Doh! Frank hijacked my thread that I was going to post tonight. Thanks Frank!
Here's my recap:
My buddy, Grubb, and I decided to hit Mid-Ohio this year and the track turned out to be better than what I thought it would be. As far as technicality, it's on par with my home track, Hallett, but there is so much more of it.
The trip started out well enough but early - had to wake up at 5AM to get to the "meet" spot. Yes, the first thing that came to my head when I got in the truck was "Shawney sleepie." Meet Grubb and we were on our way with limited knowledge of our 2 way radios. Umpteen sodas, twizzlers, tortilla chips, 44 "I gotta pee" from weak-bladder Grubb stops, and 14 1/2 hours later we get to our home for 4 days.
The following day we decide to head out after washing our cars and the Tahoe support vehicle. We meet up with the Alleghany region PCA who's having a DE event. There are a lot of Porsches there - duh! In addition the P-cars, I see a BMW Z8 and an E36 M3 Lightweight. Cool. This particular region prides itself in being very conservative with a low wipeout-and-crash-and-ruin-your-historically-significant-Porsche rate. They said the region gets one crash a year. Well, we saw that one a year. A beautiful white 911 Turbo became intimate with tire barrier. One side looked good but when I saw the "vultures" congregate around it in the pits, I knew something was up. I'll try and post some more pics later. Sure nuff, the opposite side told a twisted and crumpled story of grass stains and tire carnage. The driver was cool but a little shakey and nervous. The word in the pits was "that's taking 10mph off my cornering speeds." Not one to flippantly condemn a wuss driver, I shut my mouth and decide maybe 2-5mph reduction would be the right number. Nah!
Monday comes and Grubb and I are head over heels in love with the track. Elevation changes, hills, the famed "Carousel" and "Keyhole," a long straight, and blind corners made the day feel like Christmas morning. Grubb is in the fast group and I'm in the medium group. There's a reason why he's in the fast group - he was 5-6 seconds off of best time - in a Miata! Anyway, the first few session are spent learning the track and getting familar with it's excentricities. There are a lot of them. In a few places the road actually changes from flat to off-camber to just the opposite - all in one sweeping semi-chicane turn. In total, we got mucho seat time. And we got to see a lot of cool cars and meet a bunch of cool people. My first instructor, Franz, was a SCCA national champion in 2000 and 2001 and got me doing the correct line. My second instructor was the famed "GhettoRacer" in Honda circles. Frank did 62 track events last year and has already done 20 as of last week. Epitome of track whore. Frank helped me a lot with the line and settling down my twitchy steering and throttle inputs. Good guy to drive with that Frank. I think the best thing I did the whole day was not scare any of the instructors. At least that's what they said.
The second day saw Frank wanting to drive my car for the second time. It was a blast. As most good drivers are, he was instantly fast and comfortable in the car. I was up next with Frank in the car and he commented that I was tons better than yesterday. After viewing the video in Tulsa, I'm about a .5 second ahead of his time, 1:49.8 vs. 1:50.3 in my own car! Damn GhettoRacer.
I don't know whether to be happy or be pissed.
Haha, anyway, he was a ton of help and his instruction was very appreciated. After about 3 sessions, my car developed some serious brake shudder. Now this is a bad thing when trying to haul your car down from 137mph. 8O Yikes. I decided to pack it up before noon and save my piss-and-vinegar and car for another day. My last session included, probably, scaring the bejeebies out of Grubb and myself. The session before, I got totally flustered with my instructor and still had that on my mind.
The drive back was fun. I got a ticket, a warning, in Indiania b/c the trailer hitch install people jacked up twice on the installation. Grubb was missing a whole suspension piece - a VITAL suspendo bolt that connects the lower part of the rotor to the control arm. So instead of the 44 Grubb has to pee stops we had 2 or 3 trying to fix it stops. Man, was Shawnie sleepy so these stops actually helped break up the drive.
Overall, this was a great trip. The weather couldn't have been better. Mid-Ohio is definitely a track I want to go back to (I know I've got another 2 seconds improvement there) but with a driving partner and, max, 1 or 2 instructors to learn from instead of the four I had.
You guys in Ohio are very fortunate to have such an awesome track nearby. Dogs.
the rear of your nsx was very stable and the balance was impressive.
