Test & Tune @Fernley Road course
 

On Tuesday I along with Jim Gandy and Eric Gangloff of Reno SCCA had the lucky pleasure of running Jim's RX-7 at the Fernley track's road course for an afternoon of test & tune.

The track is a little over a mile, so it's very learnable in an afternoon. And while it's one thing to watch Gary Sheehan's video in the August race, it's another thing altogether when it's you controlling your line and getting the feel for the pavement, braking and acceleration zones and elevation changes.

Coming onto the course, there's an S+ turn that has a rhythm in driving it when you're on the right line. At the end of those is a braking zone, 90degree left-hander, short accel/brake, 100degree left hander and set up to go up the hill. Coming up the other side is an elevation gain, with a blind rise and somewhat blind turns. Once you've learned the course you'll be able to drive the right line despite not being able to see up the hill, however, with other cars on the course I'm sure it'd be a challenge!

I was talking to Bob Pyle (fellow scca driver, and he's helping build out the course), and he indicates they are hoping to start the 2nd phase soon, to be done by spring. This will add another 1/2 mile at the lower end of the course. Then by end of next year, they'd like to finish phase 3, which is another mile and is supposed to be the most challenging part of the track. After phases 4 & 5, Bob said the straightaway past Start/Finish will be 1 mile, and there will be vehicles reaching 100-140mph speeds. That'll be awesome to watch.

Some NASA instructors are coming out in December for a road course school. (Dec. 13/14). Let me know if you'd like to see the flyer for it.

Sounds like a great time, Debbie. One thing I noticed in this picture:

http://www.seccs.org/forums/files/dcp_0376a.jpg

was that the driver's seat in his car doesn't look like it has much of anything in the way of shoulder support. It looks like one of those aluminum Kirkey oval-track seats that only has support that wraps around your ribs?

http://www.kirkeyracing.com/new36000.gif

If it is, he might want to consider replacing it with something safer since he's driving this thing on-track - those rib support seats don't do much except break ribs in side impacts. Something like this,

http://www.kirkeyracing.com/new43300.gif

or this would be far safer...

http://www.sparcousa.com/images/89.jpg

Here's a couple of good links discussing driver safety, seat & harness mountings:

http://corner-carvers.com/wiki/index...afety%20Issues

http://corner-carvers.com/wiki/index...ar%20Harnesses

Hi Austin,
the rib support in the driver's seat was not as pronounced as the 1st picture - but that Sparco seat sure is sweet! I'll have to ask Jim what exactly he's got in there.

Also, I am guilty of continuing to conclude that because I'm strapped in with a 5-pt harness I'm safer from side-to-side impact just because of the harness. Your feedback points out that there are many things to consider for safety's sake.

Thanks for including those links! Corner-carvers has excellent material.
-Debbie