These are pictures from the driving school I attended at Thunderhill Park at Willows, CA. It was my first driving event ever and I had a great learning excperience. I got my car back home in one piece, although at the end of Sunday's session, I locked up my brakes, misjudging the left turn into the east track straightaway, and "flat-spotted" my left front tire.

• #01: On March 27, Friday evening, driver's attend a dinner and class room session at the Elk's Lodge in town (Willows, CA). It was great seeing the faces of the local people after seeing 100 Miatas invade thair little town.
• #02: One of the speakers at the Elk's lodge was Kevin Lakis, field engineer from Toyo Tires. The other speakers were organizer Ken Freeze, driving instructor, Peggy Hale, and a salesperson from Mazda.
• #03: This is the entrance into Thunderhill park. It's 6.5 miles east of Willows, which is at the Hwy 162, Interstate 5 junction. It's out in the middle of a rolling hill cowfield. No houses or other structures were nearby.
• #04: This is my car parked in the paddock area. Behind it are all the loose items from my trunk and interior that we were required to remove prior to running on the track.
• #05, #06: About 100 other Miatas are parked in the paddock area.
• #07: Peggy Hale gives driver orientation on Saturday morning.
• #08, #09, #10, #11, #12, #13, #14, #15, #16, #17: At the paddock area, standing on bleachers, I took a series of panaromic shots starting with a shot aimed south and working clockwise. Thunderhill is actually composed of a older "east" track, and a newer "west" track that are joined together. On Saturday, the tracks were separated and one group ran on the east track, and another ran simultaneously on the west. For Sunday morning, the entire track was used.
• #18: Miatas speeding down the east track straight away that passed the pit area. I reached 87.0 mph according to my GPS receiver. Other, more powerful Miatas were probably going over 100 mph down this straightaway. The start of this straight away was where one Miata rolled over.
• #19: Mushy hail, then rain fell around 2:30pm on Saturday afternoon, but drivers kept on driving (except more carefully). The track dried out very quickly after an hour after the rain started falling.
• #20, #21, #22, #23, #24: On Sunday afternoon, a Miata rolled over at then entrance of the main straight on the east track. The driver, Louie, said he took the turn into the straight away too fast. His left wheel must have clipped a burm on the left hand side of the entrance to the straight away which caused his car to roll. Luckily, he was uninjured.