Posted: Wed Jun 07, 2006 10:21 pm
How'd it go guys? I trust nobody kissed the armco this year? 
Sunday evening we made the trip from Carlisle to WGI. It wasn't bad at all and took us just over 4 hours while towing and stopping for gas once. Lots of construction though! We got checked in to the Seneca Lodge, got our cars tech'd and went to the room to watch some track videos.
Monday morning we were out the door by 6:00, went to the little breakfast joint to fuel up for the day, got to the track and unloaded. I was disappointed to see that I was in Group 1 for a "Pass Off" meaning that an instructor was going to ride with me for one session to make sure I could handle Group 2. Fortunately, the "Pass Off" went well and I was actually granted solo access to Group 2.
Right before my session, TWO cars dumped oil on the track and ended up covering at least 60% of the track with oil. When our group went out we were skating on kitty little for most of the trip around.
My first group 2 session was a blast. Managed to top the uphill esses at 110mph and ended the back straight at 120ish MPH. I knew I could do better though. The biggest thing I noticed and enjoyed was the 40 minute session time. That's a lot of track time! It really gave me time to identify a problem, work out a solution, and practice the solution to commit it to habit.
Life was good for Saturday. I had two more sessions and the car ran flawlessly. I think the same can be said for Chad (White_2kgt).
That evening Chad and I bled our brakes after a good day of heating them up. Then, we went to dinner with an M5 driver me met, and headed back to the room to watch the in-car videos from the day. The first thing I noticed was that I was not being aggressive enough, and I just wasn't pushing as hard as I needed to. I also found a few turns that were pretty rough in hindsight, so I had my task list for Tuesday.
Tuesday morning was the same morning routine. Check over car, check pads, check lugs, check fluids, and give it a good shake down. My first session on Sunday I had an instructor join me. He was a different instructor and wasn't nearly as scared of the HP, and he was very helpful in many areas of the track. He has a 400hp 2.3 SVO at home, so we could relate well. He rode with me the full session and we worked on a bunch of stuff.
Session two on Sunday was my best session in my history of driving. The first 10 minutes were accompanied by my instructor. I dropped him off at puts and then waited for Chad in his awesome AI Mustang to come around turn 11. When I saw him fly by, I took off like a banshee out of pit row and merged out just in front of him for the uphill esses. We both knew "it was on" at this point, and we proceeded to wreak havoc on the track. We passed every car in our group at least once, and some we passed twice in the remaining 30 minutes. Thanks to the corner workers, their good communication, and their proactive use of the blue flag we would come out of the esses and fly by anywhere from 1 to 3 cars on the back straight. (FYI, the blue flag is a signal to other cars that a faster vehicle is approaching rapidly and will need by, to be aware and give the point now).
There were areas that the XR excelled, and there were areas that the Mustang did better, but all in all we were really having fun out there. I managed to take the uphill esses full throttle in 4th gear, exiting and just over 120mph resulting in a max speed at the end of the back straight of just over 130 - at 7200rpm in 4th gear (5th is useless at this time). My poor Fuzion street tires were screaming for mercy and toward the end of the session were so greasy that I was drifting most of the turns.
We had an unbelievable good time that session. So much fun, in fact, that both Chad and I got Black Flagged on our last lap. They told us we were scaring the corner workers because we were getting so close, and that we were "racing, not playing lead-follow." They had a smile on their face when they told us this however, so they knew we were just having fun. Regardless, it's a war story that we'll tell for years.
My third session of the day was good. I did back if off a few 10ths so keep the track workers happy. Chad was in front this time, and after a few trains he was out of sight. I worked on pushing the car hard but sticking to the proper line. My oil temp exceeded 260 Degrees F though. I was running the car hard
. Chad and I opted out of our last session of the day. We were exhausted, the cars were in one piece, and we just didn't want to push our luck. Plus, with a seven hour drive ahead of us, we decided the extra 1.5 hour head start was a good choice. We loaded up and headed home!
The track was great and both days were absolutely beautiful. Couldn't have been a better two days for a track event. There was one hard impact in the esses by a 300Z that closed things down for a while on Monday. We saw lots of nice cars - two Ford GT's (one with 750 HP), an M5, a few Z06's, several Mustangs, two Cobra R's, and a couple of vintage racers. There were even some DP cars there!
The XR is back in the garage, still dirty from the fun. It's getting a Mocal Oil cooler and remote dual-filter system this month. It also gets a good going over before our next event at Summit Point next month.
I really missed all the XR's there. Jeremy Kemp had his XR and after a looooong Monday night was able to participate both days - but I'll let him fill the group in on his adventure. We did a good job at representing the XR world though. Several folks came up wondering "what in the hell that thing is." And we passed everyone enough times that they had a good opportunity to see both my XR and his Mustang from both the front ("Up your tailpipe") and the back ("see ya later!").
Phoenix CMR did a fair job balancing the drivers need for speed and the track's rules and regulations. I really hope more can make it next year. It was a great event, with great memories, and no casualties of either driver or car.
Was he practicing laps at pace car speed? 