you can't push on a rope

it is 21:53 and i am in my crappy (not so super) super-8 motel room in wonderful south beloit, wisconsin.

i left work early yesterday, went home to pack some things and headed up to blackhawk for another audi track event. my second time here at blackhawk, i decided to get a hotel room instead of driving back and forth home every night (~1.5 hours each way).

i arrived at the track at around 17:00 on friday and the bmw club was still finishing up on the track, so i decided to drive to my hotel and check-in. a real shithole of a place, but it was cheap and it's close. i checked in, put my stuff in my room, watched some tv, and then headed back to the track.

i registered and was placed into run group 4 (of 6) and got a cool backpack with the acccc logo and patches from all the event sponsors on it (we got ogio helmet bags with the same on them at autobahn). i went to the tech shed and got the usual "the tread on your tires is a little low", "your coolant level looks low", and "you might want to check those rear brake pads after tomorrow, they look low" even though nothing at all is wrong with the stuff. the tires have plenty of tread left, the coolant level fluctuates a lot, and the rear pads have probably more than half of their material left.

afterwards i found a spot to park and put my stuff down near jamie and jason. said my hellos to everyone whose names i can never remember, and then we had pizza and a drivers meeting at 20:00. my instructor was not present for some reason. after the meeting, most people were camping at the track so they all had their tents setup and were sitting around in the dark talking and drinking beer. eventually i got tired and drove back to the hotel for the night.

this morning i woke up late and quickly showered and headed to the track. drivers meeting at 8 or thereabouts and my instructor still had not shown up. mike told me he'd find someone by the time my run group was up so i didn't worry about it.

we did the usual lane toss/slalom/threshold braking exercises and then group 1 was on the track.

jamie and his wife, jason, and i took off into town for some breakfast. i had an omelette and panacakes. then we went to a grocery store to pick up some more beer and then we headed back to the track.

as it was nearing run group 4, i still hadn't seen my instructor's blue evo 8, so i found mike and he said he'd ride with me the first session. we staged up and the layout of the track slowly came back to me.

i eventually found my line and was getting into a groove as mike gave me pointers where to be and showed me a fast line through 3d. i passed a bunch of people on the first session and the car was feeling great. luckily there was no sun all day and the temps only reached low/mid 80's so the track stayed cool, as did my tires. mike said i seemed to be the fastest of the group and i was pushing my car pretty hard so he wanted to move me into rungroup 3. i told him i might do it on sunday but i wanted to work on some stuff today and have some fun chasing jamie in group 4.

after our first session was over, mike said his only critique was that i need to stop crowding people, which i admit is a bad thing for me to do. i am confident in my braking to get close to people in turns, but it probably freaks out the other drivers and the instructors. but sometimes it's the only way you can make people understand that you want to pass and that you have the speed to be able to...

eventually my instructor showed up as i saw a blue evo moving around the track in group 2. eventually group 4 was up again and my instructor said he'd meet me at the grid, so i drove up there and waited. eventually he showed up and then spent 5 minutes trying to get his harness buckled in (which is why i wanted him to get in the car early in the morning and adjust the belts for his size). by the time he got them buckled, everyone else had already taken their first lap around the track, so i was warming up while everyone was on a hot lap.

a few laps later i was feeling a bit overconfident in turn 5 and didn't brake nearly enough going around it. the rear end swung around, so i had to correct bigtime to straighten the car back out and slow down, but that put me pointing off the track to the right. i made some small corrections to at least get the car straight and just plowed off the track. the grass was really rough so i was bouncing around quite a bit and eventually came to a stop. i hopped onto the exit road and drove across to pit lane. mark ran over and checked over my car to make sure i didn't break anything. he said my lip spoiler was a bit fucked up but i looked ok to go back out. by the time i was sent back out, i only had a lap or two left before the white flag.

i felt bad for going off so big and probably scaring my instructor half to death, especially after mike had just been telling him how well i did in the first session. then when i parked and we were getting out of the car, his daughter came over and was asking what happened and i was thinking, "sorry for almost killing your dad little girl." i got the whole agricultural excursion on video; i will put up a clip of it soon.

my third session of the day was much better and i didn't try anything funny in any of the turns. the traffic on the track got a bit crowded at times and since i was trying to chase down jamie, i was really getting annoyed at slower people that wouldn't give me the pass. namely, a 996 twin turbo that i'd catch right up to in the corners, but he'd come out onto the straights and have so much more power than me that he probably figured he wouldn't have to give the pass. i kept on him and finally bullied him into letting me pass in the main straight. of course, he didn't get off the throttle during the pass, so it took forever. by that time, jamie had already passed so many cars that i had been held up by, so it was impossible for me to catch him.

i'm looking forward to tomorrow, each group will have 5 sessions. my tires and brakes are holding up great, i've found a fast line that my car likes, and the weather should hopefully be cool and not sunny.