Mazdaspeed Forums - WSIR Track Day

Hello all! I looked through the different categories and felt like since this post will discuss many things and touch on several topics, I figured i would post here. First off, I bought my Gen2 MS3 a couple of years ago and haven't made any posts here since my initial post when I bought the car. However, I have been on this site a TON and the only reason I haven't posted is because I have found everything I had questions for because they had already been answered here before. The track racing topic though, does not have much coverage. So maybe I can change that. So let's get started.

My racing background is almost none. I bought a fanatec racing wheel and pedal set up when I was around 14 and have put maybe 4000 or so hours into Forza 2 - 4, but that's about it! That said, I've always wanted to go to the track and now I finally have the means to, so that's where I was last weekend.

I have to say, it is every bit as incredible of an experience as I could have imagined. Nothing I can say here could possibly describe how epic it was to drive around Willow Springs International Raceway - Big Willow track. If you have about 200.00, it is absolutely worth it and yes you should absolutely do it. So here is how the day went.

I paid 140 for the entry fee and 50 for an all day instructor. Even though I know I'm not a terrible driver, I picked the beginner group because I was new to all of this.

- Session 1
We basically just played follow the leader around the track, following an instructor's car at a controlled pace. We each took a turn driving directly behind the instructor. The goal here was to get a feel for how the track feels.

-Session 2
They pretty much set us loose here. The instructor got in the car with me and told me that the first lap he would just observe and see what he's dealing with. It was.. such an odd feeling. Stay with me here, I know that Forza cannot give you real feeling of speed or how the road feels, and its not 100% accurate with everything. But when you have a wheel like the fanatec wheel, it does a damn good job of teaching you things like how to brake in a straight line and do all your braking before turns, how your car reacts when its balance gets upset, how to correct when you go offline at high speed, just so many instincts kicked in that I remember learning from my countless hours of Forza.

After the first lap the instructor said, "Wow, it feels like you have a lot of experience and I can tell you're naturally a good driver, so let's just focus on your drive line and where the apexes are". We did about 5 laps, but I was stuck behind a Miata who refused to point me by, so my time was around 2 minutes and 5 seconds.

The rest of the sessions I decided to go by myself. I felt like I'd gotten enough to work on from the instruction so I wanted to go work on it. By the end of the day I had gotten my times down to 1 minutes and 48 seconds. I honestly have no idea if that's good at all, but I cannot wait to go back and try for an even better time!!

That said, holy crap there's a lot to learn in terms of car care in the race world. During the straights I would get up to around 125 - 130 mph, and then hit the brakes suuuper hard to get down to 70ish for the turn, and overall was so hard on the brakes my last session that I ended up boiling the brake fluid and locking my brakes. It took about an hour for them to come unlocked again.

I didn't really wear my tires down much as I wasn't skidding all over the place. Some rocks put some chips in them though.

Overall Damage Done:

- I entirely wore down my brake pads. There's almost no pad left and they need to be replaced

- I boiled the brake fluid and they apparently need to be flushed ASAP. I'll put some better fluid in.

- I snapped the right rear end link. You're supposed to exit turn 3 in a way that creates a straight line to turn 4, then cut the car over hard to set up for turn 5. When I did this during the third session I heard a loud pop in the back section of the chassis. I've heard this before but not so loud. I don't have jack stands since I'm at an apartment now but when I got underneath the car and pushed the right rear ball joint with my leg it seemed much looser than the left one. Plus the body doesn't seem as stiff and when I go over speed bumps I hear a rattle from the underbelly of the car in the back area.

- I drove the everloving shit out of the car.. I mean.. its just like Forza you're just.. 2nd gear flooring it to 6k RPM then shift, floor to 6k RMP then shift, then brake hard as you can and heel toe shift down twice and on it again just constantly. I burned a full tank of gas on like.. maybe 25 laps or so. So, I'm sure I should check my engine coolant and oil.

- Tires, meh minimal damage here.

That said, my engine light was on when I went to the track. It ended up being p0128. From the research I did, its either the thermostat or the sensor. The thermostat would either be stuck open or closed. If it was stuck closed, my car would be fried already, so its not that.

If it were stuck open, then it wouldn't be reaching normal temp in normal times. When I turn my car on, it only takes maybe a minute or two for the blue light to go off.

If its the sensor, then I reasoned that everything was probably fine. Maybe the senor just rattled loose or something.

I got to the track and after the first slow drive around with the instructor, the engine light went off. So I thought, oh cool it probably rattled back into place. So I just decided I would drive it as if there was never an engine light on. And it stayed off the whole day, including on the way back.

However, it just came back on again.. But the car still seems to be running fine so.. not sure what's up. Hopefully just the sensor.

So anyway, the reasons I am posting this are these:

- To let people know that I will actively be going to track days and anybody who wants to go is welcome to come with!

- To ask if there is anybody else with an MS3 around the Irvine area that might be able to show me a few things? Or maybe if there are any MS3 car meets around Orange County.

- To ask if racing the car with that light having gone on and off was a dumb thing to do and if it could be something serious.

- Maybe somebody has insight on that popping noise I heard? The chassis even when I first bought it seemed to randomly just make a popping noise like if a piece of metal had snapped into place when I would turn, even if it wasn't a hard turn. I'd hear it maybe once every 6 months or so.

- And I guess just to say hey! I'm in Orange County and woudl love to get involved with the local MS3 community and if anybody want to come out for a track day just let me know and we can go!

I posted a couple images of my times because I HATE it when I go online to look for times, and nobody has posted them anywhere. Especially when I find MS3s going around WSIR on youtube and they don't post their time. So here it is, for anybody who wants to compare their time to a completely factory, bone stock MS3, super noob never been to the track before. Couldn't get more base line than that!!