Watkins Glen – Evo X – Sessions 1 and 2
We learned in the drivers meeting that we were going to be running a different configuration than normal. I had heard enough before the meeting to know what was going on, but many people still had to absorb the information. In essence we were going to be running drills for the first half of the sessions, to promote and educate techniques revolving around late passing into the turns. The entire exercise is a good one, as it moves people into a trail braking maneuver and makes everybody more prepared for how to react when you don’t have the perfect line. Unfortunately the first time out was a huge failure in the White group. We understood the concept, but people were not giving the point bys, we were not paired up with other cars to play with, and it turned into mass confusion. By the time we had the flag to signal the end of the exercise, we had such a train of cars built up that it took a while to get through the field.
This is where the return to the classroom offered valuable advice as everybody in the room learned what we were supposed to be doing. The second session added some balance back into the mayhem that was out there.
The return to the track yielded some positive experience out of the White group. First, they paired us off with cars before we even left the grid. I was lucky to get paired up with Scott in the Subaru Legacy GT, so I would at least have somebody I felt was comfortable with. We practiced our late pass by’s which slowly increased in pace as the session moved forward. The problem came as we were moving too fast around the track, we ended up moving into the wake of the next group, which made the exercise too slow to appreciate. We would both end up moving down to parade lap speeds, only to re-inexact the entire procedure in super slow motion. Something the class would need to work on in the future.
The open session after our drills was more enjoyable after we broke up a little.
What I do know is that I can’t keep up with Scott. He has a damn clean line and the car has some enough power to make me feel like running to the garage and getting back to work. I started pushing the car pretty good in the session, and found that I was pushing more in the turns than I had hoped for. Trying to ride out one of the drifts I managed to bring the tires off into the laces of the boot, providing a nice dust cloud behind me. I knew when Jim said “dude, you got to dial it back”, it meant I better stop messing around with feeling the car and run some clean lines to gain back his trust.
My wife came in before the end of the morning session, and brought an armada of lunch along with her, making her the instant hero of a hungry crew. Using some sandwich meat as bribery, she was able to go out with Stu Sacks after lunch. I was grateful she got to share the experience on the track, and knew that I owed Stu a huge favor as I watched her stagger he walk after exiting the car. Sure the cars looks slow when you are on the side of the track.
