Here are some pictures from Day One of the two-day track event.  Unfortunately I wasn't able to stay for both days due to work.  The weather was spotty all day, raining on and off.  Some run groups had a dry track, some a damp one, some had a river running across it.

Track Map

Click on any imge for a high-resolution version.

By the time I arrived there were already lots of cars at Mid Ohio, a 2.4 mile 15-turn road course track.  This is a view of the garage/paddock area from the parking lot as I pulled in.

This is a picture that just had to be taken...

The track is quite nice.  This is a view from the tower (visible in the background of one of the "staging" pictures). 

Peter Cunningham leads a "chalk talk" session.  He did a great job; I think a lot of people learned quite a bit from him, and he has a good sense of humor too!

He also did some on-track instruction with people.

Here several cars from the Advanced run group line up.  The CRX on the bottom left belongs to one of the instructors; they were the only ones allowed to track cars other than an NSX at this event.  A couple people I talked to said this guy was a great instructor.

Another "Advanced" group gets ready to run.  The Porsche turbo in the middle of this group was a very impressive and extremely loud dedicated track car.  After one session Wayne Miller said that he forgot to upshift once because he couldn't hear his engine at all while following the Porsche.  Note the wet pavement on the right where it wasn't being run on.

Here's a close-up of the Porsche.  Yes I know it's an NSX event but I thought this car was pretty neat.

Hitching a ride on the Realtime team's Comptech NSX... 

Here's the Comptech car at speed down the straight.  After taking several shots of the Comptech cars flying past I gained a real appreciation for the professional race photographers who manage to frame their shots correctly...

A "novice" group staging for their turn on the track.  You can see some pretty wet looking clouds floating around here and a couple little puddles on the pavement.

Pulling out into the track...  I've always liked the way the car looked from above.  Note that the ground is dry again.

This helps give a feeling for how many cars were on the track at once.  There are actually a couple more to the right; the red car in the foreground is waiting for everyone else to pull up so he can get behind them.  2.4 miles sounds like a lot, but with this many cars it can get pretty busy!

Dave Davis, of Davis Acura in PA, goes to the track in style.  His RV, enclosed trailer, and red car with "everything in the Comptech catalog" done to it are shown here. 

The Realtime team brought their Comptech NSX, which was louder than everyone elses put together. 

The interior is totally stripped down to the metal, painted white, with a racing seat and gauges and a roll cage comprising the interior.

It got around the track in a hurry.

They also brought three Integras.  These were even louder than the NSX (though the NSX had a much deeper sound) and moved pretty quickly too!

One last picture of the Comptech NSX.  I wish this is what my garage looked like...

Ironically (and unfortunately), I took this picture moments before these two vehicles sprung unto action. Almost as soon as I'd walked back down past the garages I heard a call come over the radio that there was "a situation in turn 11." The black flag went up and I helped direct cars back to the paddock area while everyone tried to figure out exactly what was going on.

What was going on, it turns out, was that David Hwang's car had unfortunately been damaged in turn 11 (the turn with #4 "Observation Mound" on the map at the top of the page). Luckily he and his instructor were both uninjured (but definately shaken!)  The car, on the other hand, wasn't doing so well.  It had struck a tire wall, skid into the grass, rolled over, and came to rest upside down. 

You can see how wet it was when this happened.

Since it is a relatively high mile, early model-year car, it will almost certainly be a "financial total" as far as the insurance company is concerned.  I am sure David will give his account of the story when he gets a chance.  Luckily he was not injured.

That's it!  I'll be going back and adding more pictures and filling in the text when I get some spare time.

NSXPO '98 was a great event all around and I'm looking forward to NSXPO '99!