Marc's Public Blog

18 months ago, I signed up for the Audi R8 advanced program and got 1-1 instruction to learn the track a bit more. I was a slightly slower R8 than the one I drove this time, and after a day of learning, I got down from 2:07 to 2:03 as my best lap then. Mind you, the car could do better (1:58 at least), but that day, I was just so tired from a bad night, that I just had a hard time learning.

So, I talked to Tim and told him I was interested in coming back, and he found a program he could squeeze us in, and while we had to wait up to October for it (almost 6 months), it was worth the wait. When we got there around 08:45, the fog was slowly lifting (thankfully it was not an issue on the track):

my car almost fit in :)

This time, I brought Jennifer over too, but since I don't think she was learning so much from the normal format of padock excercises and group instruction, I got her an instructor to do 1-1 with her and she got 5 sessions around the track in a TT. Before you ask me, why not an R8 too, honestly she would have been happy and learned in any car, and just like I learned tons in an underpowered miata, I figured gobs of HP is just not the best way to learn the basics.

Since I was French, the instructors didn't have to Roshambo for it, and I got Nico Rondet, who happens to be the lead instructor there. That was great, because it didn't take him long to find what I was doing wrong. First, he told me to stop even bothering with left foot braking, which incidently was something Ric McCornick had suggested that I use. Since I wasn't that good at it, especially on a new technical track I didn't know well, I did better after the 3rd session when I switched back to right foot braking.

Two students, 4 cars. It felt a bit overkill :)

Nico

Jennifer's ride

My ride

Then, he beat on me to get me to unlearn the slow in fast out and my tendency to brake hard and transition to gas too early, removing the benefits of trail braking, which aren't as crucial at Thunderhill, but vital at Sears. That said, I'm eager to try that at Thunderhill next time too. Basically not only he knew his stuff, but he was very good at figuring out quickly what I was doing wrong.
Due to my left foot braking sessions that were kind of lost, I only had 2 sessions to work on trail braking in the R8, which wasn't enough, but I got down to steady 2:02s and a 2:01.

Here's one lap. Nothing to be very proud of, but there we go:

By then the program was over (14:20 or so), but Tim, was nice enough to let me run my own car for two more sessions since we had the track booked anyway. This allowed me to try my car for the first time at Sears, and got 2:02 my first time out where I was being very conservative, and got down to 1:56 on my second session when I started to drive a bit harder. I know the car can go much faster (at least 1:50), and maybe I'll get closer to that after I get better, and figure out why my car is swerving a bit violently under heavy braking (apparently an alignment problem).
Nico did a great job coaching me, and I'm looking forward to more chances to learn from him, and hopefully to try their formula cars class, and a big thanks again to Tim Moser for letting me run my car after their cars had to go to the garage for maintenance.

Here's my last and best lap of the day, just before I stopped due to low fuel:

Jennifer on her side said she learned a lot more from the 1-1 instruction in the car on the track. She may learn more from basic skills training on the paddocks later, but it sounds like track laps are probably a good way for her to learn for now.

Random picture I took next to the building during lunchtime:

He picked me up and we drove a special parking lot at SFO and got in the maintenance employee entrance:

One hangar had planes on display and MX people answering questions on how they do maintenance. That was interesting:

they use eddie currents to see invisible cracks

engines sitting outside pre or post maintenance

We got to visit the test cell, a very interesting part of the visit:

this is where the engines get overhauled and tested

impressive facility to test engines (they get tested for over 8H)

mega blast door in case the engine disintegrates

Planes on display were nice, including plane pulling contests

warmup for the plane pull

it would be fun if we used them to tow planes from now on :)

Emergency slide deployment

Plane tours

Yes Arturo, this is what coach looks like. That's where other people sit :)

They also had random other planes and cars for display:

the fire truck was cool

Sky writing, dot matrix style:

And that was it. The only thing we messed up on was not getting in line to see the 747 cockpit very early on before a crazy line started, but oh well.

Air Combat USA:

Sky Combat Ace:

My verdict: if you'd like more flying time and engagements, Air Combat USA offers more flying time for sure. If you'd like more Adrenaline, Sky Combat Ace offers a more Gs and more adrenaline for the money. That said, travel and location are key, so Air Combat USA is likely the best choice if you're not going to Vegas, while Sky Combat Ace is the more fun choice in my opinion if you're going to Vegas.

All this being said, let's talk about the program itself: I did the 5-6H Lead-in program which consisted of 2 flights with a break in between.
We started with a class on the basics of flying and dogfighting taught by a former air force pilot:

Then we went to our planes:

They had a lot of equipment inside for video and targeting:

The formation flying was quite cool and gave for great pictures:

And all good fun comes to an end

While it's not the same on a video, in you're curious, here are three:

And there you go, after 2 flights that were over too soon, so was the fun, and it came time to go home. I hope to do this again and get more engagements next time.

Laguna edition :)

those were fast, 20 seconds on me

WTF?

Lunch:

Unfortunately someone hit the wall after T15:

My car did well for a change. The CCM brakes didn't do well at first because turns out that they still weren't bedded in properly despite the shop and me doing it on the street. It was weird when I had to pump the brakes a few times as the brakes were getting bedded. After that, they worked great for the rest of the day.

picture taken by John

new carbon brakes after some use

New brakes definitely run cooler

Broke another TPS sensor on a tire

I was kind of tired, so I wasn't super consistent, but I got to learn to drive the new brakes and grow back trust in them. After a good day, despite my non consistent performance, I flew home before being too tired to do so :)

After my 562 started having problems with a wheel, I could have fixed it but I figured it was getting a bit old and I might as well look at upgrades.
The 780 is my 5th roomba in 10 years. It honestly seems similar to my 562 and 580, although tests say it's supposed to pick up dirt better than them. It looks a bit more fancy but actually comes with a smaller dirt bin and filters you cannot self-clean/wash anymore.
It still has weak suction and fails to pick up anything between my kitchen tiles, but it works well on carpet and hardwood floor.

Functionality honestly looks much like my 580 (actually, the remote is not RF, and Irobot cheapened out and removed the extra dirt bin, while raising the price by 50% ($400 to $600). Actually the closest replacement for the 580 is the 790, and that one costs a whole 75% more!
But the part that made me the least happy is their very small HEPA filters that are expensive to replace and that you are forced to use. I curse the marketing person who added this "feature" that forces you to give more and more money to irobot after already having paid 50% more for a robot that comes with less than the 580 used to. Paying for those expensive filters might make sense if you need them, but really blows if you're forced to buy them and don't need them.
It probably cleans a bit better, but to someone looking for a roomba, I'd recommend finding a much cheaper 5xx series or consider a Neato XV-21 which has real suction and room mapping (that one is however louder).
If you get stuck with a 700 series roomba series, I recommend buying filters from china via aliexpress, like 10 filters for $18 from aliexpress.