Had a lot of fun over the weekend, especially Monday, when I was able to get on the track about 8 times. 25 minutes on, 25 off.
Gave the Mustang another chance and though I really hate how tall 5th is (wonder if I can just put a different 5th in the tranny), it was a hoot having real stiction in the turns. Reeled in a lot more cars with that one.
I did get a bit of a talking-to on Sunday. It'd been reported by the corner gang that I was ignoring the passing flag.
My answer was that if they said I did, I must've, and would be more diligent, but also that track etiquette is a real big deal to me and though I could imagine not noticing a passing flag (corner stations are a bit oddly located from the perspective of a driver trying to see them), I *never* miss a car in my mirrors.
Well, turned out to be two things.
1. This club isn't used to the really tight technical tracks and to them being back 100 yards means you're close enough for a pass. Down here, even among students but especially among instructors, the "I want around you" distance is just a car-length or two. Or, among instructors, when your front bumper is even with their door. <g>
2. The corner worker was out of his mind. Ended up having that one proven twice later. Once when he showed the passing flag to a car in front of me who was definitely faster than me and I was only catching when he caught traffic. The second time when he showed me the passing flag because, yes, there was a car behind me a few car lengths, but he was back there because I'd passed him on the straight just before the end of the one the corner worker was on.
In the first instance, the car in front of me dutifully pulled to the right and hit his right turn signal and I (correctly as that driver later told me) pulled to the right along with him, hit my right turn signal, and pointed frantically for him to get back on line because both of us knew he was the faster car. Besides, I was learning a lot following him, and as I tell my students (part of my being so anal about good track etiquette), I was learning a lot more from him in my windshield than I'd have learned having him in my mirrors.
In the second instance, when I came back around a lap later and the other car was several hundred feet behind me, the corner worker just shook his head. No idea what that meant. I do hope that as the laps piled up and the distance between us grew, the corner worker did the math and figured out I was faster and only had the other guy on my butt because I'd just passed him. It's not like I would've expected the guy to "surrender" and coast through the next set of turns just because I'd passed him. He was doing as anyone would do after a pass. Try to keep up, figure out what's being done differently, and try not to let that gap grow too fast, if at all.
Anyway, fun track. I'd like to get up there maybe once every other year. The speed is definitely different. A different kind of adrenalin rush. And I was a bit of a wimp in turns 1 and 2, but few cars were faster than me in the more technical 3 through 10. I was like I'd watch them pull away from me the first 4600 feet of the track, then when we got back into the turns in the woods, it was like "Now you're in my world, dude." That's where I did most of my passing. Rarely on the front straight. Neither car was a match for most of these Audis when it came to collecting miles per hour.
I sure wouldn't want it to be my home track, though. It really made me even more grateful to have two very excellent and very technical tracks right in my own back yard. Well, that, and the 10-hour trip made even the 3 1/2 to MAM seem like my own back yard.
Both cars held together and performed well. I wish I'd brought the usual complement of tools because the Mustang really needed a lot more negative camber for the first two turns and the last two, but it did pretty well. Aside from the annoyance of having to wrestle it into 5th, only to have it barely accelerate. Oh, and I was having to hit 5th barely halfway down the front straight.
Kinda different the first time you shift into 4th wondering if it's gonna be a money shift. <g> Never was. My wimpiness plus the car's scrubbing off of speed through one put me right at 5k rpm on the downshift to 4th entering turn 2.
Looking forward to seeing you at RA.
I'm going to contact the Audi club and ask how strapped for instructors they are. I'm registered as an instructor for both events, but the more I thought about it, especially when I considered how much I would've disliked instructing at BIR my first time out, the more I've decided I want to be an advanced student at the Audi event at RA then go ahead and instruct for the BMW event the following weekend.
Really looking forward to getting onto one of my home tracks (MAM) the weekend after this coming one. BIR really helped me appreciate how much MAM demands of you for good lap times.
BTW, apparently I was pulling 2:15's in the Mustang. No idea in the Subaru. If my math's right, that works out to an average speed of 75 mph. That should give you an idea of just how much of that track is spend at speeds well over a buck. A friend who was also there for the first time was turning 1:58's, or a little better than 90 mph average. I don't feel ashamed of my lap times compared to his considering he was driving a Z06 with a few mods and Hoosier Viper Racing League tires. He was easily one of the 2 or 3 fastest cars on the track.
And, like me, he'd observed that since folks in that club apparently aren't accustomed to tracks like HPT and MAM, which is why I did the most catching up in the braking zones. Was kind of ironic that half of Saturday was spent running the students through a wet slalom, lane change, and threshhold braking excercises, but most of the instructors weren't threshhold braking on the track. Perhaps they know something I don't about that kind of speed and threshhold braking and what it can do to one's brakes, but I never had any brake problems. Many of them, however, were frequently bleeding them and complaining how cooked their brakes were getting. I still maintain that problem isn't as bad if you use your brakes harder but for less time.
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