Watkins Glen – Evo X – Sessions 3 & 4
The afternoon sessions were better for the White group. The exercises moved along and progressed into more track time. I even 
had people starting to use the late pass by in the open sessions, which was the intention all along. I ran very clean runs on the third round, and could tell that Jim was a little less hesitant about the car making it around the track with me at the wheel.
We started dialing in the braking zone on turn 1. First lap around Jim instructed to have full throttle until the signal light, marking the start of the braking zones. After stabbing the brakes and seeing a whole lot of road in front of us, we moved it down to 300 and eventually 250. After the 250 pass, my brain started taking over my foot control and I wasn’t ready to go much deeper without some comfort passes at this level. Jim looked over and said, “you have plenty of braking to work with yet” “oh and by the way this car is awesome”. That made be feel better and I could see his clinching moments lesson quite a bit after that, knowing the car would have room to improve. The car was awesome, considering it was exactly how it came from the factory, with a set of better brake pads on there.
The last session of the day was good, but I will admit my brain was cooked. I stepped back quite a bit when I started missing the lines on my favorite turns, realizing I need to focus on keeping it smooth for the rest of the day to keep Jim from loosing my trust. Everything ended on a positive note for day one, but man the group was exhausted. We went back to the lodge for dinner with family and friends, until retiring to the bed. I fought staying awake as part of the group tried to keep a beer or two moving.
