don't you think you're overreacting, talking gumball machine?

winter is finally over.

i left work a little early on friday and drove 2 hours in the pouring rain and traffic down to joliet, illinois for the 2005 audi chicago driver's school at the autobahn country club. this was opening weekend for the facility and we were the first car club to ever run on the north track. the larger, south track was reserved for members of the club.

i arrived at about 7, signed in at the gate, and headed over to the garage under the timing/scoring tower for tech inspection. shortly after, everyone met in the big open garage for registration and our drivers meeting and ate some pizza. i was in run group 5 of 6 and my instructor was bob humphrey driving an e30 325.

i didn't reserve a hotel room because i figured i would drive back home each day like i did with blackhawk, but the drive down to joliet really sucked. scott was nice enough to let me stay at his place nearby so i wouldn't have to get a hotel room.

saturday morning, i awoke at 6 (ugh) and got ready. we drove back to the track and there was a quick driver's meeting first thing. rungroups 5 and 6 had classroom up in the timing/scoring tower while the exercises were being setup out on the track.

i was at the braking exercise first, then slalom, then lane toss. nothing too exciting. since bob was taking his other student out for his first session, i rode with a different guy with a silver 993. the track felt pretty short and had a lot of technical turns. there was still a good amount of puddled rain on the track from friday.

as luck would have it (or wouldn't), bob went off in that first session and slid about 15 feet in the grass and covered his car (inside and out) in mud. glad i wasn't riding shotgun for that session...

we had classroom again and then it was time to go out in my car. the r handled the track very nicely and i was really happy with how the new toyo tires held up. not much squealing and they stuck pretty well.

throughout the day i rode with some different instructors for their sessions and had two more of my own. the brakes didn't fade much at all and the tires were solid.

at around 7 everyone left and met up at al's steakhouse for a dinner banquet. a 5-course meal and some raffles for free stuff. after dinner we went to russ' house to watch tv and fall asleep.

sunday morning i realized my stupid phone didn't change the clock correctly with daylight savings so i woke up at 7. i quickly got ready and drove scott back to the track. a quick drivers meeting and then it was back to driving. some more (rather interesting) rides with instructors and then more lapping in my car.

i was in group 5 to start with but i kept passing everyone and was starting to lap them. one or two people were getting a bit flustered letting faster cars pass and things were getting ridiculous, so bob moved me up into group 4 so i could run with some faster traffic.

group 4 was indeed a bit faster and people were passing in the right places, so i was more comfortable adding more speed and braking harder into turns. at one point i was chasing down an e46 m3 and was right on him in the 1-2 complex until he overshot the apex for 2 and went off track. bob said the guy was watching me in his mirrors more than what was in front of him.

i passed a few more cars and tried a few different lines through some of the turns after riding with different instructors. towards the last sessions i was approaching 105 down the straight into 1 in 4th gear, braking a tad and then entering 2 hard on the brakes while shifting into 3rd. rotating around 2, then shooting through 3 and 4 with no brakes, tapping the brakes into 5 and then onto the short straight, shifting into 4th, braking hard into 6 and downshifting into 3rd, shooting down the long straight, shifting into 4th and standing on the brakes for 7 and shifting into 3rd, then trying to do the 8-9 carousel as one continuous turn and tracking out into the long main straight again.

in one session i dipped the right rear wheel off track while rotating through 4. that swung the back end around but i countersteered twice and was able to straighten it out, get back on the throttle and continue on my merry way.

towards the end of the day as i was packing up, i talked to a member of the track that had a black r32, bone stock with 10k miles on it. i gave him some information on the mods i had done to mine and he wanted to get a similar setup on his car. in 2 weeks autobahn is combining the two tracks to give the members a chance to run the super long track. he invited me back to run on that track as his guest, which would be really cool.

as i was leaving the track, the owner of the ferrari f40 was heading out (supposedly the highest mileage f40 in the country with 40,000 miles) and i followed him back to the highway. a bit scary watching that thing crawl over a rough railroad crossing at like 3 miles per hour.

all in all a great weekend. the autobahn facility is very nice and clean and it was great to be the first car club to ever be able to drive on it. the north track now carries some battle scars and rubber courtesy of the audi chicago club.

i got my registration information in the mail today for the grattan event coming up in 3 weeks. i hope my stoptechs come in time so i can run a race pad and get a bit more bite.