having a headache free track ready NA has been 95% achieved. Standard Miata problems keep it from being 100% – flaky clutch hydraulics and a cumulative oil leak from the cam angle sensor o-ring.
The thing was perfectly reliable for 2 days of flogging around a race track but the battery has gone stone cold dead today in my work parking lot. Of course!
Thanks for taking us with you!
Next time we do a semi-local trackday, you can literally go along with us in the passenger's seat!
Very fun to watch. I suspect you've got a 'thing' for Turn 8, huh? : )
The cool part is that as a Canadian, I had no clue where Laguna Seca was until we were driving our motorhome past the highway turnoff. I did a double take and turned around and since we were looking for a camping spot for the night, we parked the ol' RV at the trackside RV grounds. It was also a Mazda weekend and we watched a few cars taking laps and a couple of butt-clenching spinout that resulted in no damage – other than a heart attack I'm sure.
Anyway, going back with a real car instead of a 20 ton bus is now on the bucket list. You lucky dogs with your great tracks next door!