Is third time indeed a charm?

This DE report is long overdue, but I hope some will still find it
interesting.

I was lucky to have the opportunity to participate in the Carrera Classic
2000 driver's education event.  This event was held on Saturday April 15
and Sunday April 16, 2000 and was hosted by the St. Louis region of the
PCA.  This was the third time I was attending a DE event at the Gateway
International Raceway, plus the third DE I have attended in a 12-month
period.  This experience turned out to be better than I could have ever
expected.

Despite my best intentions, I was preparing my car for the event right up
to the last minute.  I mounted the fire extinguisher on Friday night while
Lee Lichtenstein, who was visiting for the weekend, was settling in the
guest room.  I went over the checklist and then fired up the home computer
to view the video clip of the lap around Gateway that I have on my WWW
site one last time.  I tried to visualize driving my car around the track
and then went to bed, hoping to get a good rest.

Saturday started early.  Lee and I headed to the track, following two cars
we realized were also heading to Gateway.  We stopped by a gas station
outside the track where, among the many Porsches, Lee spotted Bob Miller,
president of the PCA.  "Big Bob" was going to be one of the instructors.  
After an intensive search, we failed to find artificial sweetener for
Lee's coffee, so we headed to the track to set up our camp using plain
sugar instead. :-)  Lee was not going to drive, he was just a visitor,
plus had kindly offered his services (very much appreciated!) as a crew
member for ...me.

We parked our cars at a decent spot and headed for the customary morning
driver's meeting.  Besides Bob Miller, in the instructor group we were
priviliged to have Ronald Linder, past Porsche factory driver.  Also
present in that morning meeting were listers Stephane Chabot and John
Wade.  John was looking for wheel spacers for his 924S, so I tried to put
in touch w/ people that might be able to help him.

As I was in the upper of the two novice/intermediate driver groups, after
the driver's meeting it was time for the first classroom session of the
day.  I have to admit that while I did my best to listen to the classroom
instructor, my mind was wondering outside the room and onto the track,
visualising corners and passing zones.

We also noticed the abundance of 944s in this event.  I had never seen so
many 944s at a DE before. A great collection of 8V and 16V 944 NAs, plenty
of 951s, even two 968s and 924s.

Soon after the classroom session, Lee and I finished emptying out our cars
and set up "camp".  We checked tire pressures, lug nut tightness and fluid
levels on my car.  Given the banked curve on the road course and its
appetite for engines, I was very careful to have lots of oil in the
engine.

At this point, I should add that Robert Hohn was also at the paddock w/
Tara.  Poor Tara was a bit cold in the morning and definitely tired, so
she dozed off while us "guys" talked about, what else, cars.

Soon, my group was called and I drove the car to the grid.  A little after
I met my instructor, Bryan Cohn, I apologized in advance in case I did
something to scare him and we buckled up for the first session.  To my
satisfaction, I remembered the track fairly well and did not do anything
stupid while navigating the course.  What I had forgotten though was the
feel of a drift.  As the track was not fully warmed up and the weather
relatively cool, the first time I went powering into turn 5 the car slid
its tail, the feel of the slide making me uncomfortable.  We proceeded at
a more comfortable pace, while I was pointing out to my instructor what I
was trying to do and he was commenting on how I was doing and gave me tips
on how I could improve my driving.

To my surprise, this first driving session went well, very well.  It was
not characterised by the usual frustration levels I feel on the first day
of a DE weekend at all.  While it was clear that I had a lot of places to
improve, the laps felt great right from the start.

Session after session, the laps were getting more consistent, the curves
smoother.  The sun had come out and the tires warmed up faster so I was
not very worried about not having enough traction.  I tried to be very
methodical in approaching every turn.  At the beginning of every session,
I mentioned to my instructor some things I wanted to work on, ie
concentrate on turn-in point on turn 3, braking later before turn 1, etc.  
The constant commentary from my instructor helped me interpret the
feedback of the car's controls and I felt very very comfortable as I was
driving faster and faster around the course.

One of the first important lessons of the day was using the gas pedal to
transfer weight to the rear wheels and make the car more stable as I was
negotiating turns 1 and 5.  Though it now makes sense, I would not have
guessed that I could use the gas pedal to stabilize the tail.

Another lesson was learning how to move down the lanes on the banked oval
turn.  I could finally comfortably negotiate the banked curve at 80mph.  
Previously, on the worn-out Dunlop SP8000s, 80mph felt nearly unstable,
very close to the edge of traction.  I understand that I am not supposed
to be looking at the speedometer and the tachometer, but the speed
readings are a way for me to tell how consistent I am in the turns.  The
laps were not timed and a quick glance at the gauges was telling me how
the exit speed at each turn was comparing to the previous time I had
negotiated that curve.

In some ways, things were going too well.  I cannot claim to have had an
adrenaline surge due to nervousness, or to have felt any fear, other than
the first time I had tossed the car in a controlled slide.  The only surge
was due to catching up to other cars and passing them, cars I knew had at
least as much power as mine does and much better tires.

With the increased speed came problems.  I kept coming up to a driver who
for unknown reasons would not signal me to pass, lap after lap.  While I
prefer not to ride someone's bumper, I was clearly much faster than he was
and not being able to pass was also creating a traffic jam for other cars
catching up w/ us.  I caught up to the driver on two separate sessions and
opted to go through the pits at a reduced speed one of the times to
distance myself from the traffic and give myself some room to drive.  I am
not very happy about this issue, but given the driver is a region member I
know, I did not want to say anything.  And I have to say, the people and
the camaraderie in these events is great. It would have simply been a very
bad move for me to say anything that might have spoiled the fun.

