San Antonio Shelby Club Track Day at Harris Hill

This past Sunday I spent the day at Harris Hill Road (H2R) with the San Antonio Shelby Club‘s track day.  I just happened to find out about the event via the Track Junkies Facebook page, which had put up a notice that the registration had opened to all makes to help fill slots.  I originally intended to take my MR2 there, after trying to shake it down at TWS on Friday, but the car was still at the alignment shop late Saturday night.  So rather than back out and eat the fee, I decided to take the M Coupe.  I had been to H2R earlier in the year, which was only my second track event.  The one thing I really remembered was just how rough and bumpy the track was.  It’s a relatively short track, with some decent elevation changes, and some sweeping turns where you stay on the gas.  

I arrived a bit late to the track, after the 1+45 minute drive to San Marcos, but the organizers were very friendly, handing me my assignment in the red group and doing a quick overview of flags, the same stuff you get at every driver’s meeting.  Since H2R is pretty small, and nearly the whole track is visible from the start line, they ran only two corner workers, then eventually just one.  We received a bit of rain between the first two sessions, with a little bit of misting on the second session, but everything dried up quickly and the grip was still there.  I’ve really noticed that I get much more tire squeal at H2R than other tracks, perhaps it’s a poor line, or just the surface, or maybe some combination of the two.

I had a good time, though the run groups were very small, so there wasn’t much traffic to play with.  The Shelby Club had catered BBQ at the club house included for all participants as well.  All in all it was a worthwhile event, it’s always good to get some extra seat time in, though I had wished I had the Spyder and its extra headroom there for the bumpy track.

I also tried out a new camera mount system, and H2R provided a great opportunity.  If you watch any of my older videos, you’ll see just how much the camera oscillates due to the track surface.  Previously I had been using the genuine GoPro suction mount, which wasn’t exactly rigid.  I picked up a RAM triple suction mount from eBay, and it proved to be a much sturdier mounting solution.

The proof is in the pudding, so here is a video of quick lap.  Notice how much the accelerometer (or my body for that matter) bounces around through the video.  The audio isn’t that great, as something near the microphone was rattling around.

Tags: H2R, harris hill, shelby, track-day, video