Day 1Blessed be those harbingers of wakedness, fine caffeine and B-complex-gifting angels known as the Red Bull girls, who serve up an early morning delivery of pretty smiles and human race gas. Red Bull pairs perfectly with Krispy Kreme doughnuts. Until you start to digest, that is. It's day one of our inaugural Track Attack, and SCC readers, car guys and gals alike, roll their exhausterized rides into the Dromo One indoor kart track facility in Orange, Calif.
Four days of tire-turning, gas-burning, car-on-car action await. It's the first year of the Sport Compact Car Track Attack, and we are giving our readers a chance to roll with us to three California tracks to show us their stuff and see it done better by professionals. Day One will take us from Dromo One to Famoso Raceway's historic quarter-mile dragstrip outside of Bakersfield. From there we head to Buttonwillow Raceway for high-speed circuit action, and finally we haul up to Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca in Monterey to enjoy a weekend of wheel-to-wheel sports car racing and even do a parade lap that includes the famous Corkscrew.
What better than laps in a slick-shod go-kart to launch a four-day orgy of mechanical grip and grunt? Josh Jacquot makes sure he's the fastest, until he's beat by Dennis Halloway from Mother's Car Care Products.
Forearms and shoulders aching from too much fun, we ramble out to the parking lot at 10:00 a.m. to find a pack of cars awaiting instruction. The usual sport compact suspects are present, in addition to a strong representation by the Mazda6 Club. With route books in hand, the Track Attackers and staff pour into the street.
Famoso Raceway lies in the heart of pistachio country in California's Central Valley, 155 miles from Orange. The mileage doesn't reflect the slog, however, thanks to an award-winning display of Los Angeles traffic. We arrive at Bakersfield to find all the Attackers from Central and Northern California who didn't find the extra leg appealling (understandably), including one especially large contingent from the UC Santa Barbara Sports Car Club.
With about 35 cars on hand, an entire afternoon and two empty lanes of quarter-mile fun available, track time won't be an issue. Some folks bolt on drag tires, but most just swab shoe polish on their windows and head for the staging lanes. When the lanes are light, we take our Z out for some abuse; she runs consistent 13.40s at 105 mph. This is a first-time drag racing experience for a number of participants, but as the end of the day nears, we're impressed by tire-shaking launches, Camaros doing burnouts in reverse, and newbies and veterans alike cutting good lights.
First-timer Christine Knight, in an E36 M3, won the Fast Reaction Time Award with a .004 light. Two of the three fastest reaction times, in fact, come from female feet. At 4:00 p.m., the staging lanes fill for a heads-up elimination contest. The twin-turbo'd 300ZX of Mike Mehnert of Hermosa Beach, Calif., on drag radials looked like the car to beat after running consistent low- and mid-12s. Sure enough, he outdrags all comers with a best-of-the-day 12.28.
A stock Subaru STi owned by Joel Gat takes second place after squealing its front tires to regular 13.50s, with the winged '04 S2000 of Kit Wetzler coming in third. Unsurprisingly, the man with the big drag radials also wins the burnout contest, but a stock Miata comes damn close to frying better tire. Awards are also given for the slowest trap speed, won by an '86 Mustang GT owned by Steve Fritz at 65.4 mph. Amazingly, not one car breaks all day. Infinity Audio gives 10 winners bass modules and speakers. We're jealous.
After a grueling day of hot weather, flies, melted tires and clutches, Infinity Audio again extends its generosity to a dinner at the Wool Growers Restaurant and Banquet Hall in Bakersfield, Calif. Despite the dry Central California valley looking little like Spain, Wool Growers offers traditional fare for the transplanted Basque population. Antipastos of tomatoes, onions and lettuce meet our famished lips, as do flowing flasks of red and white wine. Mike Kojima, however, sports his signature 2000 Blue Flushes cocktail.
The volume dial in the great hall raises as the levels in the wine flasks fall, mostly with the expected resulting car chatter and bench racing. The room becomes silent save for smacking lips with the arrival of great greens and fried chicken, which soon evaporate. Fast-food-eating wusses get left for bland when plates of beef tongue, sliced thinly and drizzled with vinaigrette, grace the palates of the more adventuresome.