I didn’t want to continue my previous thread (
http://thscc.com/phpBB/viewtopic.php?t=5921 VIR Full turn by turn) or start another VIR thread, so I am going to hijack Ron’s thread.
First I have to say that I thought the event was extremely well run from my point of view. I just was generally amazed at how professional both the event and the VIR staff were and how well things went. Meetings, classes, run groups, etc. started on time. I don’t know if this is the norm or not, but I was impresses. Major Kudos to everyone involved. On Sunday, I had meant to go around and thank everyone that had an “Event Staff” shirt on, but only caught a few.
I had an absolute blast. I knew it would be fun and it lived up to my expectations. I think I did much better on track than I ever thought that I would for my first time out. By my last session on Sunday I felt that I was to the point of working on specific problem areas and generally feeling really good about how I was driving most of the track.
My initial instructor that was assigned to me late Friday night had some issues getting to the track so they assigned someone else to me Saturday morning. But that instructor swapped with someone else as the other instructor had a hard time fitting into his student’s car but would fit in mine. That other instructor was Ted Wilder out of Wake Forest. Ted was great, he was giving me great feedback both when I was doing something right and when I needed to do something differently. Both Ted and I are big guys 6 ft plus, 250 lbs plus, so it was funny that between the two of us we generated over 500 lbs of extra weight to my 106 HP car (I also rode with Ted in his Corvette after my first session. It was pretty exciting to be approaching turn 14 at an indicated 145+ mph. I was peddling as fast as I could to hit 110+ at the same place.)
Anyhow, I started to get a bit nervous in my first class when the instructor said something like “when you are on course in a few minutes”. I think that is when it really hit me that I was about to really be out on track! But grid seems to go very quickly and before I knew it I was going through the gears and heading toward turn 1. It happens so quickly and was so uneventful that the nerves went away pretty quickly and found that I was able to do this.
After a few laps I begin to remember turns and some semblance of what I was supposed to do (even if I may have had a hard time at that point telling anyone what the actual turn number or name was). While the videos and track analysis stuff helps, I found it much easier to just look and see the turn, see the suggested turn in, apex and track out cones and the line popped into view. I truly think that having to drive autocross course with only walkthroughs, multiple visualization runs and plain old relying upon looking ahead helped a HUGE amount at this point.
Before I knew it I felt comfortable enough to pick up speed, brake deeper and I was passing cars. I eventually caught up with a Cayman S that I could stick right to in anything except for the straights. He would power away from me and then I would catch back up with him. This went on for about the last ¼ of my first session.
I survived my first session and felt excited about getting back out there. Second session was building on the first. More speed, continuing to get familiar with track, passing cars, etc. But I caught the Cayman again early in the session. Again, I wasn’t getting a point by and Ted wasn’t happy. By this time, I discovered something bad that was easy to do and that is follow the line of the car in front of you. So, if I ran I may own line, I was able to catch people in front of me, but once I caught them and was slowing down and waiting for a passing zone, I could drift into following their line. It was during this time that I was trying to keep in close contact with the Cayman so that he would know I was back there and would point me by. He had again pulled away from me a bit on the back straight and I made the mistake of going into turn 14 a bit too hot (my first red mist moment?). I had done this earlier and had been taking a tighter line into 14a (which worked when I was going slower), but as my speed increased I needed to use a later apex in 14a. I was focused on the Cayman in front of me (who was going slower and could take the tighter line), went into 14, 14a too hot, the car got loose in the middle of 14a and I decided I was not going to be able to save it so I went both feet in.
I ended up doing almost a 360 down over the hill. The field there is rutted a bit and I bounced sideways through it enough to de-bead both driver side tires and pull off the valance trim on the drivers side as it hit something (edge of track?). I didn’t get a chance to talk to whoever was behind me, but I don’t think they were close enough to have had issues. Apparently they had about three cars go off in that same spot in my session. We limped back to pit (tires was actually holding air), but I had enough issues that I needed to skip the rest of the session to fix the tires. After pulling them off the car and cleaning the bead, 60lbs of air did the trick to get them reseated and some soap and water showed that they were not leaking any air. I had a few Tarheelers and strangers offer to help with either assistance or tools! That was the only real issue of the entire weekend for me. Third session went well. I tried to force my self to drive my own line and it turned out that I ended up with less traffic issues anyhow. I went back to my hotel that evening totally spent.
Next morning I ended up running into the Cayman driver and we chatted. He was a super nice guy and we talked a bit about me catching up with him and him pulling away in the straights. We didn’t directly talk about the lack of point by, but I think it was a totally accidental thing. He was as new to this as I and I think he only has had the car about three weeks anyhow. For all I know, I may have not been pointing someone by when I should have. Apparently it was an enough of an issue with a few cars that it came up in the instructor meeting and then after that in the students meeting. It seemed to much less of an issue Sunday in Green group.
