If any of you North Bay peeps has free time during the day, I'm going to be running up at Sears Point (Infineon, whatever) on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday. I'll be in the Russell Racing "Techniques" school, driving a little open-wheel formula car.

Stop by and say "hi" if you get a chance!

--DD

Sounds like a blast Dave. Have fun!

One day, I too shall do that too

Awesome Dave!!!! have a blast!!!

Day 1: Registration. They set us up with loaner driving suits and helmets. We spend a little while in the classroom going over the real basics of controlling the car (shifting in particular) and how to fit the car to the driver.

Then we get on the track. It's just some up-and-back runs on the back straight, the front straight, and the hot pits. We run up through the gears (4 speeds), then back down again under braking. Heel-toe downshifting. The Hewland boxes are non-synchro, and they like being "speed-shifted"--NO CLUTCH NEEDED! (At least, for the upshifts.) We then try a threshold braking exercise.

Lunch break. After lunch, we get more classroom time. Then we get back in the cars and do a ducks-in-a-row exercise. Finally--we're on the track proper!! We get quite a bit of this, then we come back to the classroom for more instruction.

Back out to the track for some ride-arounds with the instructors in the school's trucks, then we watch the "Advanced" class (in the cars with wings and slicks!) going through Turn 11. We critique the students, knowing full well it's a lot easier to see what's wrong from the outside.

Then class is over. We're to report back tomorrow morning, at quarter til eight. I'm tired, but happy.

--DD

I may have a few minutes to visit.


KT

Dave,

I did that class back in June of '05...great experience. I hated the first day though...braking and downshifting, the transmission on those cars are so beat to crap!

As soon as you get on track and they give you more revs it gets really fun!

I'll never forget one of the comments from my instructor on the 3rd day..."You spun on the warm down lap! What are you doing out there?" As far I was concerned, a lap is a lap...especially at the price per lap. I must add that it was raining HARD the entire 3rd day. Even more fun.

Word of advice...purchase your video, great to keep. The pictures from the old guy are really here nor there.

Peter

I did that a couple years ago. It was lots of fun. Especially first day in the rain! Last day in the Formula Mazdas was incredible. I heard they dont let the techniques class drive those on the last day now?

Dave, sorry I missed you.

Tell us about your school.


KT

Damn hotel wireless network decided my stay was over with while I was writing up my report this morning... At least I was able to save it!!

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Sorry about not updating the last two days. Tuesday, I went to bed at 8:30 PM!!! And last night I met up with some freinds for dinner (after Lisa headed off to work).

Day 2 is much more fun than Day 1! We started out (after more classroom time) doing a lead-and follow on the "upper loop"--going from Turn 1 through Turn 6 (the Carousel), but turning right out of the Carousel and heading back down the drag strip to get back to Turn 1. That was a little frustrating, mostly because I knew the car had a lot more to give me if I didn't have to turn the wrong way out of 6, but it was good in that we only had to remember half of the track at that point.

Next, after another classroom session, we got to run the upper loop on our own. I forget if we did one or two sessions of that... I think two? I managed to spin on my first real hot lap in turn 4; I didn't get all of the braking done before I turned in, and got into the corner too hot. So I lifted, with predictable consequences. Oops!

After lunch, we rode in the Exploders while the instructors drove us on the line of the full track. Then we did a lead-and-follow ("ducks in a row") on the full track. Yeah!!! Learning the rest of the track was not that much more difficult, since we already had something of a clue for the upper loop.

After that, they turned us loose for one or two sessions on our own on the full track. That was what we came for!! Outrageously fun--and of course, they had been bumping up the rev limiter on the cars every session or two, so we were building speed with more motor as well as with better lines.

The third day, they introduced passing. In specific zones, under acceleration, on the "correct" side ONLY. I screwed that up once (partly frustration at being stuck behind a slowpoke for several laps) by passing on the "wrong" side going into 7. Luckily, he saw me and didn't stay on line and move over into me. I realized the instant that I turned in that I wasn't in the right place, so I pitted. ("So, why'd you come in? Good--we were getting set to black flag you when you came around, but you saved us the trouble.") I did get better at passing later on. They actually showed us some in-car footage from a year or so ago where a student in the same class passed too late on the front straight, and the student being passed pinched his line off too much at the "kink"... Student #2 got some impromptu flying lessons! YIKES!!!

