Texas World Speedway April 21-22, 2001

Now that his engine is all put back together, Brent is getting pretty serious about this track thing. Here he is first thing Saturday morning showing off his new racing suit.
 
 

S.L.'s new blue 2000 that Bill & Jackie drove all the way from Seattle hits the track for the first time.
 

Vaughn and Marc holding off the Z06 in the carosuel
 
 
 
 

Exiting the Carosuel
 

Brake Rotor Temperature Project!

Marc bought this nifty non-contact thermometer! It looks like a star trek phaser, and shoots a laser beam at any surface, and instantly reads back the surface temperature of whatever the laser is pointing at! We initially used it to test tire temps across the width of the tire to see if we were over or underinflated, but got mixed results using it there. It soon became apparent that while all the NSX'ers at the track had stock brakes, there were all sorts of different combinations of dead bone stock, stock but with the splash guards removed, air deflectors, brake ducting, and every possible combination thereof. There has been a lot of talk about the performance benefits of doing these types of brake modifications versus going out and buying an aftermarket brake setup such as the Brembo or Tar-Ox kit. Nobody this weekend experienced any brake fade. While our tests were far from scientific, (everyone has different driving styles, and there was a cool-down lap before coming back to the pits) we figured that this comparison could provide some real-world data and an insight into the benefits of modifying the stock NSX brake system.

Note: Left and right rotor temps were averaged.

Another action shot
 
 
 

Vaughn's Hard Luck Weekend
Vaughn had a "small off" on Saturday where he went off in turn 1 at about 120 MPH. Oops! If you know TWS, you know that turn 1 is the highest speed corner of the entire track, because it's right after the big straightaway! Ouch!!

Luckily, there was not really any damage. It looked bad, but once we hosed off everything at the coin-op carwash, everything looked fine.

Since Vaughn spun off the track, he gets a "Taz the Tasmainan Devil" sticker from S.L. for his helmet. He joins very good company! :)

Vaughn's bad luck did not end there! On Sunday, he blew a coolant hose on the track on turn 2 (also a high-speed turn!) Luckly, no loss of control resulted, but Vaughn had to get flatbedded back to the paddocks.

The flatbed is usually reserved for those less-fortunate track-heads who total their cars.

The "blown water hose" is a known issue with the NSX at the track, especially when the hose in question is 10 years old! Because of this, Vaughn just happened to have a hose in his toolkit to replace it with! Incredible luck!

In fact, Brent also experienced a coolant leak and had to get towed back to the pits as well. Here we were, two NSX'es that both dumped coolant on the track. Needless to say, we weren't too popular! ;)  Rumors spread through the pits that both NSX'es had blown engines! Brent only had a small water hose come off his fast idle control module, but he only discovered it after ripping half his cooling system apart! We fixed both cars, sent for more water, and were back on the track in record time!

By Sunday afternoon, everyone was pretty exhausted! Here's Janet and Brent relaxing in the pits.
 

All and all, it was a great weekend! Marc ran his personal best time ever of 2:03 on the full 2.9 mile course. There were a few 2:06's and 2:07's!