SoCalRiders Trackday, Pahrump, NV

April 12, 2003

by dgrace:

When Doug (track whore extraordinaire) posted to the list that he was headed to Pahrump, NV to do a trackday, and that he had space in his truck for one more bike, I was all over it. I figure, what's a 10-hour drive as long as we get to see a new track? I'm very glad I did, because we had an awesome time. Note: some of my pictures below are black and white because I'd screwed up the settings on my camera - just consider it art.

We headed out on Friday at noon and made very good time all the way down through Bakersfield, Barstow, Mojave, and probably a dozen other little towns on the way to southeast California. Doug had brought along Keith Code's Twist of the Wrist II on CD, so we listened to it on the way. While on I-15, just 10 miles from our exit at Baker, traffic came to a dead halt, presumably from some accident up ahead. We ended up sitting there for an hour, people out of their cars walking around, until finally we moved half a mile, then sat for another 20 minutes. Finally everything started going again and we exited at Baker, heading north around to Pahrump. We got to the Saddle West Hotel and Casino about 11pm, had some dinner, and went to bed. In the morning we drove the 4 miles to the track and signed in.

The Spring Mountain Motorsports Park is a road course built in Pahrump, NV (about 45 min west of Vegas) for the Bragg-Smith Advanced Driving School, Chevy's official advanced driving school for Corvettes and Camaros. Despite the fact that it plays host to cars frequently, the track surface is the best I've ever seen, even smoother than Laguna. It's a very flat course elevation-wise; I can only think of one corner where you even notice any hill at all. The corners are well-laid out and fun (see map below), particularly turns 1 and 2, fast, constant radius sweepers of equal size which really let you work on body position and technique because they're the same corner, one to the right and one to the left. One strange thing about the track is that the entrance driveway cuts directly across the front straight, thus nobody can get in or out without shutting down the track or at least having a good long gap between riders. There is a tunnel that goes underneath, but it wasn't open; I'm not sure if it's still under construction or if they only use it on race weekends.

April is a great time to be down in the Nevada desert. We had clear and sunny skies all day, temps in the upper 70's, pretty much perfect riding conditions. If going to this track later in the summer I'd bet it gets up above 120, which would be a whole different story. Though I brought along Glen's tire warmers I didn't end up using them, as the track surface was hot enough to get the tires to temperature in less than a lap.

The SoCalRiders guys run a little different style trackday than most others. They seem to have a small, very skilled group of regulars and rely on their good judgment to keep things under control. The biggest surprise for us is that they have no corner workers - if a bike goes down, the first person to see it comes back to the pits and lets the organizers know, then they set the flag (only one flag, at start/finish) if the track needs to be cleared. There is an ambulance around if necessary, of course. They also don't break for lunch; they just keep the track hot from 9am to 4pm. Since it's a bit of a pain to exit/enter at this track anyway, this makes sense. Here's why it works:

They limit the total number of riders to 30, thus you have plenty of empty track space and aren't forced to make a dicey pass to preserve a decent lap. I probably only had to pass about 10 people all day.
The organizers strictly require prior track experience and the riders are very skilled, most of them racers. When we arrived I noticed that I didn't see ANY street bikes, every bike had race fairings, if not number plates. These guys know what they're doing.
The riders know and appreciate that if they go down, they're screwing it up for everyone else. People take their responsibilities seriously.

And here's the result: 1 bike went down all day, and he just picked it up and rode it back into the pits. No black or even yellow flags all day, hot track from 9am to 4pm. Absolutely awesome. I was proud to ride with such a good group of guys.

As far as riding, Doug and I represented NorCal pretty well. We asked the organizers for some ballpark times, and they said most of the fast guys were running 1:51's or 1:52's. By Doug's third session out, he was ripping off mid 1:49's and hanging with the fastest guys out there. Go Snot Goblin! I started out at 2:00 or so and couldn't figure out what was wrong, until I realized that I'd set the min time on my lap timer for Thunderhill at 2 minutes! Once I corrected that it started working properly, and I was quickly down to 1:53's.

Around noon Doug mounted up his camera on the ZX-9R and chased me around the track for a few laps, this was a blast. I managed to figure out a couple of weak points on the track and got down to a 1:52.12, then Doug flew by and chased after a very quick guy on a GSXR750 street bike. (one of the very few out there) We'll post the video soon, it looks spectacular.

I took a spin on Doug's Kawi and can't figure out how he hustles that thing around so quickly! It's just huge compared to my little F2, but the power is amazing. Ken Hill sure knows how to extract some ponies. When offered my little Honda, Doug demurred - his brand loyalty runs very deep.

Sitting in our folding chairs sipping water, we smiled thinking back on all the awesome track time we'd had. Doug checked his watch and said "Hey - it's only 1:30!". Sweet. Some of the other guys were starting to get tired and the track was looking very empty, at times only 1 or 2 riders on it. I headed out and did another session, ran some more 52's. Afterwards I went to a spot between turns 1 and 2 to take photos of Doug as he flew by.

The afternoon was winding down and Doug and I decided to go out together. "Starting to get tired, let's not push it, nice easy laps." Yeah, fuck that. I figured out a couple of other weak points and ripped off a 1:50.46 with a big grin on my face. Afterwards a couple guys we'd passed came over and we chatted for a while in the pits about tire choices, knee sliders, lap timers, etc. Very nice guys. One had driven all the way from Tucson.

We had time for one more session so I headed out, not expecting anything, just working on smoothness and a couple of corners that had been giving me trouble. A couple of things clicked for me and I finished the day with my fastest lap. End of day results: Doug - 1:49.01, Dave - 1:50.09.

Doug earns the all-time iron man driving award for the 10 hour trip home, which was interrupted by the hugest cop convention I've ever seen, some kind of crazy footrace from Baker, CA to Vegas. Literally thousands of cops from departments all over the state, plus FBI, DEA, and even some U.S. Marshals. Good thing I left my NWA CD's at home I guess. Click here for details.

Awesome track, awesome group, highly recommended. Click here for more info about their upcoming days at Pahrump.

dave

My Pics:


backup on I-15	doug at the Saddle West	dave	the lineup at registration

Bragg-Smith school cars	more cars	the flag station	doug preps the 9R

doug exiting turn 1	entering 2	entering 2	doug hooks around 2

supermoto guys tearing it up	nice view from the track (dunno what's up with the flags)	doug and dave	backup on 172