Inn of the Wandering Dragon

Ok, the photo is not from my class but it looks remarkably like the overcast rainy morning two Sundays ago so I pulled it. The drivers are in the front straightaway after going through the "carousel" as they call it.

After our wet and chilly walk about the course we split into our two groups again for more exercises. My group started off with the south end of the track and we would get three laps at a time with an instructor to get to know that end of the course and the line we were supposed to be aiming for. Again, we had a different instructor for each turn. The line is supposed to be the most efficient and fastest way to get around the track, using the whole track. There are always variations but the line we were learning was essentially the corporate line taught by the school. Having a corporate line is actually a good thing - otherwise we would be standing around all day while the instructors debated amongst themselves which line should be taught based on their own experience. It is safe to say you will never get them all to agree to the same thing!

We switched places with the other group to learn the north end of the track. This time we found a couple of extra exercises placed on the front and back straightaways. After lining up, you started with a braking exercise - accelerate to 80 km/hr and then brake hard. There are markers in place so you can see how far your vehicle actually travels with your foot on the brake. Each time you go through this you increase the speed and see how far your stopping distance increases in relation. For myself in the truck, the distance increased by about 50ft for each additional 10 km/hr. I also put a nice big flat spot on the front tires and sent up a nice bit of smoke for my efforts, which was the whole point. They want you to feel the ABS kick in, they want you to try and lock everything and see what happens.

Next we wound our way over to the chicane (sp?) which is a double curve leading on to the back straight. There we did another serpentine weaving in and out of cones to practice smooth car handling. Again we are going faster than the day before and staying smooth while having to move faster is a challenge! Jerking the wheel will only end up in more flattened cones and possibly heading off track - although we are past the swamp at this point. After that we learn the sequence of curves at the far north end and go through a chicane made of cones (to make us slow down) before lining up to start over.

Lunch time finds the whole lot of students frantically reviewing flags and procedures for the written test. There are two parts and the questions are pretty straight forward, except in a couple areas where they recently changed the rules a bit but oh well. Meanwhile the instructors took their own cars out for a bit of fun on the track to do some lapping. A few students missed the "instructors only" part and joined in which earned them a big red flag once the head instructor noticed. I thought a black might have been a little more appropriate but for now it was a strict warning.

We found ourselves assigned instructors for the afternoon, no more hopping in and out of cars for them. The list was then to be adjusted after one petite lady informed them that no man larger than herself would possibly fit in her little Triumph. That naturally led to some interesting jokes.. It was time for us to run the entire track now. We were kept in our separate groups so as not to crowd things too much. One group would run while the other watched and then we switched. The first session was run with the instructors driving while we sat in the passenger seat and tried to take it all in. Of course, when you have people, instructors included, who are not at race city often and are not familiar with the routine then you have the odd mix up. That is how I ended up in the drivers seat one session early and running with the other group. I will say that I don't mind having a little extra practice - I certainly needed it!

The opening quote in the title was from my instructor. Despite the fact that I had promtly moved my foot from the brake to the gas there was a time lag for the gas to actually kick in, the reason for this was the automatic transmision. This would prove to be an interesting juggling act for the rest of the afternoon as I was trying to get to the gas a touch earlier without messing up on the rest of it with mixed results. For the first few sessions we had to remain under a set speed limit and no passing was allowed. All the way throughout my instructor was explaining the line, where to brake and where to add gas. Never coast! When you are coasting you are not in control of the chassie. Now and then he would throw in a question like, "what does a red and yellow flag mean?" which would throw my concentration for a loop - and that was the point. His line was slightly off of the corporate line in some parts but I didn't feel like getting too close to the concrete wall so I didn't mind. Also the changes had reasons behind them, as opposed to changing it for the sake of change. For the final session all speed limits were lifted and passing was allowed on the front and back straight only. This was the time when the guys with the really fast cars opened everything up and let fly. The extra set of eyes in the truck were absolutely neccessary as cars literally appeared out of no where and flew past on the straight. This dakota was no match for them, although I was able to keep up in the corners reasonably well. My personal favorite was the guy with the race car that passed me with barely inches between - that's good for some nerve wracking moments. I know it happens on the track all the time but that isn't where I'm driving 99.9% of the time. :)

We finished off the day getting into formation (2x2) and making some practice starts to get an idea of how the rolling starts work. It's tempting to allow the usual driving distance between yourself and the other cars but we have to stick close together or else the marshal will just wave us around for another lap to bunch up before giving us the green. We had three tries in total and we saw the green flag for two of those tries. The middle attempt saw the marshals waving at us to close up ranks some more.

By the end of the excersize and the checkered flag I was going through corners much faster than normal (for me) and I was picking out the line by myself with pretty decent results. After all, I wanted to do it well first. The higher speeds can come later. My instructor was pleased and said that if we had time for some lapping I would be free to go by myself. He had confidence in letting me go alone and so did I. Unfortunately the lapping did not materialize before it was time to go up into the cafe to get our certificates. We all passed the written test and our instructors had filled out evaluations on us as well - which I would be interested in reading but I don't know if that will happen. I thoroughly enjoyed myself over the two days and to be honest I would seriously think of doing it again. I can only get better with practice.