Historic racers Dan Marvin in the Brabham BT44 and Charlie Nearburg n a Williams fw07 got in a bit of a tangle a the Laguna Seca corkscrew resulting in a spectacular flip for Marvin in the Brabham. Neither driver was injured and Nearburg makes a very gallant and, quite period attempt at a rescue.
The clip was shot by our friend Alex King who recently started publishing Auto100.com. Check it out after the break...
Let's ride with Dion Von Moltke at Mazda Raceway-Laguna Seca as he narrates a practice lap before the ALMS race last week. On this occasion Dion was driving the Flying Lizards GTC Porsche 911.
One quality differentiating a great driver from merely a good one is the ability to understand car behavior and articulate it to their engineers so setup can be optimized.
What Dion is doing in this clip, talking through his own lap, is a very good exercise for anyone racing or even just tracking as it forces you to be conscious of your choices, try it sometimes.
Axis of Oversteer, How to drive FASTER brings you detailed track guides and advice from professional racers aimed at advanced drivers, time trailer and club racers. You can find otherepisodesHERE
Mazda Raceway at Laguna Seca California. The iconic Corkscrew, how do you drive it like a boss? We asked Grand Am Continental Cup Bimmerworld driver Gregory Liefooghe for some tips.
INTRODUCTION
Living in San Francisco, Infineon Raceway is my home track, I’m working there every week but Laguna is very close to home.
Laguna has a few quirks, some interesting and at least one, very annoying: aside from a few official race weekends, the sound limit is 92 db! Yes, you read that right, 3db less than what is street legal in California.
If you’re going for a track day, anything goes to pass that sound limit, from "lift and coast" as you’re passing next to the sound tower between turn 5 and 6 to adding an extension to your tail pipe directing sound to the left side, away from unforgiving track workers. If you are coming from far away, make sure you are below that sound limit because the track has a strict 3 strikes and you’re out rule
Laguna is a medium speed track. Aside from the corkscrew, there are no combination corners just good old fashion sweepers. The track is safe, thanks to Moto GP coming every year, with lots of gravel traps to catch the car. It is especially hard on brakes, with no real straight to cool them down. The on-throttle time is not very long compared to a typical track and we tend to use less fuel here than anywhere else.
DRIVING CONCEPTS
Laguna has a very specific surface, it’s very slippery. If you are coming from another track with a “normal” amount of grip, you will literally think something broke on your car. You will want to change your car set up significantly to allow the car to roll more and produce more grip.
One of the key elements here is using the whole track width including the curbs. There really is only one rubber line that you have to use in order to get the maximum grip out of the track. What makes it tricky is that you have to come close to the red motorcycle curbs without hitting them because if you do, you will bend your wheels enough that they can eventually fail a few laps later.
By the way, that's our friend Jim Hunter just before re-evaluating the state of his underwear after seeing a 458 Challenge flying upside-down over his shooting position on the outside of the corkscrew at Laguna Seca. What you have to do to get a good shot these days... Thanks for the videos Jim!
You should see the Ferrari F2003 GA after the jump!
The 333SP is driven by Mike Schlein (you might remember the video from Lime Rock, with the flames out the back of the F40LM? or the 2011 Porsche Challenge videos) during the Ferrari Racing Days event at Laguna.
Early in the clip you can see the F1 car wiz by...
The Porsche IMSA GT3 Challenge was at Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca For rounds 5 and 6 of the season. Our own CG, Carlos Gomez drove the Axis of Oversteer NGT GT3 to two top 10 finishes. CG was sixth (from twelfth on the grid!) in the first race and eighth in the second.
Not that you would know the Axis car was even there from the Drive produced race summary, I guess that in Montreal, CG will either have to win or crash into both Madison AND Melanie Snow at the same time to be deemed worthy of inclusion!
Luckily, CG has his own Go Pro so let's live some portions of the race with him.
Here is the start of race 1. The car in front and to the right is Mike Mills, the "entry" from another motorsports blog you might know, SpeedSportLife.
As you can see, making up ground in evenly prepared cars is very hard unless someone ahed makes a mistake so qualifying position becomes key.
Carlos has said that one of the biggest challenges for him is to get that best qualifying lap early before the tires go away. On Friday, drivers qualify and race on the same tires so if you end up doing 15 or more laps in search of your time, you will pay for it in later on.
CG decided to stop and sit on his his time after just 7 laps, when he was P8 but later got bumped to P12 by drivers who stayed out longer.
We pick up the action after a full course yellow. Mike Mills passes with a Kobayashi style punt into turn 2 but Carlos makes a great clean move on him after the corkscrew.
From then on it's a good battle with TruSpeed's Phil Fogg Jr.. Carlos has a go at him in turn 2 but outbrakes himself with Phil going back under him. Eventuelly CG gets it just right.
Race two's grid is determined by race lap times in race 1 and everyone starts on fresh tires. Here is the start:
Carlos grids P7 but gets a poor start, then lets Bryce Miller who was faster but had to start from the back due to an off in race 1, by. No good deed goes unpunished as Mills takes advantage ans sneaks though.
Race 2 ended with a very NASCAR style white/checker situation, a one lap shoot-out. Carlos is P9 when the green drops, he makes one pass but alost loses it by being long in turn 11. this sets up a drag race to the line which he won by 0.02sec!
The next round is in Montreal as a support for the Canadian Grand Prix, come out and cheer for the Axis!
