Historically I've kept my Z as a second car/weekend driver and haven't really pushed it too much. Because it has about 115K miles on it with original turbos I've been content with spirited driving and not getting too crazy. However, the last couple of years we've raced a 2000 Crown Vic with a 5 speed in the Lemons races which made me curious how much better/faster the Z would be on the same track. Back in June I participated in HPDE at Sonoma and was forced into group 1 (read: parade laps) so they could make sure I wouldn't put it into the wall on the first lap. They graduated me to 2 by the end of the day and cleared me to participate in 3 the next time out...which was this last weekend. It was nice to get the car up to speed and press it a bit and I managed a 2:06 while driving pretty conservatively. Toward the end I was starting to get smoke out of the driver turbo and ended up with the meatball flag because they thought I was dumping oil. Final session I shifted up to fourth more which hurt lap times but I didn't see any oil smoke...guess I can save up a bit more before the turbo/mani/intercooler/exhaust/etc engine-pull-upgrade.
I'm confident with a little cleaner line and pushing I could break 2:00 but I'm happy with the experience for now. Link to fast lap here: ZOOM.
Follow Ups
HPDE 3 at Sonoma on 9.26.2015 - CameronSF17:06:10 09/29/15
