[objectuser]

Red Baron and I signed up quite a while ago. Anyone else going? It was looking pretty dicey earlier in the week, but now it looks like it'll be fairly nice weather, Saturday 47 and Sunday 56.

It doesn't look like they've sold out either, so there's still time!

[maranelloman]

Wish I could. Careful, it's gonna be 27 degrees tomorrow morning.

[objectuser]

Originally Posted by maranelloman

Careful, it's gonna be 27 degrees tomorrow morning.

Yeah, I understand that. I was out on Dec. 16th and it was cold and a little foggy. It was a member day and only two of us on the track for the first lap. I took it nice and slow and still spun coming off of ricochet. I stayed on the track, but the other person was pretty far back so all was well. Pretty uncomfortable though.

[Greg S]

I may head out and say hi if I get bored.

[Greg S]

I should head out tomorrow. I had to do some work to the coche today.

[objectuser]

So it ended up being a pretty interesting weekend.

When we got there on Saturday it was a little too cold (like below freezing). Then we find out we're running the 1.7 backwards, when Rob and I both were looking forward to the 3.1. But then we thought, "hey, it's basically a new track." And it was.

Saturday morning was a waste for me. I did the first green session (helmets off, etc.) to get the feel for the track and then ran the first yellow session on street tires. It sucked. I was very uncomfortable; so much so that I skipped the second session (first time I've ever done that). Saturday afternoon was much better and I actually got the feel for the track.

The 1.7 clockwise is such a different track. There are really only two hard braking zones (or so it seemed to me) and you don't get going as fast on any straight.

Going into Big Bend is interesting: you just have to give it some good initial brake and then you can fire it up the rest of the way around. I actually tried Dave's technique of braking to the first cone and then powering through the rest of them all the way around the curve. I don't know if I was fast there, but it is a lot of fun to do a corner that way.

Ricochet is really fun. It is quite like going the other direction. I tapped the brakes before the cone, then got back on the power going up the hill. Once I did that a few times, I realized that there is a ton of run-off there and I could go as fast as I was able to make the turn in, just about WOT all the way through. It's quite a rush.

Anyway, Sunday was great all day. The track was perfect and the weather was beautiful. I took an instructor with me the second session and he was just outstanding. He gave me some things to work on so I'm excited about working on them and seeing how things change for my next event.

So it was basically 3/4 of a good event. I had a good time. Now I need to fix all of the things I broke on my car while not on the track. :nixweiss:

[maranelloman]

They did the 1.7 CW? BASTARDS! That is my all-time favorite!!!

Seriously, you are very lucky. That configuration is the bomb. IMO, it is much faster that CCW, and flows better (to me anyway). Plus, there are a couple of really good trail braking corners where you can really let the rear end rotate aggressively to help turn the car as you add power.

Who was the instructor you took with you on Sunday, Kevin?

[tfro]

Yeah, they 1.7 CW is a lot of fun, its a good reason to run w/ TDE since they seem to be the only ones who run it that way? I'd love to try it again now that I have a little bit of a clue of what I'm doing.

[maranelloman]

PCA also does it CW occasionally. In fact, they may do it CW this year.

[objectuser]

Originally Posted by maranelloman

... Seriously, you are very lucky. That configuration is the bomb. IMO, it is much faster that CCW, and flows better (to me anyway). Plus, there are a couple of really good trail braking corners where you can really let the rear end rotate aggressively to help turn the car as you add power.

I was trail braking into Big Bend at first (per another instructor), but then just took my braking back before the first cone so I could power through (it was just too much fun that way).

I did continue to trail brake on the corner after the top of Rattle Snake (so you go around Wagon Wheel, turn a hard right, then more gradual left, then a right at the top of Rattle Snake ... at that one I was trail braking).

In which corners do you trail brake? Some guesses would be the corner that puts you into Rattle Snake, the one I described in Rattle Snake above and the bottom of Horseshoe.

Originally Posted by maranelloman

Who was the instructor you took with you on Sunday, Kevin?

His name was John and he smokes cigars and lives in Austin (iirc). I'm not good at judging age, but I'll say he's somewhere around late 50s early 60s.