I managed to get down to a high 2:12, which isn't too bad. The best student time this class was around 2:05 or 2:07, which is cooking in those cars!

My last session was not my best. I was probably getting tired again probably? DEFINITELY!) and it was affecting my driving. I earlied 9, which made me early 9a, whereupon I tried to back out of the throttle to avoid running off at the exit of 9a, which spun me. Later in the session, I also straight-lined 3 to 3a, which caused me to run out of road heading down into 4. I took the wheel straight and drove it off--well off!! I was able to steer around the cones they have for braking markers, and drive back onto the track after looking around. YIKES! With those, plus my out-laps, my times were pretty hosed that session.

Finally, the last session of the school, they gave us the "Russell Surprise". Yup, they sent us out in the Formula Russell cars. Wings, slicks, and Mazda rotaries and all! 5200 RPM limiters, so they weren't really even into their power band yet. But OH MY GOD!!! After you warmed up the tires, the grip was astonishing. And the loud pedal really shoved you back and got the car moving. Turn 5 in the beginner cars was just a straight you had to move the wheel a bit for--in the Advanced cars, it was a real turn with an entrance and an apex and a track-out point. And it was kind of hairy, to boot!!! It was insanely fun!!

But I won't be driving that kind of car again. Why? I don't fit! My hips are too wide (the seat really compressed the points of my hips badly!), and my feet are too damn big! I couldn't fit my right foot between the skin of the car and the brake, so I had to hit the gas with the side of my foot. And there's no dead pedal on the left, so your left foot kind of hovers over the clutch. By the end of the (short) session, my feet were cramping up.

Damn, it was fun though!!!

BTW, I asked my instructor (Dave) on the third day what an appropriate pace for the warm-up lap was. His reply: "Slow enough so that you do everything right." Which made lots of sense; it was more to warm up me than the car! And I am sure I got more laps by getting smoothly into the rythm of the lap than I would have by going gangbusters from the beginning. Witness my last session in the beginner car; I spun twice and only got 2/3 as many laps as when I didn't spin...

My video has a bunch of static in it; something about my car interfered with two different cameras they tried on it! So I'm getting it at 50% off, with two sessions recorded.

Pics to follow, eventually....

--DD

Cool glad they let you drive the Mazdas! Should have seen me in those cars - I needed a frinkin crane to get out. But I was having too much fun to feel anything.

Good stuff!!

Sounds great.


KT

I would have paid money to see that...

--DD

OK, here start the pictures....


Let's see, I think I can fit in here...
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Now, visualize apexing turn four....
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Hey, Dave--are you having fun?
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Exiting turn 11, you want to get all the way out to the wall...
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No, that's not the apex, Dave....
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Getting into the "Advanced" (AKA Formula Russell) car--
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All belted up and ready to go!!
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The instructors kept removing cones throughout the class. You can see I'm not really any closer to the apex this time.
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Graduation!
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OK, now for the pictures that the professional photographer took. He's obviously got much better camera equipment than My Attorney does.


I'm not sure where on the track this was. Perhaps going into 8?
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The Carousel!
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Going uphill into Turn 2:
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Apexing the Carousel!
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Class photo!
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Going into Turn 9:
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I'm not sure; could be the bottom of the Carousel again?
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Going into 11:
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Entering 11:
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Halfway through 11:
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...And that's all the pictures I am posting for now. I hope it gives you some idea of what it was like. And how insanely fun it all was!!!

--DD

Oh, how could I forget? This one is probably Lisa's favorite. She calls it, "This is your brain on two days of Race Car School. Any questions?"

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I went to bed at 8:30 PM that night. I was at least as tired as I look in this pic.

--DD

Sears is the best!!

Come visit us on Sunday.


KT

Looks like you had a blast! So when are you planning the Advanced class?

I'm not planning on taking the Advanced class. Too expensive for me, and as I said I don't really fit into the cars anyway.

--DD