The wannabe ST

[WannabeST]

@DaleFredriks spotted here at gridlife thunderhill. It’s always fun to see another fiesta on track. Especially since this is maybe the third I’ve seen ever on track in person lol.

I came by the car a few times trying to talk but I feel like I keep coming when you’re gone lol.

this track is extremely fun. If this track is local to anyone, I am so jealous. Buttonwillow is currently my favorite track, but I think this might top it. I need to come back for the 5 mile layout to put it up to the full test.
my car did so well on the 8.5hr drive here. I only had to stop once for fuel and I still got here with a little over half a tank. The remaining fuel lasted me all day on track Saturday and some driving in town too. So basically 4 tanks worth of gas should get me 2 days of driving at thunderhill and the drive home of 17 hours total counting coming up and back down. I’m really impressed.

 

[WannabeST]

Gridlife Thunderhill recap:

this track and facility is awesome. It honestly tops buttonwillow and Laguna for me. The hills are so much fun and there’s very low risk with all the run off but still plenty of technique and skill needed to go around the hills and the higher speed sections.
It was my first time here ever. Not even a single sim lap. My tires coming into the weekend were already 7 track days old. So Saturday was track day #8 and they started cording on me. I kept rotating every session to try to even out the wear but it was progressively getting worse.
Sunday morning I did my best lap of a 2.18 with my tires at basically their worst condition:

I kept trying to find more time after the 2.18 but the tire was feeling extremely sketchy. I felt like I could feel it peeling and the carcass shaking at this point.
we had a total of 7 drivers signed up for the weekend. I was holding P2 for most of the event but a fit came and beat me by 0.03 of a second, putting me at P3. Had I had new tires I probably would have even gave P1 a run for the position. But oh well, that is my fault for being in between moving and focusing on that instead of the track lol.


my collection of podiums is looking better. I have nasa at chuckwalla next weekend to hopefully add some more hardware for 2024.
drove the car 8.5 hours up and 8.5 hours back down home and the car did not skip a beat at all. Even camped on the track in the pits. It’s good to know that my car can drive so far on low fuel consumption. The car only uses about 1.3-1.4 tanks worth of fuel to drive for that long. I filled up at my house and filled up a little passed halfway and still made the second tank of fuel last me all day on track on Saturday. Plus some around town driving.

I will definitely need to come back to this facility next year hopefully gridlife comes back if not, I will probably be looking for a 5 mile layout day

TLDR;
Successful weekend
2.18 Thunderhill East with bypass
P3 in class
Drove the car up, tracked for 2 days and back with zero issues

 

[WannabeST]

Some pics of me on thunderhill

 

[WannabeST]

for now. If anyone is interested in trying one of the currently available sizes. Use code
“ITURRALDEVIP” at trackdaytire.com. That will get you one free tire on a set of continental ECF. The code will also have small discounts on other tires on the site. But the free tire is only for the continental

Shameless plug, This coupon code is expiring on 11/30. If you are interested in this deal, this is the last week to take advantage. Continental has also doubled my commission per sale until the code expires.

 

[DaleFredriks]

@DaleFredriks spotted here at gridlife thunderhill. It’s always fun to see another fiesta on track. Especially since this is maybe the third I’ve seen ever on track in person lol.

I came by the car a few times trying to talk but I feel like I keep coming when you’re gone lol.
View attachment 64485
this track is extremely fun. If this track is local to anyone, I am so jealous. Buttonwillow is currently my favorite track, but I think this might top it. I need to come back for the 5 mile layout to put it up to the full test.
my car did so well on the 8.5hr drive here. I only had to stop once for fuel and I still got here with a little over half a tank. The remaining fuel lasted me all day on track Saturday and some driving in town too. So basically 4 tanks worth of gas should get me 2 days of driving at thunderhill and the drive home of 17 hours total counting coming up and back down. I’m really impressed.

Thanks for the shoutout man, great to see your bean ripping it out there! And yeah sad we never crossed paths, I was always coming and going trying to catch the best action.

 

[WannabeST]

Went to chuckwalla this weekend for some Toyota GR instructing and TT6 competing.
Managed to get a new PB of 2.10 which was good for P2 Saturday and P1 Sunday. On Sunday the P1 contender was sent to impound because he was within 6 tenths of the record for our class and he was found to be 150 pounds under his minimum weight. The car has the ability to do a 2.08-2.09 on some fresh tires and better driving.
overall a great end to my year of competing. I would say I did well for a stock motor car with an open diff, oem shocks and just a few mods.
time for some instructing next weekend at big willow and then my birthday in December.
after that I can relax for a few weeks until the next competition year begins.

 

[rallytaff]

Happy Birthday for next month!

 

[Oso]

My guy!

This entire thread was a ride, jfc. As someone in a FiST, thank you for showing me what I've been missing out on.

I'm now planning to track my baby come 2025, and I couldn't be more excited.

Please never stop being an awesome human. Kudos, bro. Kudos.

No, but really: your Fiesta is SEXY.

 

[WannabeST]

Happy Birthday for next month!

Thank you! greatly appreciated

 

[WannabeST]

My guy!

This entire thread was a ride, jfc. As someone in a FiST, thank you for showing me what I've been missing out on.

I'm now planning to track my baby come 2025, and I couldn't be more excited.

Please never stop being an awesome human. Kudos, bro. Kudos.

No, but really: your Fiesta is SEXY.

Of course, this car has been awesome to me. You'll love tracking it. Especially since you have boost, you are already at double the power compared to me.