Before I knew it, it was 17:00 and time to close the track.  We packed up
and headed home. Reservations had been made a local brew-pub, so we
freshened up and headed to meet the Duffs (Trent, Audrey and little Tom)
who were already at the brew-pub along w/ Robert Hohn and Tara.  We found
Trent enjoying his third pint of beer, while Robert was working on his
first root beer of the evening.  Both Robert and Tara had evident marks of
the ample sunlight they had received at the track (Robert and Lee just
about had to beat some guys off w/ my big torque wrench when Tara decided
she was going to sun-tan at the paddock).  Lee gave Tom some pointers on
how to drive his toy cookie-dough truck around an autocross course, while
Robert was making mental notes.

The Duffs had to retire at some point and Robert ran out of mental note
paper, so he left w/ Tara.  The rest of the party headed to a local
casino, but the action was not very hot, so we called it a night and got
some necessary rest.

Sunday began with much cooler, almost too cold to have the side-windows
rolled down. After the mandatory morning meeting, we unpacked and soon I
was on the track again.  Though I had been signed off for a solo drive by
the end of Saturday, the eventmasters wanted the students to go out w/
their instructors on the first session of the Sunday to make sure that the
lessons learned during the first day had not been forgotten overnight.

So, I warmed up the car on the first couple of laps and then, to borrow a
popular phrase, kicked it up a notch.  Bam!  How does one spell boost?  I
had driven the car in cool weather before, but not this hard.  This was
incredible. On 4th gear on the straight at about 4000rpm, I could feel a
definite shove in the back as the turbo was kicking in even harder and
hurrying us past the start/finish line. If I had not been so conservative
in my driving, a speed of 125+ before braking for turn 1 would not have
been an issue.  Not wanting to go too hot in the turn and spin the car, I
held back until I felt more comfortable.

Again, I caught up w/ the driver that would not let me past, but I was
trying hard not to let that bother me.  I just stuck to my line and kept
on driving.

Then, the threats of the showers that had been forecasted manifested
themselves in the form of big rain drops.  There was a significant amount
of water on the track, however the rain did stop at some point in the
morning.  The eventmasters let the charity "parade" laps start earlier in
the day so that the visiting cars would dry off the track.  The trick
worked well, there was not much water left when it was time for my second
session of the day.  Just to feel more comfortable, I asked the instructor
to ride in the car with me, though it proved that I should have let him
take a rest and gone out on my own.  And yes, I did catch up to that one
driver again, except this time, he let me pass.

With the threat of more rain lingering, Lee commenced his journey home,
but not before helping me clean up the mess I had made trying to empty the
contents of a gasoline container in my car's reservoir.  Lots of mental
notes made from that episode. :-)

The only alarming event happened while I was following another 951,
preparing to pass it on the next passing zone.  The 951 went way off line
and hit a puddle of water right before it entered the esses.  The 951 sent
water flying towards the middle of the track. This water landed on the
track and then I drove right over it.  I instantly lost traction as I was
on the gas negotiating the first turn of the esses.  I saw my car
gravitate towards the concrete wall at the edge of the track but somehow I
kept the car going parallel to the wall.  A bit before I ran out of track
space, the tires thankfully got traction again.  After that event, I
stayed a bit further back from the preceeding cars and got close to them
right before passing them.  The incident scared me a bit, but by the end
of the session I felt fine again.

I was so caught up with the driving that before I knew it I had driven the
last session of the event and it was again time to head home.  I was
trying to keep the smile on my face to a reasonable one, but it was so
hard!  The weekend was such a success, it was difficult not to feel very
pleased.

The real lesson of the weekend had been learning how to feel the car and
work with the car, instead of fighting with it, as I negotiated the
course.  Every well-executed turn felt almost effortless. When I did it
right, the car almost guided itself through the turn with minimal input.
All the controls of the car felt very light.  In contrast, whenever I did
something wrong the steering effort felt much greater, plus the exit
speeds were lower. And as for the turbo lag?  What is that?  This is most
probably attributable to my ever-increasing levels of familiarity with the
car.  The engine felt more like a "cammy" normally-aspirated engine than a
laggy, turbocharged engine.  Somewhat like my 944S on steroids.  I was
never caught by surprise from the boost.  I tried to negotiate the curves
turnes such that the radius was large enough to have plenty of traction to
handle whatever power the engine could give me without losing control of
the car's tail.  Very often it worked and I did not have to hold back on
the acceleration.  That was fun!  As I get more serious about going to WOT
after the apex, the boost issue may come back to bite me, plus the fact
that my car does not have a limited slip differential. For now though, I
can say I feel very comfortable accelerating hard out of a curve, when the
curve has been negotiated well.

After the DE, I realized that subconsciously I was constantly bracing
myself against the door and the transmission tunnel in the turns.  This is
probably a significant factor of why the sessions felt physically tiring.  
I know I need to invest in a good set of seats and safety harnesses.

Lots learned and lots more to prepare for and learn.  Once more, I need to
thank the people of the St. Louis PCA region who put together this event
and of course, Lee, for his much appreciated help!