[chrish]

OK - I'll start with what I forgot to tell you about day one. One other excercise we did was the lane toss. Driving down a middle lane of three. All three are green. Then two turn red, once stays green. Littlerally toss the car into the green lane and recover. It was a little more challenging when we did two lane tosses. However, since we knew which lane was going to go green, the anticipation factor was removed.

Now for day 2.

Started out on the autocross. Again had a blast. Ater a number of laps in the carrera, was allowed to drive the Viper. I'm still unimpressed. Didn't drive/handle any better. HOWEVER - - The brakes were much MUCH better. I've got to say a noticeable difference. I know mine wouldn't have braked that well. Maybe that's an upgrade I need to do. Power in my opinion stunk. Sure it had lots, but was nowhere near as responsive as mine. The one thing is - of course I know mine pretty well by now - I know how to make it move. So since this was a new car to me, that may explain it - but I don't think so. I know the mods on mine (headers, hi-flo cats, cat-back, K&N intake and VEC1 computer) made a real seat of the pants difference. I would say mine is quicker than the new ones - stock - that is. So between body style and power - I can't ever see me going for another viper. If there's ever a gen 4 I'll consider it, but ain't holding my breath.

OK - after autocross, skid pad. THis time, instead of just an oval rack, we did a figure 8. So that meant we had to put he car (330i) into a skid, let the back end drift out, then apply a little power to keep the back end out so we could get further around the turn and headed back across to make the fig 8. Very fun, but man - it sure takes time to get the feel right. The right sppeed, brake, amout of steering, power just as it starts to grab etc... Towards the end, I was getting it right maybe 50% of the time. I would have liked to practice that one more.

Then, heel-toe downshifting. Tought to get used to, but not too hard. We did this in the boxter and I pretty much did OK. Tried it a bit in my viper on the way home, and it's almost impossible given the position of the pedals. I'll need to get different pedals - I don't think it can be done with the stock ones unless one has a quintuple E width foot.

Then after lunch, all afternoon on the track (Laguna Seca). Started out riding with the insructor pointing out the correct lines of the turns, etc... Then we got to drive the track. HAd to follow the instuctors. They were in turbo Neons. We were in Carreras, Boxters, and M5. Started out slow, picked it up - after a few confidence building laps started to go for it a bit. Of course, the funny thing was that here I am in a porsche carrera and the fastest we went I was at about 90% of what I think my skills were/are (or my comfort level) just keeping up with these guys in the Neons. Now granted, they're professional race car drivers - so I shouln't feel too bad. But DAMN! A neon? Kinda puts my feeble little skills in perspective. By the end of the second "round" of track time, I was keeping up - maybe even too close to the neon. So my confidence grew and I think I can say my skills did too. I was able to go through turns fas enough where the rear end was out a little, but I had it under control all the way through and in fact used that to steer the car more efficiently. So I felt pretty good about that - That skid pad really did make a difference.

The last part was a "hot lap". The instructors took us each individually on a lap at the speed they'd normally do - giving us an idea of what those cars are capable of. That was better than any rollercoaster - ever.

So all in all -
I had a great time and definitely fel like I've leaned some and improved my skills as a driver and am more in control of my vehicle. So in that sense "mission accomplished". Frankly, for what I really wanted to get out of this class, I'd rather skip the track time and stay workign on the skid pad and autocross. I did very well at the autocross. To me that was the most fun - even though gettign out on the track at 100mph was a blast, autocross just has more appeal to me as it's more control (brake, turn, accel - just at the right times) oriented.

They do have a 1 day car control clinic - I'm interested in taking that.
It;s lots of skid pad and autocross. Just up my alley. I thini those are the skills I'd like to have for daily driving - for those times when "shit happens" - to keep from ever having to visit the body shop (or at least have it be a less intrusive visit).

So that's my story. My ass is a dragon. Big time!!!!. Gonna go have dinner and decide whether or not to drive home tonight or stay down here.