The Cobra does Infineon Raceway

The 16 hour trip to Infineon was very much worth it!

As usual, Nor-Cal Shelby Club put together a nice event. This was their annual Mini-National Convention which includes a car show on Friday, several dinner events with guest speakers, and of course, my favorite activity, driving around a fine race track for two days :)

Each year they have a theme for the Mini-Nats, as they call the event. This year the theme was "40 Years of the GT500". 40 years ago Ford sold a limited number of GT500 Shelby Mustangs; which are of course now collector's items. And, last year Ford once again began offering a Shelby GT500 Mustang. So, the theme was a no-brainer for the club.

This guy owns both a '67 and an '07 GT500 (original owner of the '67):



The '67 has this license plate frame, and the '07 has the opposite frame:



More pictures from the car show are on Flickr: http://flickr.com/photos/nirwana42/sets/72157602016042329/

Saturday was spent getting used to the track, which is a bit intimidating due the close proximity of concrete walls all over the place!

Sunday, we started to play a bit more but I never really felt comfortable pushing the car much due to those walls!

Sure enough on Sunday a car at the front of the pack clipped the inside of T12 and bounced to the other side and hit that wall too. I was about the 6th car when we came up to T12 and all I saw was lots of bright red brake lights; which is totally unexpected since this is a major passing zone. So, we all went from full throttle to full brakes very quickly; I almost rear ended the white car in front of us and I just waited to get hit from behind. I heard some tire squealing and just waited for the hit... I heard the car hit something; fortunately it wasn't my car! Two cars toasted by the walls... I caught this all on video, it is the second crash in the movie below; if you turn up the volume you will hear the tire squeal and the hit! Then, on the right you see the original victim, a red Mustang, smoking!

I had a great time, but I still like Thunderhill in Willows, CA the best. The Cobra and I will be there Oct 27/28... Can't hardly wait.

Here is a shot of the me and the Cobra in T2:



The Cobra ran great; suspension felt nice and no cooling issues.

Here is the in-car video. First of my fastest lap, then some fun with some classic 60's Mustangs, then some fun with a stock car racer and finally some of the mishaps. Enjoy!