This was actually my first time on ANY road course, much less "Willow Springs", advertised as "The Fastest Road in the West". It was a two day event and I only planned on staying for Saturday. Partly because of cost and the other so I could get home at a decent time. After all it was almost 500 miles one way to Rosamond, CA from Phoenix, AZ. Luckily to make the trip more enjoyable my racing buddy Brandon followed me in his Civic.

Thursday night Brandon comes over to my house and spends the night so we can get an early start in the morning. 7am Friday morning we get up eat a snack get ready and get on the road before 8am. Luckily he purchased a couple personal 2 way radios from his last trip and make the trek out to CA much smoother and easier than yelling and pointing with our windows down at freeway speeds. We only needed to make 1 stop for a bathroom break and to get gas in Indio. We continued on I-10 until I-15 where we went North for a few miles and took the Hwy 138 to Palmade, then finally Hwy 14 to Rosamond. We got there before 3pm. We were slowed down by truckers on 138 and we did do the speed limit just about the entire trip but I still think we made decent time.

Finding the place was really easy as there was only one exit for the entire city. I didn't expect it to be a big town but I didn't expect it to be so small either. Neither of us had any idea where the Devonshire Inn was so I just took a guess and went left after exiting. About 2 minutes later we were on the outskirts of town, Ha! We pulled a U-turn and headed back the opposite direction. About 2 minutes and 10 seconds later we were in the center of town where we ran right into our motel. Not exactly what I would call "nice" but according to the front desk, it was the nicest place in town. Sheeeez!!! I wouldn't recommend the Devonshire Inn to anyone that gets grossed out easily. It was convienent because it was so close, but for $70/night I expected a little more.

We checked in, grabbed a bite to eat at McD's and headed off to see where the track was. There was a sign that said "Willow Springs" so we followed the arrow. About 5 minutes later I just happened to glance up at the mountain on the right and there the track was off in the distance. COOL!!! My heart started beating quickly as I could already picture myself blasting through the turns. What I never realized by reading about or even seeing videos is just how big the elevation change is going into turn 3 and coming down turn 4. It is quite cool how far up the mountain the track goes before shooting you down the straight heading eventually into turn 8 and finally into the "infamous" turn 9.

So anyway, we find the track entrace and make our way to the office. Apparently all we need to do is sign a waiver and we can watch for free. The only thing going on is practice for "race preped" cars only. There are three GT2 classified Porsches zipping around the course so we watch them in awe for a while until they pit. Brandon and I head over to their cars and trailors and talk to them and take some pictures. Really cool people with even cooler cars.

Saturday morning FINALLY rolls around and we are up at the crack of dawn to make sure we get a good spot at the track. We ended up being almost the first cars there. Not even the Speed Trial people are there yet. We wait around for about an hour until they get there and set up the registration booth. We register get our cars teched and then wait for the drivers meeting. There are four run groups labeled A, B, C, and D. The groups are separated by vehicle and driver experience. Better cars and more experienced drivers are in A. Brandon and I get put into D. Each group runs for 20 minutes so every hour we get to run. Not a bad wait compared to Drag Racing or autocrossing, especially for the seat time. Because it was my first time out at that track (or any track) an instructor (Rorry?) drove my car to familiarize me with the correct line to take and how to approach each turn. After a few laps with Rorry we switched drivers and he rode as a passenger. After the first session he said I did good and let me drive by myself the rest of the day.

Unfortunately I wasn't able to get any pictures or video of myself. Brandon however setup his in car camera and got quite a bit of action. Here is a VIDEO (16.2MB) of one of his laps around the famous "Willow Springs".

I was a little nervous at first because I really didn't want to spin out but by the end of the day I was FLYING. Unfortunately overconfidence got the best of me and I took turn 1 a little too fast and ended up in the weeds and dirt. No apparent damage except for my pride but that was my last run anyway. Brandon and I had planned to go home at the end of the day but Rorry kept telling me how well I was doing, and that I would probably take a trophy home if I did Time Trials on Sunday. Not wanting to come home empty handed I went for it.

Didn't get much sleep but Sunday morning I get to the track around 10:30am. To my surprise there is even less cars than Saturday. A few new cars but the majority of them I remember from Saturday. Practice went well except I missed the apex coming out of turn 9 on one of my laps and put two wheels into the outside edge dirt. This caused me to get sideways and eventually shot me across the track to the inside dirt in a voilent spin. There was dust, small rocks, and dirt EVERYWHERE!!! That really sucked. It was embarassing as all hell cuz my car was completely covered in super fine brown dust, including the interior AND me.

Anyway, my turn was finally up and I ended up pulling a 1:47:150 for my official time, which was good enough for 3rd place (2nd was 1:44:479 / 1st was 1:39:058) in the 1600-2499cc class (there was at least 5 other cars in my class, maybe as much as 10???). Not bad for a first timer. I was stoked! Top time of day within all classes was 1:37:xxx.