the thoughts themselves are the thinker

i really hate my alarm clock. it should be smart enough to know that when i turn it off at 4 in the morning that there's no way in hell i'm staying awake.

on friday morning i woke up at 4, turned the alarm off, and went back to sleep instead of getting ready for the audi chicago advanced drivers day at the autobahn country club.

at about 7, carl started howling at the passing fire trucks and ambulances which finally woke me up. i peered at the clock at started mumbling obscenities, then jumped out of bed and quickly took a shower and got ready. i was out of the house by 7:30 and off on my 2-hour drive to joliet to arrive at the track an hour late, completely missing tech inspection, the drivers meeting, and my first run session. the worst part about missing the drivers meeting is missing key tidbits of information like... what the hell the track looks like and where the passing zones are.

i prepped the car and eventually staged up for my first session (everyone else's second). i re-learned the track layout while warming up my tires, brakes, and engine, and still trying to stay on the track. i quickly learned the passing zones by where people would wave me past, which is definitely not the safest way of doing it.

as i remembered the line from last year and tried to smooth things out, i gained some speed but was still feeling a bit uncomfortable. the track was quite slippery most of the day, most likely due to the cold weather, and with the new haldex controller i installed after blackhawk, i was having to get used to the back end sliding out more than i was used to (or liked, in some turns).

towards the end of the first session, i was carrying too much speed into turn 5 and while sliding out farther and farther to the edge of the track, i knew i wasn't going to be able to save it and just straightened out the steering a bit to go straight off into the grass. i was black flagged and the track worker said he saw some bent plastic under the car, so i just ended the session early.

after lunch i was feeling a bit more awake and worked some more on smoothing out my line. the car was feeling a bit jittery into some of the heavy braking zones as the back end kept wagging around. i'm not really sure what was causing it but since the only thing i changed since blackhawk was the haldex controller, i have a feeling it may have been the cause.

at about 15:30 i was running very low on gas, so i ended my session early, packed up, and headed home.

i'll be at road america with the audi club on september 17th through the 19th.