The Venue:

The event took place at the Gateway International Raceway in Illinois and
was hosted by the PCA.  Check out www.gatewayracing.com for background
information. 

As for the track itself, basically, turn 1 is where the road course splits
from the oval course's straight (before turn 1 of the oval course).  Turn
2 is about 3-4 car lenghts later and veers to the left.  Then there is a
short passing zone, followed by an S curve, corners 3 (to the left) and 4
(to the right).  Following a short straight (no passing) there is corner 5
to the left that leads to a large decreasing radius turn to the right
(corner 6).  In the end of 6, one is travelling parallel to the straights
of the oval course and there is another passing zone there.  A hairpin
follows (corner 7)  that puts you on the banked portion of the oval track
(oval course corner 3) and down to the straight between turns 1 and 4 of
the oval course. 

We got to see many different marques represented including MB, Ferrari,
Lamborghini and Acura.  I did not count the participating cars, but I
would guess there were at least 100. The event took place on Saturday the
22nd and Sunday the 23rd of August and there was a total of 7 driving
sessions for each of the five run groups. Group 1 was the instructor's
group, groups 4 and 5 were the rookie groups. 

The people:

I found the participants to be friendly folks, much nicer than folks I
have met at autocross events.

The event presented an opportunity to meet some list members.  I first got
to meet Randy Morton and his friend Lyn (sp?) who drove their 951Ss to St.
Louis from Memphis, TN.  They showed me their cars and I have to say that
the MFS conversion does a great job increasing visibility and access to
all those components that are usually hiding behind the air filter
housing. Apparently their cars are pretty fast, one 930 owner could not
believe he got passed by Lyn on the back straight. 

In addition, during one of the lunch breaks I got to meet in person
another list member, Jim Crow, and his family that had come along in his
951! (Jim's children are much older than 5yrs).  Jim was not participating
in the DE event but was very excited to be there. Jim's car shows no signs
of having encountered a deer, it looks awesome w/ its deep Guards Red
color and refinished blach Fuchs wheels.

BTW, Jim and I passed the word about the list to another St. Louisan who
recently joined the list, a 968 owner.  Welcome, Jim and Leslie Niemeyer. 

Finally, I also helped push a Lamborghini Diablo VT so that the tow truck could
pick it up.  The car had suffered a destroyed distributor rotor and cap. 
Now you know why some rotors are glued and why Loctite should be used. The
Lamborghini's rotor was probably not secure well and started coming loose.
On the very first practice session, after a few laps the rotor got loose
enough to start bouncing around the cap and broke a few things, rendering
the car dead.  So much for watching a yellow Diablo strut its stuff.  The
owner got in his backup 911 Speedster and continued the event in that.

The Classroom Sessions:

As this was my first DE, I was part of rookie group 5.  Right after the
general driver's meeting on Saturday morning, groups 4 and 5 got their
first classroom session.  We got to hear all about lines, apex points and
the meaning of each flag used by the course workers and having fun.  Yet,
this was not really a technical lecture.  The emphasis was on consistency. 
If I were to summarize the lecture loosely paraphrased it goes as follows: 
A good session on the track is not something that happens haphazardly,
rather it is a sequence events planned out well.  I think this unifying
phrase did a good job keeping everything into perspective.

I left the classroom feeling an elevation to my anxiety level.  The
teacher tried to warn us of the upcoming sensory overload as we were
headed for our first track session, but I am glad he did. 

We had two more classroom sessions during the weekend.  The benefit of the
track experience guided our discussions in these follow-up sessions.

Enough about the classroom though...

The Track Sessions:

With my helmet on, I started my car and got on the grid.  Soon my
instructor was in the car and we were heading down the course on 3rd gear
except for the part that the road course shares with the oval track where
we used the 4th gear.  We took each corner at a slow pace at first as he
was showing me the track and how I should be placing my car.  Despite my
good intentions, I was not able to watch all the corner workers for
possible flags, check my mirrors before and after each corner and remember
where the brake, turn-in, apex and track out points were.  I probably
negotiated only one corner correctly by the end of the first session,
leaving lots of room for improvement.  And yes, almost everyone was
passing me (this was not the first DE event for everyone in my group). 

In the beginning on the second session I had my instructor drive my car so
I could see how he was placing the car.  Honestly, I cannot not claim to
have understood everything he was doing.  Taking whatever I did
understand, I focused on getting better with many more of the corners.  I
also started going a bit faster, pushing the car and myself a little more. 
It did not take long to realize that ~72mph was the most my car would let
me do in the banked portion on the course.  I have to say that the
concrete wall on the banked curve was intimidating, especially as it was
decorated with tires marks from an open-wheeled car. I suspect the reason
is the all-season tires that my car is equipped with. Anything faster than
~72mph would make the car feel loose, yet other cars with better and newer
rubber could hold 80 or more mph on that part of the course.  On the back
straight right after the banked curve, I could close the gap by
accelerating fast to speeds past 100mph. 

