carhitect and I made it down to Texas World Speedway on thursday for the annual texas 2k supra event. Although it has the name supra in the title there are all sorts of cars. Porsche gt3's, z06's, mini's, miatas, vipers, mustangs, etc..

We did the 2.9 mile course which has a mix of cambered turns, long straights, twisties, and even a straight that uses part of the old nascar oval. Some of the z06's and supra's were pushing 150-160mph thru this section. The fastest I got my car up to in this straight was 130, and I believe carhitect said he got his there as well. The scary part is the way you exit the oval banked turn into the road track again is a bit of a bump. Even worse is the speed you are exiting.

I went thru an entire tank plus another 1/4 just at the event.

Quick notes on what I disliked about the is350 on the road track.
1. it has quite a bit of body roll when you really push the car hard into the turns. Alot of this is the weight of the car and the roof. Unlike 3 series, our roofs are actually safe if you roll it over, but they are heavy because of this. We know the IS isn't really a track car but they could improve on this.
2. this isn't really lexus fault, but the car should really come with some pilot sports or something better than the potenza/and even worse the turenza's. They did an ok job, but i know that after the driver, the tire is the 2nd most important thing when it comes to track days.
3. car seems to have quite a bit of understeer. This surprised me.

Quick notes on what i liked about the car
1. i've always loved the power of the IS. vettes, supra, wrx's etc could not pull on it unless we got into the oval bank section. Matter of fact I found myself passing quite a few supra's and vettes during the sessions.
2. I was actually kind of impressed with the way the car's automatic transmission adjusted to very abusive driving conditions. It was great
3. braking on the IS was absolutely great. The brakes never faded or gave any fuss. They were amazing. Big surprise there, I figured after the 3rd lap they would be fading like a sumbish, but that wasn't the case.

I changed my 19" volks back down to my stock 18's because the car handles better with them..

Here's some video (we really couldn't shoot any video from the road course part because of fences and what not, I was able to walk over and get carhitect one time going thru some turns). 3 of the 4 video's are where you can almost reach top speed in our cars. I know it doesn't look like we are going 130mph here, but trust me we are.

Video's: (done with a small point and shoot so quality sucks)
1. carchitect in the turns
2. carchitect on the straight (he has the blue painters tape bra on)
3. me on the straight (notice the end the big dip you hit going down)
4. me on straights again (this is where I hit 130mph)

pics
1.

the IS in the middle of some nice cars

2.

carchitect ready for action

3.
if you care about your paint, don't go to race day in your IS

4.

if your z06 starts to act funny in the turns, you might want to check your tires. This guy was hitting 150 and his car was feeling weird, and lookie why.

5.

look at the size of this thing!!!

 

SWEET....The IS350 with sways and coilovers would be TONS better on the track. 18s vs 19s should not have that much of an effect on the handling IF the car is setup for it, alignment, tire pressures, etc...

 

dam that is fast.. that supra is blazing fast!

 

wow..the supra!! damn fast.. how could you lose to supra?? :P

 

wow looks like you guys had a blast

I wish someone with a coilover setup/tires/sway/brace could do a write up after a track day. Not solo II in a parking lot thou but on a real track.

 

Wait.... is that supra picture photoshopped? That snail looks like a nuclear experiment gone wrong! its freaking HUGE!

 

Looks like fun! Cant wait for the weather to break so we can get out and enjoy this stuff!

 

Sweet, looks like you had a great time Troy! Thanks for the write up, too.

Javier

 

Thanks for sharing the awesome pics and movies!

 

Looked like tons of fun! Videos are always a nice bonus.

 

looks like it can eat small animals. god thats huge.

 

Great write up

I think a lot of the negatives about the IS350 has been addressed with the IS-F

Would love to hear this kind of write up on an IS-F

Basically your write up just proves that the IS350 is still a great choice for guys who like to take their cars out on the track every once in a while

I just wish I had time to do it like I did back in my S2000 days. I'd take the IS350 out!

I dunno about your under steer comment, I can swing the rear end out pretty easy on the car even on the street. Probably more so then my S2000’s and without the “snap” problem.

 

Thanks for the write-up! I know the Tom's 6link gets rid of some understeer, and the underbody sways get rid of some roll?

 

Looks like a awesome time!

Does anyone know where in So Cal we go to a track event like this?

 

In So Cal you can head out to Willow Springs, but I don't know what the current schedule is like.
I wanna take my 250 out shoot around the track a bit to. Looks like a ton of fun.