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Competition School Report: Day 1

Many many years ago I saw a televised piece on Le Mans. Somebody had
stuck a 16mm movie camera inside a Porsche 911 with a wide angle lens
and got it going while the driver circulated. You could see the driver's
hands and feet as well as out the windshield. I guess it was the first
"car cam" I'd ever seen. I was thunderstruck. At that minute I knew
someday I had to drive in a race.

That day is tomorrow.

Today I completed day 1 of a 2 day competition driving school. Since
many BMW owners enjoy driving their cars on the track, I thought some of
you might be interested in this next step in drivers' education.

The school is run by Pacific Rim PROformance, here at Seattle Int'l
Raceway. PacRim uses Neon ACRs as their school cars. This isn't Skip
Barber or Russell, this is a local racer who tries to make a living
doing racing by running this school when he isn't behind a wheel. 

I've got to make this short, cause it's after 10:00 pm and I'm whipped
and I'd really like a glass of wine but of course I'm not because
tomorrow we're racing that's RACING! REAL WHEEL-TO-WHEEL RACING!!! and I
just about electrocuted myself now trying to plug in my laptop and
wouldn't that be a total hoot: survive racing school and die plugging in
a laptop all in one day.

Anyway.

We started out with a chalk talk about attitude and mental preparation,
concentration, balance. All the usual suspects. In cars, which are stone
stock ACRs with 5-speeds, standard seats, Toyo Proxy 4-season radials,
and street brake pads along with a full cage, 5-point harness, window
net and fire-suspression system: in short, a basic showroom stock Neon.
We did some car control stuff. These cars have no ABS, and frankly it's
been awhile since I had to think about threshold braking. Initial
impressions, after driving PeeKay to the track, were: Mush. These cars
are mushy. Suspensions are soft, tires are garbage, brakes have no feel,
steering is numb, shifters are vague and sloppy. Real nice heater
controls, though...

After some laps with instructors to re-learn the correct lines we got
behind the wheel for some 7/10ths lapping. Now remember I'm used to
a--how shall we put this delicately--slightly more sporting car than a
Neon. Not that there's anything wrong with Neons! Actually they're fun
to drive and they are dirt cheap. But an M3 they're not. So my first
time into turn 2 at speed I get on the brakes and OH MY GOD!!! the rear
end is doing the shimmy-shangy back there, it can't weigh more than 5 or
6 ounces right now. Basically a terrifying experience. Going through the
chicane, I discover that you have to turn-in about three blocks before
your actual turn-in point, or miss the apex by a country mile. Wow,
these cars are interesting! At least there's no dreaded power oversteer
to contend with.

During the lunch break I got to take PeeKay out for some laps, which so
thoroughly confused me after driving the Neon that I was ready to take
up fly fishing instead. 

Still later (after my hapless Neon was brought in to investigate a loud
clunk under cornering: turned out to be some kind of weird transmission
mount they have) we did timed segments. Basically we were sent out one
car at a time for two hot laps and timed through certain sections of the
track. At the end of the day we compared everybody's times through the
three segments. Apparently all my time on the track hasn't been totally
wasted, since I was fastest through the chicane. My continuing
reluctance to late brake this mother showed up in my crummy times
through the two segments where braking is important. 

Finally, we practiced gridding, pace lap, and a real start. For one lap
it was RACE! I started inside second row and that's where I ended up.
The chief thing I learned is that it's real hard to see the starter
through the roof of the car on the pole. Finally i just figured he must
be waving the damn thing by now and nailed it. 

More tomorrow...

John Browne
M3 LTW (PeeKay)
other stuff including a missing mouse...