Nice job with this thing. It’s impressive that it’s so well sorted and it’s not even May.
havent really updated this at all since most guys are on facebook or instagram, but if you arent here’s the scoop.
went to New Jersey motorsports park June 16-19 for the NASA event to get my comp license and do the first 2 of 5 events to hopefully be eligible for nationals at the Glen this year.
comp school wasnt too bad other than the fact that you repeated this schedule 5 times throughout the day, one right after the other
classroom (20-30 mins)
10-15 minute break (if you want to call it that since you had to be in full race gear and do anything like tire pressures etc on your car or add gas etc)
on track (20-30 mins)
…repeat 4 more times
first session
was open lapping for the first 10 minutes to familiarize yourself with the track, then we were brought into the pits and paired up with someone to do passing drills, alternating each corner so you got the feel for being on the outside or the inside of each corner. i was paired with a C6 vette. which sounded fantastic, especially on downshifts, otherwise i couldnt hear his car that much.
second session
we were paired up with the same cars more or less and drove around side by side, alternating on the straights, again to get both sides of the corner each turn. this was moderately paced. kind of like pre race pace speed. i dont have a speedometer, but id say like 50ish and slower in the corners depending on the part of the track you were at
third session-
not my favorite cup of tea, but i feel it was more the car pairing than anything. drove 3 wide around the full track, we would alternate left car to the inside and the other 2 move to the left on the front straight and stagger the positions that way. it was super tight going under the overpass before the last turn (11 i think) this session really opened up my eyes that i need a wink mirror or something to give me a broader view in case someone drops back to you mid door, you cant see them at all but you know they are there somewhere. but i was still paired with the vet and an open wheel car, which from my view i could only see the top of the cage, not the fenders or anything, so it was super hard to judge exactly how close we were. it was really only bad being in the middle because you were relying on the inside guy to hug the corner and the outside guy to give you enough room to hang in there. i pussied out some corners and backed out because one car would drop back a little and come up quick and would do a quick jerking motion and didnt leave a ton of room. and i wasnt about to rub fenders with an open wheel car my 3rd session of the weekend (practicing none the less) so this session was a little slower paced just because you didnt have the wiggle room in the corners with 2 other cars there. but it was an eye opener in the fact that i was like, shit this would suck being 3 wide through this corner in a race haha.
4th session
we did a small mock race with the 10 cars in the comp school and a handful of instructors to see how everyone was doing and to test us by passing or driving next to you. this was actually better than i had anticipated. the pack of cars opens up quite a bit after the first few turns and then it was just a matter of hitting your marks and checking your mirrors for upcoming cars. it was cool to feel what an actual race would be like with passing cars and having cars come up on you. the flaggers tossed a few flags to test our knowledge and our general awareness, noting that you acknowledged the flags when they were displayed
after the session was over we had to pull into the pits and stay strapped in with the car running to prove we could get out of the car in the required 10 seconds (15 if going through the window) i made it out in 7 through the window so i was good to go.
5th session
full mock race with about 35 cars. same thing as the 4th session, just with more cars, which led to more traffic throughout the run. now i had the itch to run saturday in the actual race.
more later…
Sounds like a lot of work but worth the effort. Congrats.
Sounds really nice, Mike…