best $20 I spent (with pics)

[nostatic]

Went to the POC event at CA speedway. Almost missed the "lead and follow" (I was first in line with Lars, Milt, and TerryH close behind, but Calvin and I were watching the race and late getting back to the lineup). Anywho, there weren't that many cars, so they did one group, and we were on track for almost 40 minutes. A couple of slow downs, but the track is plenty long so you could slow down, then charge the corners. At this point my 7 year old now has over an hour of copilot seat time, and knows what oversteer feels like. He started getting a bit green towards the end of the session though. One the way out they were karting on the autocross course, and Calvin says, "hey, can I get a kart". Hmm...team nostatic might be forming.

A few pics from the AM (mix of Calvin and my shots):

[makaio]

Awesome Todd! Those are the kind of things he'll remeber forever.

[cowtown]

Hmmm. 40 minutes of track time for $20. I'm going to have to move to SoCal.

[masraum]

Hmmm, I think I prefer the blue GT3 "RS style" over the red.

[nostatic]

Originally posted by cowtown
Hmmm. 40 minutes of track time for $20. I'm going to have to move to SoCal.

We got lucky...not a lot of people, and a very cool POC staff. And luckily they pulled the crew cab pickup from in front of me before the start (and made them take the cooler, skateboards, and other crap out of the bed...what were they thinking?)

[Laura-Hergesheimer MotorS]

Richard, Mark and I were in the pace car for the lead and follw, we tried to keep the pace up but caught the end stragglers in the session. It seemed to work out better with 2 sessions, instead of some of the other venues when you couldn't get uo to speed. Thanks to Drew for the donation of his Turbo Cayenne for the Pace Car, it was pretty impressive.

[nostatic]

There were a number of "odd" car choices (the dual cab, a few other sedans) so it might have been nice to run those separately. The first few laps were damn fun the whole say though until you guys caught the back. But even after I could ease off on the straight to get some distance then go hard into the corners.

I never could quite figure out the hairpin though (hey, I'm a newbie at speed). I tried two apex and that was OK, but what is the fast way through that one?

[Laura-Hergesheimer MotorS]

Turn 6, (I think), single late apex, fast line and racing line are very different. (like many turn) Racing line you have to keep it tight or someone will slip in under you.

[Zeke]

Originally posted by nostatic
There were a number of "odd" car choices (the dual cab, a few other sedans) so it might have been nice to run those separately. The first few laps were damn fun the whole say though until you guys caught the back. But even after I could ease off on the straight to get some distance then go hard into the corners.

I never could quite figure out the hairpin though (hey, I'm a newbie at speed). I tried two apex and that was OK, but what is the fast way through that one?

Very late apex. There is no way fast around that corner that I can see. I think smart drivers throw the corner away in favor of getting off the thing well and down the next straight quickly. Which, BTW, produces some very fancy driving in the chicane that follows for those that are up to speed when they get there. We weren't.

That's Lars and me in the 6th pic along with "Photog Calvin" in front of Lars' very nice '72S.

[nostatic]

Originally posted by Laura-Hergesheimer MotorS
Turn 6, (I think), single late apex, fast line and racing line are very different. (like many turn) Racing line you have to keep it tight or someone will slip in under you.

ahh, that explains a lot. I've been reading a couple of books (Barber's most recently), and I thought I had some of the corners figured out, but there were a lot of tire marks inside of my line.

Of course maybe that Mercedes that Milt was talking about left them...

[araine901]

THat is cool, I hope my son catches the bug too.