pure electronic modern electronics

left work at around 11:45 on friday and headed up to michigan for the track event at grattan. traffic was a bitch through chicago and the rain didn't help. the rain got worse during my 4 hour drive to grand rapids.

i arrived at the amerisuites hotel at about 5:30 michigan time. jamie and jason were waiting in the lobby but everyone from the club was still at the track doing the advanced driver day (ADD). after a while, eventually everyone came back to the hotel and we got registered. instead of the regular 1-2-3-4-5-6 rungroups, there were 5 colors. i don't know why, it just made it more confusing when trying to figure out what group was out on the track and how soon your group was up. anyway, i was in the yellow group and i had a female instructor driving a volvo v70r wagon.

tech inspection was in the parking lot of the hotel and then the driver's meeting was in the local audi dealer's service garage down the street. i don't know why.

after the driver's meeting, jamie, jason and i went to meijer to get some beer and then went to their hotel room. i went across the parking lot to my hotel and checked in, then went back to jamie's and we got some pizzas.

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saturday morning, i got ready and followed a caravan of cars to the track, which was about 20 minutes away. the chicago group rented one of the garages there which at least provided some shelter from the rain, but no heat.

we had the usual classroom instruction first thing, then the usual slalom/threshold braking/lane toss exercises. phil was running the stoplights during the lane toss and kept doing it really late for jamie and i so we'd mow over cones. damn phil.

after the exercises we had some more classroom instruction and then we finally got to go out on the track. it was a bit wet from the rain but not that many puddles collected on the line. the track felt a bit... clumsy... at first. the surface was very bumpy and the many off-camber turns kept making my tires rub on the fenders under heavy compression. i eventually figured out the correct line to avoid most of the rubbing, but i had to pussy-foot through the 3-turn and the 8 "toiletbowl" much slower than i could have just to avoid tire-fender contact.

since i wasn't sure about the weather conditions, i held off on putting the hawk ht10 pads in the stoptechs. i ran the axxis ultimates all weekend and they held up ok. i must have had some air left in the system, though, because i'd get a weak pedal going into 1, 5, and 10 unless i tapped the brakes before going on them hard. so for the main straight, i'd be up to about 115/120 mph, lift, tap the brakes before the first braking marker, pause, then stand on them to brake before the turn.

it continued to rain throughout the day and then turned to snow. at the end of the day there was a bbq out in the freezing cold, so i bailed and brought some burger king back to my hotel room.

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for some reason i had my phone on vibrate so the alarm i set on it was never heard. i woke up this morning at about 9:30 which was much later than intended. i quickly got ready, checked out, then drove to the track. a session was running so i had to wait at the gate for a while to cross the track. i conveniently missed the driver's meeting and more classroom and showed up around the time of my session.

i was getting more and more comfortable with the track and finding the right line to be smooth and avoid rubbing the tires on the fenders. my instructor was saying less and less each time, and by today she wasn't really saying anything except for the few times when i really nailed the 5-6-7 combo and it was really smooth and fast.

i was chasing down jamie the whole weekend (that's jason's b5 s4, my shoe, and jamie's b6 s4 in the pic to the right) but things kept happening that put distance between us when i'd get close. he'd pass a car and then i'd get stuck behind that car while he gained more distance. my instructor signed off on me going solo after the second run today, and jamie and jason were both running solo so we would all be solo for the last session of the weekend.

and what a session that was. the track was mostly dry by that time and they had combined another group with ours so the track was a little crowded. adam was in the front with his tt, then someone in a porsche 944 (or was it a 928, i can never tell), then jamie, then me, then jason. the laps got faster and faster and we passed more and more people. eventually i was chasing jamie who was chasing adam lap after lap. i eventually reeled in jamie and he let me pass but then got stuck behind some slower traffic that i had passed. i chased down adam and kept running right up on him in in 4-5 and 5-6 but he wouldn't give up, so i'd give him a little room and then try to catch up again. eventually he let me by on the main straight and then the session was over.

it was interesting how differently the car handled without my instructor in it. she was a small lady so she probably wasn't much over 100 pounds if that, but the car surely did move a bit quicker with just me in it.

after the last session, everyone packed up and we caravaned (very quickly) back to chicago. overall it was a decent weekend. horrible weather and a somewhat disorganized event, but a pretty fun track.

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and tomorrow i have to drop the car off at mastercraft for the week to get the bumper repainted from my little collision. if all goes well i will have it back before the weekend in time for the speedshop bbq.