After 2 weeks of thrashing on the Camaro all night every night the car was ready for Thunder Hill. There were several projects I was working on just before this track day. Earlier this year I put a rear anti-roll bar in the Camaro and due to some abuse the plates and tabs I had welding into the floor ripped out. I ended up rebuilding the whole system (Camaro : Rear Anti-Roll Bar). I also installed spindle extenders to fix the geometry problems the early F-bodies had with camber curves. I ordered new wheels and tires for the car and this was my first event with them on. On top of this I had to get an alignment and find a trailer all down to the last min. But I will tell you what, this track day was worth twice the work I did.
    Wednesday afternoon we loaded the trailer and started our drive to Willows Ca at around 5:20PM. We had a smooth drive and stopped to eat at a great Dinner in Willows called The Black Bear. I had gone to Thunder Hill last month with Nicole and I learned a valuable lesson, it IS worth the extra money to stay at a nicer place. After great nights sleep in a really clean nice hotel (AmeriHost) we headed out to the track. I drove the Camaro from the hotel and Yves drove the truck behind me. I replaced my battery and did some little things here and there and got myself to tech. Tech went smoothly.
    My dad went to this event and it was really cool to see him in front of me or in my rear view mirror. My dad was driving a Caterham Super 7 and some of the other cars included new GTO, Evos, STIs, S2000, Jetta, Corvettes and I think there was a GTI or something in our group. My Camaro was once again the only “vintage” domestic out there. My first run I got passed my nearly all of these cars. I was taking it easy, I had 30miles on these new tires and wanted to make sure they would grip before I hammered on it too hard. As the laps went by I was getting passed less and less until I hardly ever even saw another car. There are just so many things to remember from this track day I decided to do a turn-by-turn analysis to try and get it all down.

ThunderHill Track Map

    Coming from around 115mph (lifting throttle for the last ¼ of the straight) you come into the highest lateral force level turn of the course. Later in the day when I was going faster and braking later it gave me the white knuckle feel big time. It makes you feel what its like to let the car pull you to the outside.

Turn 2
    The car really surprised me today. This is a long-ass U turn and every time I came into it I thought “is this car still really sticking?” I remember the probe in this turn and waiting for it to stop under-steering. I feel I could improve on this turn by getting more comfy with the idea of staying to the outside longer when I enter. The instructor I followed said that to me and I think he is right.

Turn 3
    This is by far the most uncomfortable turn for me. It is blind, down hill, off camber, and relatively sharp. I spooked myself by not breaking enough causing me to drag my brake a little over and down the hill and it the rear end slide out good foot. I learned not to have any weight on the brake pedal once I crest the hill so avoid doing that again

Turn 4
    Turn 4 was fairly easy and was more just a transition from 3 to 5.

Turn 5
   This is referred to often as the mini corkscrew. The biggest difference though is that this turn is off camber like turn 3.  For the first couple rounds I would brake during the uphill part of this turn and let off once I got to the top but Yves suggested I just lift earlier and not touch the brakes and this lead to a much smoother turn. Too bad we didn’t discover this earlier in the day because it helped a lot.

Turn 6 & 7
    Turn 6 is the entrance to a long stretch of straight flat that is interrupted by a slight kink they call Turn 7. I started the day with a conventional line for 6 but then realized if I turned in later I could get a straighter shot and get more speed. Soon after changing my line I realized I don’t need any more speed for the straight.

Turn 8
    This one is a great turn, it is FAST, and it’s the start of an uphill section. At first I was using the brake before this turn and gradually broke that braking habit and didn’t even touch them. I was surprised how fast that turn was by the end of the day.  

Turn 9
    My FAVORITE turn. I estimate by the time I get up the hill to turn 9 I’m going at least 70MPH.  I felt comfy using a lot of brake here and high with pretty hard from the beginning. It’s uphill and cambered the right way so there’s a pretty good amount of control. It is not impossible to loose that control however. The last run of my last session I came into this one a little hot and got the car perpendicular to the course at the apex of the turn. I proceeded to drive over the berm, scraping the underside of my car on the concrete, two wheels in the dirt turning back onto the track to see the next station waving the black flag at me. I pulled into the hot pits to get my punishment and was pleased to just get the ‘bad girlie!’ finger point.
    The black flag can come out for several things, mostly its when you do something wrong. I saw it was a totally positive experience. Getting off course was something that comes with speed and pushing your car. I know at least what it is like to loose control at high speed and how to get it back.

Turn 10
    After coming down the hill from turn 9 in 4^th gear I would downshift into 3^rd to be able to take this 90degree turn a little slower. The last time out Yves suggested I just brake before turn 10, leaving it in 4^th until I straighten out after the turn. It took me a couple laps to get the speed right in 4^th but it did prove to be an improvement.

Turn 11-13
    This is the dog leg or S section. I enjoyed this spot a bunch and didn’t change anything about how I was driving it all day. There is a yellow section  on the inside of turn 12 that is about a car width deep that you can use to create a straighter shot into the straight ahead.

Turn 14 & 15
    I have heard this is the most mentally challenging part of the course. At the entrance there is an 80-30mph braking followed by a flat set of turns. The fastest way I saw to go was turn early, hit the inside of turn 14 then let yourself pull to the outside and just ride it to the outside of the start of 15. I was slow enough though this turn that the fastest line wasn’t that important.