Second day was more of the first. I started to get comfortable. Enough so that Ted was helping really fine tune some things by telling me things like “Ok, you really don’t need to brake as hard here, stay on the gas here, unwind the wheel more here, you need to be more of here and in this position when you turn in, etc.” Basically tips that was allowing me to keep up my momentum through more of the track. Nothing exciting happened in all three sessions other than I felt like I was going MUCH faster than the previous day. No scares at all, but could see pucker factor increasing as speed increased. I also felt like I was now piecing together turns into complete sections 1-6, 7-10, 11-12, 14-17. As it turned out, on my last lap, I noticed my fuel warning light come on. I had never had fuel starvation issues with very low fuel levels on autocross, but I finally had it starve once on in a turn on what turned out to be my last lap. Ted and I talked about what to do (pull off safely now vs. get stuck in a bad spot) but as we came up on Oak tree they were waving the checker flag. My day and event was over. I had burned up an entire tank of gas over the entire weekend.
I know that this is long winded already, but here are my newbie impressions of the track. I felt turns 1, 2 and 3 where pretty straight forward. I initially had issues with wanting to run 1 and 2 in second (due to lack of power in 3rd) but I would always run out of gear way to early. I eventually settled on occasionally being in 2nd in Oak tree if in traffic, but otherwise I was in 3rd and 4th for the entire track (may have been in 5th some). Overall I felt that proper gear selection was hard for me to learn. I tended to try to stay in my power band (which resulted in shifting), but once I started to faster overall, I was able to keep momentum up and this required less shifting. I felt I was doing well with turn 4 and 5 by late apexing both turns and getting a good run toward 5a and 6. But it wasn’t until late Sunday that I was doing 6 like I wanted. I had a tendency to not track out far enough after 5 and then it made 5a hard and caused me to pushed out track left and this made 6 even worse. But if I did those right I could accelerate hard up toward 7 (upshift to 4th after bridge), a slight lift going into 7 and then flat all the way until after 9 and approaching 10.
I had enough fear in 10 that all day Sat I was braking hard enough to downshift into third before I dove down over 10. But I eventually realized that there is quite a bit of track to the right as you go over the top and that you can see where you need to be at 11 and it really is a bit of a straight line toward 11 even though the track goes a bit left right before 11. So by the end of the day Sunday, I was braking a bit before 10 and then was flat through 10, unwind the wheel, down the hill and into 11. Never had any hint of an issue here. But I know I could go faster through 10 as I still have more room that I can track on onto. Overall this entire section is where I would catch up with many faster cars as they climbed the Uphill Esses if I did 5a and 6 correctly. Cars that pulled away from me due to power after 6, I was usually right on top of them going into Oak tree.
Gearing, lack of torque, lack of grip and the overweight driver seemed to be my enemy in Oak tree. I could try to carry more speed in through 11, but it seemed that no matter what I did, I just couldn’t carry speed through or pull hard out of 12. So if I was right on someone, they would motor away after 12. If they decided to look in their mirrors (hadn’t since 6a or 7 and didn’t know I was there) they just saw me back about 5+ car lengths and not gaining on them. I would get point buys but many cars would have to lift to let me buy.
As I mentioned earlier, I had been screwing up by taking a tighter line through 14a, but if I did it right brake hard and late for 14, stay left with some throttle to keep some speed, small brake (may have not been doing this right and maybe could have carried more speed through 14) late apex on 14a and hard on the gas all the way through 15 and into 16. I could catch right up with cars again here that previously would motor way.
I think that hog pen was not as scary for me as I could as I maybe wasn’t carrying enough speed down the hill from 16 or maybe once down the hill into the double apex constant radius turn that I just didn’t have enough power to get me into serious pucker territory (Or a combo of both lack of entry speed and power in the turn). But generally nobody was pulling away from me in hog pen. I suspect I could carry more speed as I wasn’t tracking out as far as I could, but lack of power allowed me to be flat on the gas through 17 and 17a with minimal or no steering corrections. Overall I felt like I was doing a good job for my first time and felt much mroe comfortable than I thought I would.
Like many others, I had a tendency to point by in the wrong direction in passing zones. I tended to be trying hard to do either Oak Tree or Hog Pen correctly and maybe had even given a wave to the car behind me to let them know I knew they were there, but at the same time I was focused on trying to enter onto the straight as fast as I could, but when to straight I might point the wrong way. Luckily I actually didn’t get passed much Saturday and was actually passed more Sunday and they had reminded everyone to not take passes on the wrong side if the driver in front asks you to do it wrong. So I was occasionally would point wrong, see them not take the pass and realized I had screwed up and then point them the right. But by the end of the day on Sunday, I think I was getting it right.
There seemed to be a lot of THSCC members there. I talked to some, but didn’t get a chance to say “Hi” to everyone. Johnathan Eshleman was also in green group with me (first HPDE for both of us). But we must have been on opposite sides of the track the entire weekend as he never caught me and I never caught him.
As much fun as this was, I am sticking to my resolution of taking the Civic back to stock and it is being retired as an autocross/track car. All focus continues on the 914.
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