NIce video. I have to believe Willow Springs is a poor mans Laguna Seca, minus most of the excitement. Don't get me wrong, this track has excitement, I see plenty of runoff area in just about all areas of the track, some elevation changes, welll laid out track with combination low & high speed corners. Maybe we can get Dave M. from NiSSan sport to give a video from the corkscrew & the climb to the sky on the backside of Laguna Seca. We have plenty of great American tracks, to test the skills of both the driver & the car.


WOOOOO HOOOOO

 

Make no mistake, Big Willow has plenty of excitment in store! Like many of America's best tracks, it's SO fast that by the time you realize you're in trouble, it's too late! Road America, Lime Rock Park and Road Atlanta are other tracks around the country that share this quality. Eagle1 has done a superlative job on the 'Notorius Turns" series for Nissan Sport Magazine; offering the kind of painstaking detail our readers (and others) appreciate in a Hot Lap article.

Not to say I wouldn't LOVE to do a video and commentary on Laguna Seca. Pay my tow bill out and I'll even strap you to the passenger seat so we can hear those screams!

David Muramoto
Editor-in-chief
Nissan Sport Magazine

 

Dave I say we both do Laguna Seca, they have open track days there, I read about em on this site. Then you could post the vids on NiSSan Sports web site. I would love to be on the track instead of watching, thanks for the offer of stapping me in the passengers seat. Red Z cars scare me!!!!

 

I don't know how many lines I have but you're right. It depends on the situation. I throughly enjoyed and was intrigued by the video - not everyone drives the same.

There are couple of things I would like to try differently (after watching the video) and see if it will drop my lap time.

 

Fooshe is right, and the more you drive the track, the more you realize the options, and the more complicated it gets. Some folks come to Big Willow and think gee whiz, there is nothing to this, what is all the fuss? But when you start to get close to the edge or limits, it gets super sophisticated on this layout. It is quite a fine track to run.

Please bear in mind on the WSIR video, I had a 200lb passenger and was just cruising around for his first time experience, and that has some influence on car handling, driving line, and certainly aggressiveness. We don't go blasting around at 8/10's with passengers on board.

As for Laguna Seca, checkout the downloads section at the website for Nissan Sport Magazine,

http://www.nissansportmag.com/downlo...earticles.html

and you will find there is an article and video link that we did for that track too. You get the long hard 300 foot elevation climb from the bottom of Turn 5 up to the top of the hill at Turn 8, then the drop through the corkscrew and screaming plunge of the Rainey Curve of turn 9.

At this time the reviews of driving the tracks, though more detailed than any others that we are aware of, are still oriented to the novice to intermediate level driver. And though this might surprise you, they are still summaries of a much longer and more detailed analysis that has been written but not published. The longer versions deal with many other issues that are important to the driver, but not necessarily a casual reader.

For example, there are extensive sections on track entry and track exit.

These are very important areas to understand the proper protocol to avoid collision with cars already on track and typically screaming down a front straight at closure rates of perhaps 50 to 80mph or even more.

And also some safety "reality check" issues, safely dealing with a car that is going out of control in front of you, and other matters.

They also have line drawings of the differing approaches to corners, turn by turn.

They are somewhere in the realm of 30 pages of text, plus the pages needed for the drawings of the corners/segments. I am noodling on the possibility of having these printed up, in some type of handy paperback form so that one could really study and prepare for a first time run on the course and improve their preparation, and safety. And include more detail for high intermediate level drivers. (Experts don't need anybody to advise them, or may think so, so we don't worry about them...besides, they are too small an audience!).

But it is a ton of work and I am not sure people would really be all that interested. (If they were the tracks would have and sell "track guides" like golf courses sell yardage books...and they don't!). I would have gladly bought one before having to tackle new courses, or just to learn, but they don't exist. So we just go out and figure it out ourselves.

 

On a track that's been in constant racing use since 1953, there really aren't many secrets. But, here's one I know...

Whats the proper line through turn 9 and 8 (actually, turns 1 and 2) when running WSIR backwards? Knowing that and you'll suddenly realize the importance of Turn 7 (now turn 3) and why that turn exists.

 

Some Turn 8 and 9 offs at WSIR:

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=j3p35-Waqac
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=8PZ4Jl02HJc
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=M8ygjttKdF4
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=M8ygjttKdF4
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=pn3cV1usGoU
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=ofLkJqEwHDg