Went to Mid-Ohio today. The weather was miserable, cold and wet.

Had an instructor for the first heat and things went relatively smoothly, but my car was a handful. It's a little loose in the dry, in the wet it's a major pain. In the second heat I spun it entering Thunder Valley, but everything was ok, just had to spin the car around in the grass.

The rain stopped shortly after noon. Third heat the course was still wet and I did a big 90 degree slide in the kink just before the keyhole, but the rest of the heat was uneventful. By the time the forth heat came around the course was getting dry and the car was allot better. I was finally able to push it in some of the turns, but I still drove conservatively in others. In the forth heat my fastest lap was 2:14, well off the 1:36 that American Sedan cars do, but I'm happy.

That had to be real interesting in the rain. I wouldn't worry about the times, you don't have an AS motor bill either

Even with an off, it's still a good day if you can drive it on the trailer

I drove it home with wheels covered in brake dust. :drive:

Cool!

... rain is the biggest equalizer on track that there is.

Going home in one piece is the best reward.

Sounds like fun, Bill! Did you turn the cone cam around to catch some footage of the track?

During the fourth heat I did. The video gets a little shaky at over 85 mph, the wind through the window really starts beating on the camera. The fastest speed that I noticed was ~117 on the back straight. I was only getting to 90 in the wet.

And I really need to work on heal-toe down shifting.

I've run Mid Ohio 7 days. I didn't know that Mid Ohio HAD dry days. LOL!

Congratulations on your first track day. Do you think you'll be doing more? Any observations that you'd like to share?

Glad to see you had fun. I hope you did not stop by the house as we were out.

COOL!

Sounds like fun!

I heard a guy in an SRT-4 made enemies of the entire group by passing the instructors field twice in nine laps.

Those SVTOA guys... lame. When it started raining again today, I went back out and they closed the day two hours early. Too many easily bruised egos.

Will I open track again? More than likely, but right now I think autocross is more fun because of the speed that things happen and my competitive nature. The pace of the road course was almost boring.

Observations about Mid-Ohio. TV gives you no feel for the amount of elevation change the course has. Even walking the infield you don't really notice it. There are several turns that can catch you out, like heading into Madness and heading in to Thunder Valley, but the most deceptive turn is turn 1. It looks like a simple flat turn going under the bridge, but its right after a heavy braking zone on the pit strait and exits onto the strait going to the Keyhole. The exit is also blind and the pit lane exit curves around the inside and the surface changes. Also in the wet stay out of the dry racing line, specially in the braking zone on the back strait. The surface is uneven and puddles badly. My instructor said to say out of the line because of the rubber and oil on the road and to try late apexing the turns.

Observations about my driving. First my car sucks in the wet. Because of the weather I didn't come close to finding the best or even a good line around the course. I need to work on focusing on driving for 20 minutes in stead of 60 seconds as I do for autocross. And lastly I need to get my competitive nature under control, more than once I had to tell myself that I wasn't out there racing these guys.

One of the funny things to me was when I spun and put all 4 tires in the grass, they wanted us to go through pit lane to have the car quickly looked over. One of the guys asked me 3 times if I was ok after the spin and if I wanted to go back out. I was very calm and said yes each time. I was thinking "I spun, so what, lets go". But I guess I was in the novice group and they didn't know me.

Those of us who have seen you drive would have known better.....

As you get faster and DOT race tires, turn one become less of an event then you think. In the dry we aimed to carry about 86-89MPH in a stock 2002 camaro with tires only.

Glad you had fun.

The Hawk HPS pads dusted like crazy during the last heat.


Video of one of my fourth heat laps:
http://www.cofba.org/users/axoid/BillFirstMidOhio3.wmv