Yup. It gets worse. He had intended to go home after Saturday, but the pass was closed. So he decided to stay for Sunday....

 

it can't be much fun driving on the track with a 3600lbs+ car

 

.... that feels like it weighs 4600

 

I was digging dirt and gravel out of my brakes when the M3 went off. Boy, those pictures sure make me feel good about having left at lunchtime. A day and a half on a wet track were more than enough!

 

According to my Excuse Generator, yes.

 

My very best session was after you left. Second to the last of the day. It was a combined A/B session, and the track was drier than it had been but not dry.

I realized that I had been driving point-to-point too much in the heavy rain, so I consciously lifted my awareness of the track out to the whole track, rather than just the visual reference points I had been using. I was seeing whole complexes at once (eg. 4, 4a, and 5 as I was going through turn in for 4) and just driving by the seat of my pants, feeling the traction and not really looking at any of my reference points. But my brain must have been looking at them without me knowing it, because I stayed on line and everything was smoother and better.

The last session of the day it was just raining too hard for that -- I had to watch the road right in front of my car just to avoid standing water.

 

Mike, yours was a very interesting post to me. I knew that I was driving cone-to-cone much too much, but the combination of a track I had never driven before (and an interesting one, at that) and constant rain made me pretty paranoid. The next school I go to, I'm certainly going to use an instructor, and explicitly work on driving smoothly, particularly the right times to squeeze the gas and proper braking techniques.

My instructor in Spokane showed me things I had not been aware of before; I drive pretty well on PR because I've got a great car, and I know the track, but I'm not nearly as good a "driver" as I had thought (and the rain really shows that, especially on a new track).

Both track driving and autocross are humbling experiences!

 

I don't even think I rode w/ you @ ThunderHill
My "student/assignment" was that kid w/ the White V6 Mustang that pitted acrossed from us in your same run group ........ and a couple of sessions w/ Mira too. I think JerJer is to blame (load him in to the EG)

 

... wait, didn't you have Hayashi riding w/ you?

 

Hayashi was actually my instructor at Laguna Seca. He rode with me for at least two sessions, and I rode with him for one.

At Thunderhill, you rode with Dave Kennedy, then rode with me during my first session to show me the line.