 

[Oso]

Of course, this car has been awesome to me. You'll love tracking it. Especially since you have boost, you are already at double the power compared to me.

Tbh, a lot of it boils back to just having other hobbies nixed with cost. Okay, I lied. I'm terrified I'll total my car, and it's my daily, lol.

But after I've swapped out my coils, I want to look into some type of "advanced driving" course, and then take it around a track a few times.

I can't even begin explaining how much happiness this car brings me every time I hit the gas. Anyway, I'm really not trying to make this about me, lmao!

You had your ride on 2 wheels. That's wild.

 

[WannabeST]

Tbh, a lot of it boils back to just having other hobbies nixed with cost. Okay, I lied. I'm terrified I'll total my car, and it's my daily, lol.

But after I've swapped out my coils, I want to look into some type of "advanced driving" course, and then take it around a track a few times.

I can't even begin explaining how much happiness this car brings me every time I hit the gas. Anyway, I'm really not trying to make this about me, lmao!

You had your ride on 2 wheels. That's wild.

If you want to track your car with less worry. I would first look into auto cross. It's very low speeds, very low risk and typically low on wear as well. I've never done it myself as it's hard for me to fit it in between my instructing schedule. However, I have many friends that do it and I would love to do it as well.
If you would like to hop on to a road course. Then you can look into track day insurance with Hagerty. Their plans cover you on track incase of an incident and they will cover mods. You just need to declare the value in advance. The amount will vary depending on the track, and declared value of car, value of mods, deductible amount and if you are competing. From what I have seen, expect to pay around $150-200. Their insurance will typically cover a full weekend, if you do multiple days in a row.
As far as coaching/ instructing/ schooling goes. I work with multiple companies. I have to say, NASA is the best at teaching beginners. When you sign up for HPDE1, you are guaranteed an instructor all day in the car with you. You will also have classroom sessions all day showing you tips around the track and overall driving tips. It will be hard to get a PB pace lap, however NASA has the least amount of people going off for beginners and they tend to do a lot better at passing and following flags. Almost every other organization will only require you do a lead- follow session where you drive your car and you follow behind the instructor in their car to show you the lines and the track. Touge2track does this, they also have the highest amount of instructors outside of NASA. Touge2track can easily have anywhere from 6-10 instructors an event.
There are many ways to minimize risk on track. One of my favorite things to hear from my students is when they tell me they went faster, easier and safer. Learning to place your car where you want, how to correct and etc. will be 10x safer than going in blindly.

 

[WannabeST]

I had another track day on Saturday at big willow. I was on my worn out RT660 up front and all seasons on the rear. I went in purely for instructing and some seat time. This event makes 3 weekends in a row at the track for the month of November and this was the 5th day of tracking this month. Car was driven to and from each event and never skipped a beat.
Please enjoy this picture of my super high downforce setup in the rear lol

 

[WannabeST]

My last track day of the year is just going to be my birthday event. So zero working or competing at that event (aside from hosting) it should be a really relaxed event for me vs working or focusing on lap times.
These are all the trophies the egg has received so far. One of these is from 2023. The rest are all 2024.
2023 results:
Gridlife P3 - streets of willow
2024 results:
Gridlife P2 - big willow
Gridlife P3 - thunderhill east
(P2 overall in gridlife pacific championship)
NASA TT6 P3 and P2 - Buttonwillow
NASA TT6 P1 and P2 - chuckwalla
(I was a mid pack car overall for NASA, but the car is far from anywhere near optimized for the class)

 

[FlordPerformance]

shame shame I don't see my sticker on your car yet..

 

[WannabeST]

I’m going thru all my emails and cashing in on some of my final discounts, credits, and verifying payments of all the organizations I worked with this year. While I can’t share every thing. Down below is some of the awesome stuff I’ve gotten this year. Loads of free seat time, discounted parts, free parts or even just straight up pay with some.
I”m not sharing this to show off in any way. I hope it can help inspire or motivate some of you to try to make your shenanigans be cheaper. This hobby is fun but very expensive. Being able to minimize the cost of it is awesome.
I’ve only ever met like 3 of you from this forum in person but I am a very big introvert so putting myself out there is hard. But seeing how much I was able to achieve this year made it great.
don’t be scared to put yourself out there.

PS, I have a few discount codes I MIGHT not use. I’ll be sharing them on here if that is the case.

 

[FlordPerformance]

Granted when most see these types of things, and often I feel the same way.. is that this stuff is mere sho off.. Not meaning this in a bad way.. but it's saying "oh look I got money and you don't" it's the same with my new sway bar and custom coil springs.. yes it cost money to make these and if they fail I'm out that money. Most people think I'm getting free stuff for the build, the only thing free i've gotten was the superpro end links and these failed after 2 years. I guess this best thing to say here is that if you have the pull to get these things and give back to the community.. more power to you.. I don't any power whatsoever and I've had to do these things alone even with all the negative comments and being banned from all those communities.

 

[WannabeST]

Not meaning this in a bad way.. but it's saying "oh look I got money and you don't" .

I understand where you're coming from. But If I was trying to pretend to have money, I wouldn't be driving a base model fiesta lol

 

[WannabeST]

well, Gridlife will not be doing another full season here on the west coast. I was really looking forward to it. It seems like their new CEO has shifted the Gridlife event line up to be only festivals and zero club weekends. It sounds like they want to come back to the west coast in 2026 so I'm curious what that would look like.