My third event was again at the NHIS in the following week. The day before the event, I decided to run a fresh set of front brake pads. So I had to stay up a bit late to change and bed them. Thankfully, however, this allowed me to have a deep sleep, and when I woke up the next morning, I felt really fresh.
When I got to the track, and received the instructor assignment and the schedule, I was shocked to find that I was no longer in the beginner¡¯s group anymore. They promoted me to the intermediate group. I was not sure if I was ready to run with the intermediate group, but I decided to give it a try.
My first session of the day had to be the worst ever. I had an instructor whose teaching and driving style were completely different from my previous one, and I had a hard time adjusting to his style. I was running 15/16 (91-93) stock setup tires instead of the 17/18 aftermarket setup, and it took me some time to readjust to how the car behaved. I got yelled at by my instructor, and he told me that I did not know where I was going. Before my first session, all these Miata, and BMW guys were commenting how my car was too pretty for the track, how fast my car could go at the track, and how amazing my car was. During my first session, these guys were passing me left and right, probably thinking, ¡°What the heck? The NSX is so slow!!¡±. They were obviously faster than the folks at the beginner¡¯s run group, and it was only my first try at this run group. However, it was quite embarrassing how my instructor was yelling at me, and how those cars were mocking at me.
I had to do flagging before my second session. During the flagging, I reflected upon what I really did wrong. I did follow the line, braked and accelerated at the proper points. I could not figure out what I was doing wrong. Nevertheless, I also thought that perhaps, I ¡°thought¡± I was doing everything correctly when in fact, I was ¡°not¡±.
In the second session, I went back to the track and tried to learn everything from scratch just in case, I really was not following the line, braking and accelerating properly. In fact, I was not. My heel and toe was all out of tune, I braked too late at the point where I was supposed to brake a little earlier, I accelerated hard at the point where I had to be smooth. For each lap, I tried to fix such problems one by one. Again, the result was great. My instructor regained confidence in riding with me (later, he told me that he felt scared riding with me during the first session). Then, I started to pass cars that had passed me during the first session.
Before the beginning of my last session of the day, my instructor told me that I did well, recommended to go a little faster, and see what my car and I could do. And I did. By the end of the last session, there was only one car which I could not pass in the run group. Most of all, I felt very confident and safe in putting a little more speed.
When we got out of the car, my instructor told me that he would recommend me to be promoted to the next run group (for the NHIS). I did not think that he liked me, but I thought that it was really encouraging me to hear that I won his heart at the end.
By the end of the track day, the sun was blazing at 75 degree. I took the T off, and drove home simply enjoying the day admiring my car as others admired my car at the same time.
(to be continued)
