This weekend VARA held its annual British Extravaganza race weekend at Buttonwillow Raceway. After an extremely windy and dusty Test day on Friday (we actually saw a few black flags as visibility neared zero), the weekend left us with perfect racing weather as we enjoyed mostly sunny skies with highs in the 70s. With the obligatory Saturday night bbq and karaoke, and the All-British car race on Sunday, the 150 entrants along with their families and crews all seemed to have a very memorable weekend. Joining VARA for the weekend was also our Historic race car group, and the Bakersfield British Car Club.
I’m happy to say my Datsun 710 B-sedan race car is really coming around. All the recent prep work has paid off as the handling is much improved, the drivetrain is running strong and reliable, and all the safety equipment is easy to operate. Speaking of which, we unfortunately had a rookie driver experience a roll-over accident at the bottom of Phi Hill in his Volvo this weekend. But while the car received considerable damage, the safety equipment did its job and the driver walked away unscathed. Roll cages, seats, harnesses, and helmets are not the places to skimp in your racing budget.
I tried out using an inexpensive timer/data-acquisition app on my smartphone this weekend, sold as ‘Harry’s Lap Timer’. Not quite the data available through a high-end system, but it’s easy to use, the timer is easy to read, and some of the data charts are interesting. Shown below is a lateral G-force vs distance chart covering one lap of the race. No wonder I feel so beat up on Monday mornings…
Hi, love to read your article about the event. There also lot of vintage car and roll royce…I love the photo session you take. When and where does this event held exactly, maybe someday i would like to come along and see the excitement.
Hey Troy… It was a great weekend. The Tin-Top-Tussle was the most fun I thought. Lots of close action.
Harrys Lap Timer is a good app. I use to use it for track days. I’ll use it again when I can find a place to put it in my race car. I like how it shows your speed at all points of the track.