π
2013-11-15 01:01
in Cars, Ncars
Ari was nice enough to invite me to his track day, and although I was very excited about going, I fell sick a few days ealier, talk about timing :(
At the same time, Nico, expert racer and instructor whom I had met at the Audi experience and had started giving me instruction I needed, was actually free that day and able to meet me at Thunderhill.
Ok, long story short, I tried to rest as much as possible, and figured I'd show up and hope for the best.
I got a good 8 hours of sleep, and flew to TH while my friend Scott nicely drove my car and met me there. I only had a slower plane that day, so I had to leave a bit ealier. This was close enough to a night takeoff:
Unfortunately, I was still kind of sick that day when I arrived, but adrenaline and caffeine set that aside for most of the day, although by 15:00, my last session, I was fading. But man, I had had 6 great 35mn sessions by then.
Alessandro came with his "company car"
Alessandro
with Nico, my coach
By noon, my outside rear tire had a bit too much fun, but thankfully I had shipped an old set of tires at the local tire shop and they were able to replace it during lunchtime, so I was able to run the afternoon:
Man 35mn session are a lot of work, never mind when you're battling a cold (we only had about 10-15 mn between each session after refilling gas). By some miracle I was able to stay sharp most of the day and learn from Nico. He did a great job finding what I was doing wrong, and teaching me his fast in fast out line :)
Nico was not my first coach, but he definitely was the most efficient so far.
By the end of the day, I had run a few 2:02's, my best time so far, and that was on worn tires, and with a heavy wind that was blowing into my airbrake. I'm pretty sure on a good day with fresh tires and a fresh me, that means I can now get in the 2:00 range. I'm eager to try that out some future day.
Thanks much to Nico for his expert help.
On the way back, I did a quick overlfy of Thunderhill West:
And then I flew back, which was no piece of cake because by then the adrenaline wore off, and my body let me know that what I did to it was mean :)
This was definitely one of my best days at Thunderhill so far. Thanks again Ari. |
