Well, only Jack and I were representing the Pelican contingent, and in fact there were more 928s there than 911s (and the 928s were damn fast). For those of you that bailed, you missed one of the most perfect days around. Sun, blue sky, temps around 68, and zero wind for the entire day.
I ran the blue group today, and I was definitely the slow poke. In my defense I was easily the lowest hp car out there, with a bunch of vettes, the occasional viper, modded supra or two, and various race prepped things including an rx-7. First session out I had Jack instructing me which helped alot since the mind and body (at least mine) takes awhile to get back into the groove (especially when the groove maybe wasn't all quite right in the first place). Lines were pretty good, but at "safe" speed. Our session was cut short when one of the other instructors stuffed his 928 pretty hard into the berm off 3. Out came the red, then black flag. Turns out he was ok other than a stiff back, but he was pretty shook up (we came upon the site right after the off).
Then I rode shotgun while Jack drove my car for the lead and follow for the yellow group. That was instructive as I could see Jack's line, which varied from mine in a few places. That led to some trouble though. Turns out Jack goes a lot deeper into turn 3 than I had been, so in my second session I decided to push that a little. One time too many, as I was too deep, too hot, leaned a little too much on the brakes, locked them and spun entering into 3. BUT, I did both feet in, and kept it on the track, albeit pointed in the wrong direction
. I rolled a bit away from the line, and waited for the corner worker to wave me to do my u-turn. I came in the hot pits, got the car checked out, then went out to finish the run. None of my lines were quite right for the rest of that session though...funny how it takes some time for the brain to recover from a spin.
3rd and 4th sessions were uneventful, but I kept going a little harder, getting top speed up going into 1, and finally was keeping my foot mostly in it during turn 8. The 4-5-6 is pretty smooth now, but now I need to push it. 9 is erratic, some times I hit it, sometimes I don't. What is weird is that the faster I go in 8 the easier 9 is since my "braking" for 9 actually has meaning when I'm carrying more speed. Still lots of point-bys though, as everybody was damn fast. I'm still working up to the edge of my comfort zone.
5th session was great. Most everyone had gone home, and there were only a handful of us on the track. I got to just put my head down and drive, with the only bummer being the dropping sun making for a blind entry to turn 2. After about 40 mintues of straight lapping and pretty consistently running a bit faster each one, I pulled in to pack up and head back to LA.
So....California Speedway on Dec 17th?
