michael comet - cars, dogs, photos and musings: March 2016

So I finally got to do my first track day. I opted to not drive my car and to join in with the Simraceway group at Sonoma's Infineon track. This way I kept wear and tear off of my car and it was a good intro level day at what most consider to be a very technical track. At some point I hope to do Thunderhill and such but the close proximity of Infineon/Sears Point was too much to pass up. It's less than an hour from where I live.

Concerned about traffic I got there a bit too early. Was definitely much faster getting there than I thought. Not like my normal commute. I was able to chill out and take some early morning pictures tho.

The Audi Sport Experience lets you drive three of their S model cars, the TTS, S4 and S5. This was a nice intro to their cars and how they feel and drive. These are all the newer 2016 models. I was actually thinking the event would be a mix of sales pitch and driving but I was wrong, it was all about driving and practicing both Paddock exercises and on Track. And classroom instruction.

Wisely I chose a Wednesday as my event day. I had suspected it wouldn't be too crowded. I was right as I was the only person signed up for the event. So that was awesome, I basically got 1-on-1 training from Tony Brakohiapa. He's an experienced racing professional and drifting expert and also does stunt driving for movies and TV. For example he drove for some of the Fast and Furious movies and also is going to be driving up Pikes Peak this year. Cool.

The event started with classroom instruction bits and then Paddock exercises with alternating classroom discussion. I already have about a year and a half or so of Auto-Crossing my Cayman. So the first event which was just a 4 or 5 piece slalom was pretty straightforward to understand. This was done in the Audi TTS. I was surprised both by the torque the car has as well as how loose it was able to be even with traction control off. Not being used to the car I still had a lot to practice and improve on both with location and direction of car and how aggressive / fast I could go. Towards the end I was able to turn traction control to Sport mode... much more play and slide. Fun. Yes I hit some cones.

After the Paddock Slalom exercise came practicing a turn on the track, Turn 11. We got into the cars and did Follow the Leader (which is the whole day that way) coming around Turn 11 working on braking, apex and exit. Cool. After that was had a slow session driving the entire track working on lines and sight markers to use slowly building speed. Before lunch we were at moderate speeds while learning the course.

After a lunch break at a nearby restaurant were the last two track sessions. We got up to decent speeds and worked on lines and areas that were giving me trouble. I discovered the difference of having to coast or hold speeds in check at areas where you can't go faster vs my typical AX of on/off/on/off throttle mashing. By the second session things were better and smoother and I was getting used to letting the car move and apex properly. Fun... I wanted to go faster.

Things were uneventful until I was leaving. Sadly one of the cars in the individual group was going way to fast from turn 9 to 10... I hear squeal, saw tons of smoke/dirt and watched as a blue mustang rolled over a good 3-5 times fairly high in the air. Not good. Safety and Security and such showed up... hopefully the driver is ok. A good reminder about the danger of track driving.

Still it was a great day. Very challenging track, lots to learn, tons of elevation changes and blind turns and brick walls. The instruction is great and things are very clear over the radio while driving, every turn, brake, gear shift etc... including information on how you are doing from the instructor looking back. Was a great intro day I'm pretty much hooked and want to go back with my car now... one day....