In one of these 100mph+ excursions I managed to royally mess up corner 1
by not braking hard enough on the back straight.  I entered corner 1 with
too much speed, down shifted to 3rd poorly and got on the brakes again
while turning for corner 2.  The rear end of the car got light and started
coming out.  I overcompensated with my counter-steer and sent the tail out
the other way.  I caught it and did not spin the car.  (I think
Jim Crow says he has pictures of this).  By then we had slowed down to
30mph, so I continued as best as I could and placed the car for corner 3.

On the third and fourth sessions of the day I started getting the feel of
controlled drifts and slides, though I needed lots of work on them.  Turn
6 was probably the first one to feel really good.  I was getting the car
to drift through the second part of it, it was neat.  I kept on blowing
turns 1 and 2 though by not braking properly on the straight and
downshifting from 4th to 3rd horribly.  I also kept braking through turn
2, messing up the car's balance and totally missing the exit.  By now
fewer cars were passing me. 

What did go well on sessions 3 and 4 though is that I figured out I had to
hit the brakes before some of the turns, even if I did not need to
decrease the car's speed, just to transfer some of the car's weight
forward and give those tires better traction to help out with the turn
coming up.  This discovery helped out my driving performance a lot. 

I went home somewhat upset that day. My supposed analytical engineer's
mind was doing a horrible job learning the course by heart.  Plus, I was
still not paying enough attention to the workers or the mirrors on all the
turns.

Sunday was a totally different day.  Throught the night I had been
visualizing the course and all the cones.  I met with my instructor in the
morning and discussed my driving performance. I think he was glad I could
identify some of what was going wrong.  We tossed the classroom teacher's
advise not to heel-and-toe or double-clutch out the window (the advice was
probably intended for those who do not know how to do these). The
techniques are something I have been using on the street for years, I
wanted to try them on the track.  I also started experimented with braking
on the back straight. 

The results were immediate.  It was now my turn to pass cars.  Turns 3,4
and 5 were coming along well, being negotiated at 60mph+.  I was still
wasting some time on the first part of six, however the second half had
become one accelerating drift, the car feeling very smooth.  I figured out
that 50mph was about the fastest I could enter turn 7 and not have my car
push terribly.  On the banked portion I was still limited to ~72mph, but
on the back straight I could take the car to 100mph+ and yet do decently
through turns 1 and 2.  I never got to make them one nice sweeping turn
though like my instructor seemed to. 

What the driving improvement amounted to is that I could hang through the
turns with some of the cars that previously had been passing me.  It felt
good hanging on the tail of 911 Carreras and NSXs having as much if not
more power than my car and wearing Hoosiers, SO-2s or other sticky tires.
Occasionally, I was able to power out of 7 well enough that I could pass
cars right after getting on the banked curve.  I was pleased with my
progress, though I know I have lots of room for improvement. 

The car:

I feel the car did very well.  The gauge indications never showed me
anything I should have worried about.  The tires let me get a good feel of
when the car was settled and when it was sliding.  And the power delivery
was great.  The boost always built up very predictably and I never got the
car unsettled as a result of being at WOT.  I also got to see time after
time the boost needle burried at 2 as I was driving down the back
straight.  I always chickened out though at about 115mph and lifted since
the car was willing to go much faster than I cared to. 

A major discovery for me was also the fact that the non-standard offsets
(23mm/10.3mm F/R) that the MOMO wheels on my car have might actually offer
me an advantage at the track.  As the wheels line up with the fenders on
the outside, I do not have to guess at all where the tires are, making it
easier to use the full width of the track without guessing. 

The Lessons I Learned:

Bring a torque wrench and check the lug nuts for tightness. 
Tap the brakes to throw weight to the front before a turn.
Follow the line even when going slowly on a practice lap.
Do not get distracted by the line the car ahead of you is using.
First let go of the brakes, feel the car settle, then turn.

The Future:

Well, I think I caught the bug.  Right now I am considering attending the
DE event that the BMW CCA is hosting in St. Louis in November.  I will
also be looking through Panorama for other PCA DE events.  I can see me
installing the Speed Bleeder valves to make brake fluid flushes easier.  I
do not care to race at all at this point, but do want to drift my car
around the track very much.

Echoing my friend's phrase I have to state: "I got it bad".