I have now driven my car on an actual NASCAR track

This weekend, I attended the first day of the NASA (no, not that one) HPDE event at Pocono raceway.  I registered for HPDE 2 (which is intermediate) because I only had one prior track day with NASA (my other experience was through other programs or just the track days in Germany).  Chrissy and I drove up Friday night and camped on the grounds for the night.  It rained all night, which was a bit annoying, and then in the morning it was foggy, rainy and overcast.  It was so foggy that we couldn't start the event :(  It didn't look good all the way up through about lunch time when the fog suddenly started to burn off, and burn off quickly.  This meant that we had to cram a full days worth of events into half of a day though.  This is where things got crazy.

They had two different track configurations running in parallel.  The North course, which uses turns 1 and 2 of the tri-oval and a road coarse section through the infield on the north end (duh).  And then there was also the brand new South/East course combination in the other end of the infield.  The North course was 2.5 miles, the South/East course was about 2 miles.

NASA muddled with the schedule and my group ended up being third to get onto the South/East course that day (after the Hyper-Drive and Instructor Groups).  That course was windy, off-camber at times, and fun as hell (especially in the Rabbit).  Because of the screwed up schedule, while we were supposed to have an instructor for our first session, we were given the permission to go out without an instructor if we were comfortable (I was).

After we finished that session, we had to meet with our group coordinator/instructor, Steve Van Blarcom, who has what must be the sickest M3 in the states.

Our reprieve from the track was short because 10 minutes later, we were on the North Course running clockwise.  My first lap I joined the line following Steve to see the line through the infield section, and then was off.  I was hitting about 112 mph before braking to turn into the infield.  I was hitting close to the same between turns 2 and 1, but I was slowing to around 90-95 entering turn 1.  Because my car is short on horsepower, I wasn't able to build much speed at the top end going down the straight, hence the small differential between Turn 1 and infield turn-in.

Upon getting off the North Course, I found out that we were already supposed to be on the South/East course again because the North course was behind schedule (since for the second weekend in a row, a white lotus crashed during one of the sessions.  I booked it over there, and did my next session.  After that one we had a brief reprieve.  During that reprieve I talked to our group-leader to see if I could get a check-ride to move up to HPDE 3 during one of the last two runs of the day.  I REALLY wanted to get moved up so that I could run the full tri-oval course with groups 3, 4 and instructors at the end of the day.

Steve didn't make it out during our next to last run, so I was a little nervous about making sure I got the check ride, but my bigger issue was with another driver on the track.  His car was MUCH more powerful than my little Rabbit, but i was kicking his ass up and down the skill areas of the course.  A train was forming behind me (while I followed him) so I would point one of them by on the back stretch, and he would point that person by on the front stretch, and this repeated for 3-4 laps.  That was very frustrating, but we talked after the session and everything worked out.  (you will see it once I upload that session).

The last session of the day, Steve made it out on the track with us (and blew the doors off of all of us) but he saw enough to give me my checkoff and get me my HPDE 3 wrist band.  With that all squared away, I was supposed to have about 30 minutes of downtime before running the full oval, but then they announced it was happening immediately so I had to go hop in the car and go.  Unfortunately, this meant I didn't have time to change the battery in the Go-Pro so as I am sitting on pit-lane about to pull out on the track, hit record, and it died about 30 seconds later. :(

During that last run, I found out what the practical top-speed of my car is: 120 mph.  The car just didn't have anymore pull in it after that.  Braking into Turn 1 and Turn 2 at that speed is an awesome feeling, but the fact that the car just couldn't accelerate much the last half of the straights just showed that the car needs MORE POWER!  All-in-all, it was AWESOME.  I moved up to HPDE 3 with NASA, I was able to run THREE different track configurations at Pocono, and I was able to drive on a super-speedway.

I want to give a big thanks to NASA, Pocono Raceway, the NASA staff, volunteers, flaggers and our group instructor Steve for an incredible weekend.  Photos from the weekend are posted on Flickr and videos from the weekend will be gradually uploaded to my YouTube account.  Enjoy my photos and videos from other track days at well.

"I feel the need..."

"Hello everyone, I am glad to see you all here today.  We have a new person joining us today.  Why don't you introduce yourself"

"Hi, my name is Mike, and I am addicted to speed"

"Thank you Mike. It takes a lot of courage to admin you have a drug prob.."

"I never said I had a drug problem.  I am addicted to driving fast."

"You need to leave now"

I have a problem.  Well, it is really more of a hobby, but it is an expensive, time consuming hobby.  You may have gathered from my blog that I am a bit of a car nut (and I will be writing another post about my "car problem" another time) and that I like to go to the track and drive.  Well, last year was my first 3 trips to the track stateside, and this year, well, I am going to be spending a lot of time driving around in large, jagged circles.



So far this year, I have done a TrackDaze event at New Jersey Motorsports Park, and a Seat Time event at Summit Point Motorsports Park.  I have a TrackDaze event next weekend at Summit Point, a NASA event at Pocono the following weekend, and a Summit Point FATT event on the 27th.

And that just covers July.  To make the Rabbit handle the track better,  have updated the front brakes to R32 brakes with Racing pads and slotted rotors, the rear brakes to GTI brakes and I put in high performance brake fluid and stainless steel braided brake lines.  I will be changing out the rear sway bay are sway bar end links in the near future, and I removed the back seats and the spare tire surround from the car for weight reduction.



The car has spent a fair amount of time the past few weeks up on jack stands as I prepared the car for the track season, and then performed the pre-trackday inspections before heading off to the track, which I have to do later today for next weekend.  It has also spent a fair amount of time at the gas pump too.  After July, there are three at least more track days I want to do this year:  one I am booked for in September at Summit point, a TrackDaze event in August at VIR (which would be my birthday present), and a NASA event at Watkins Glenn International in September.



The last one of those will be hardest to work out (I want to do the full weekend but Chrissy's work schedule may not allow it) but those are my plans for the year.  I might also look into the NASA fall finale at Summit Point as well, as I hope to continue to move up the ranks in NASA HPDE to possibly be an instructor in the future (because instructors get free - as in beer - track time!).  Shorter term, I may pursue becoming an instructor for Summit Point FATT, and I will think about that more after I see how I handle my lines next weekend.