Our friend Halston Pitman along with Trevor Andrusko at MotorSportMedia have developed this somewhat mysterious yet awesome "Visor Cam" that comes closer to a true first person view than any other camera setup I have seen.
In this video you ride in the middle of Joey Hand's forehead as he drives the mighty M3 GT in practice for the ALMS Monterey presented by Patron race at Mazda Raceway, Laguna Seca.
The awesomely cool Axis of Oversteer GT3 Cup will see action at Laguna Seca this week in IMSA Challenge.
Once again we ask you to get out you best glass and bag us some awesome images of that most photogenic of cars.
Did i say glass? Oh yes because this year as a grand prize we pulled out all the stops and the grand prize will be (...drum roll please) this stunning, one of a kind Stella Artois beer glass etched with Axis of Oversteer. I know... we hate to give it up but I'm sure one of you will send a picture so amazing, we'll have no choice! Oh and you'll get an Axis GT3 shirt along with it.
The Racer's Group is not only a top tier racing organization but, of late quite the little film studio! TRG takes care of CG and the Axis GT3 so we're happy to share their best 2011 clips.
Let's start with Spencer Pumpelly, the world's fastest vegan, the Vegan Velociraptor, turning in early with big speed at Laguna Seca. Spencer is charge of TRG historic #66 GTC Porsche GT3.
Next Spencer's co driver Duncan Ende shows how to drive with one eye looking forward and one looking backwards at Road Atlanta
The next two clips are more like little features, the first at Road Atlanta (do some of those shots look familiar from the Porsche GT3 Cup commercial?) and the second is their year end wrap up. Nice work!
First off thank you for all the submissions, there were some really great shots sent in but we did have to pick a winner. Well, we tried to pick a winner anyway.
It's interesting, all the finalists were pictures taken on the same corner but I suppose The Corkscrew IS the signature turn a Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca so, it's fitting.
So who won? OK, after the jump if you please some big pictures!
The picture that got the most votes among us was the above one by Danny Sullivan. We loved the wheel up moment, CG leaning into the turn inside the car, the perfect sharpness and the field flattened by the long lens. Fantastic. You can find more of Danny Work on his Flickr page.
At the same time we all loved the dynamic action and drama in Jim Hunter's shot below. CG had just made the pass and is oversteering down the hill. Very cool. You can see more of Jim's work at Flat-12.com
So both Danny and Jim will get and Axis t-shirt in the color of their choice and one large and one small Axis sticker. I'll have to see how to work out the TRG hat, there was only one up for grabs...I'll figure something out.
Now, honorable mention has to go to Kai Wilson for catching CG on his Paris Dakar moment in practice. CG was trying to play it all cool about it but I bet him on the phone someone caught him raking the gravel trap.... there you go! So Kai, please accept an Honorable sticker from the Axis!
We will be running the same contest at Road Atlanta next week end during the Petit LeMans so, get your cameras ready!
What more to say about our CG, he started P16 and ended the race on the podium in third after a grueling 75 minutes. He saved his tires early, he dodged the spinners, the strays and made the bold moves when he had to. Fantastic job, we will have to call him Jenson Gomez from now on and, as Diego Mejia suggested, change to Axis of Overtaking!
Next and final rounds at Petit Le Mans, Road Atlanta Septemner 28th to October 1st. We will be running a Photo Contest for that race as well, so get your cameras ready!
Here is a video of the race, condensed and annotated. It was shot with a GoPro super wide angle camera and looks great in HD. I promise an entertaining 18 minutes or so. (Photo: TRG)
Note to iPad users, apparently the youTube captions will not work on a mobile device, sorry.
Doesn't take much, a little bit of gas too much here, lifting a bit too much there, I guess that's the fun of it, right CG? Nice recovery BTW.
These a snippets from CG's first Porsche GT3 Challenge race at Mazda Raceway, Laguna Seca. He had a big workout on day one starting and ending in P10. Day 2, in the 75 minute race, was a different story. CG started P16 but ended on the podium in P3. We will have that video as soon as as it's trimmed and edited.
CG qualified P10 on his first drive ever at Mazda Raceway. His time was 6/10th off of pole which means there will be some incredibly tight racing and much will be down to the cart and not making any mistakes.
CG writes: "Never worked so hard and been so happy with a P10. What an amazing technical track. Games and simulators do no justice to it."
Don't forget about our Photo contest for a chance to win Axis t-shits and stickers, as well as a TRG team hat. Winners to be announced Friday so send those pictures in! Details HERE.
Spencer Pumpelly on board the TRG Porsche showing just how you achieve "big speed" at Mazda Raceway/Laguna Seca, placing at the top of the charts during ALMS GT-C practice yesterday.
Poor CG will be all alone on the West Coast this week end. With none of us there to cheer and take pictures of the amazingly cool # 75 Axis of Oversteer Porsche GT3 Cup racing at Laguna Seca in IMSA GT3 Challenge, we thought we would encourage a little tracktard love.
Here's the deal, the best picture of the Axis car at Laguna Seca, as judged by us (no bribes please, unless your bribe has at least 400hp that is) will win:
One Axis GT3 Challenge t-shirt One large Axis Sticker and courtesy of our friends at TRG, one black TRG team hat.
Second place will receive a large sticker Third prize will be a small sticker.
Practice starts tomorrow at 11:30 am pacific and again at 4:30. Qualifying is Friday at 5:20 PM Races are Friday at 10:20 AM for 45 minutes and Sunday at 12:45 for and hour and 15 minutes.
