A Driver's Education (DE) event with the Porsche Club has become one of my more favorite things to do. But it has been an evolution to get to that place. Despite my normal love of driving and, now, amateur car-control events, I'll admit that my first trip to drive my own car on a real race track in 2013 was a bit nerve-wracking. Everyone thinks they are the world's best driver, especially before they have ever been trained (where we learn we aren't nearly as good as we think we are...). So I at least had that going for me. Yes, I had driven other people's car on a race track before - Skip Barber High Performance Driving School at the historic Lime Rock Park track in CT - so it wasn't that I hadn't been on a track before. Tracks are certainly a bit intimidating, especially New Hampshire Motor Speedway with it's full NASCAR stands around the oval. You really just don't know quite what to expect.
But the Porsche Club (and probably all marque-sponsored clubs) ease the way into these events by assigning each novice an instructor. When you show up to the track, a nice, friendly person is there waiting to help out. Not only do these brave souls volunteer to hop into a speeding car with you, you can often hop into their car with them and see how to really get the most out of a vehicle! These volunteer instructors really make these events into what they are, which is something you won't really realize until you try a few. These people really do shape our progress.
On this day, Saturday May 9th 2015, I was headed to Thompson Speedway in Thompson CT with the Northeast Region of the Porsche Club. I was looking forward to seeing Alex G. again. I met Alex at this same place the prior Fall and then Alex came with us to ADSI too and joined the fraternity of sideways-sliding drivers. Alex has a C4S Cab (#111) that looks great and makes lovely noises. It's quick too with the PDK transmission rattling off shifts like they were rounds from a .50 caliber machine gun. Having a familiar face in addition to your instructor makes the whole thing even that much better. The instructors are fairly busy since they usually have two students in two different run groups and normally try to get some driving in themselves in their own car. So they are usually on track for the Green (beginner) rungroup, the Yellow (novice) group, their Red instructor group, and I think they can jump into White (Intermediate) and Black (Advanced) if they want to as well. Volunteering has it's privileges, but it also makes for a very long day for them.
I got there early enough to grab about the same parking spot as last year but Alex was a little later and got relegated to a more distant area. Later in the day, he was able to park up a bit closer. The pack of cars on this day was quite large. Given that it was early in the season (so everyone's car was minty fresh and working) and the weather was good, turnout was high. The pack consisted of 122 drivers!! Probably well over 100 cars!!
The paddock was packed as usual. It's interesting how things change as you progress and grow in this sport. Back in 2013 at NHMS, I'd have to say that I was quickly hoping to be the only car out on track so I could learn without being in the way of all the other cars. That same desire to have only a few cars on track stayed as I tried to achieve better lap times and see what I could do. But now, I enjoy having the other cars on track. I try to drive courteously in traffic, checking my mirrors to see if anyone was coming up behind me to wave them through. And I always try to wave to the cars that nicely let me by so I can push myself and my car a bit harder. It really is social out on track, too. And the better for it in many ways. In real racing, the people out on track with you are your colleagues and friends. You will see them over and over again so it doesn't make sense to get into any sort of a fracas out there. DE becomes like that too. I know a few of the drivers in their cars now so I see familiar faces as we pass each other. It's really so much more civil this way than I'd ever imagined. With five run groups, we had about 20 cars per group. And my starting group, Yellow, was combined with Blue so we had more than average out there (32 in total). Green only had 24. There were 18 in White.
My instructor for the day was Dick Anderson, the chief instructor for the Northeast Region (NER), no less. I have done so much autocross in the past two years, together with enough track days and devoured racing/driving books that I felt no real twinges of apprehension, surprisingly. I was just looking forward to trying to remember everything I knew and put it into action out there with him to help me if I forgot anything. I knew he'd be a busy guy at this event so I introduced myself early and quickly and then left him alone. He certainly was busy so I found him and collected him for my first on-track session. Each group has a specifically-colored wristband to indicated their group and the Yellow and Green folks can't go onto the track without instructors in the car. Almost all of the Porsche instructors have the Chatterbox system for helmet-to-helmet communication which makes communication easy at normal speaking voice volumes. We connected up with that setup and were good to go.
Despite bringing up the issue of forming trains (that plagued us last fall on this track) at the morning driver's meeting to prompt a reminder to folks to try to manage the trains a bit, we had some trains (packs of cars plodding around the track usually with one slow car up front not pointing anyone by). In my first session, I kept trying to pit and head back out to get some clear track, only to find myself on the back of a different train, be it a little slower or faster than the prior one. It was a tad frustrating because I still had lap times in my mind as a goal and hadn't progressed my thinking yet. Toward the end of our session, the black flag came out to indicate that something reasonably major had happened on track and to proceed to the pits. It was just a car with a mechanical issue (sadly, a Porsche 944, which would be a common sight that day) so there wasn't much delay before the next group could get back out.
By this point, it was early for lunch but that was just about perfect since there was no line. Over an Italian sausage sandwich, I met David V. and his wife Laurie who own an phenomenal white 1988 widebody 911 Targa with Speedline wheels (pictured above) and hail from North Smithfield! Of course I let them know about ADSI! Hopefully we'll see them there soon too.
The second run for my group started after that. It was getting hot on track now and bleeding the tires down to the right pressure was important. I bled down to 24psi cold and the tires came up to a perfect 37psi once out on track. The second run was a bit better, with most folks moving more quickly or giving faster point-by's. All passes require a point-by from the driver in front. This is done to ensure the safety of everyone on track. It is not wheel-to-wheel racing. There are no trophies and no one wins money. So crashing cars together is just plain forbidden. As I pulled off the track from the second session, Dick looked at me and said, "I don't need to be in the car with you. Let's go get you a blue band." What a surprise! I wasn't expecting or even thinking about moving up a group on this day, but that must be one of the benefits of having the chief instructor in your car. The Blue group runs with the Yellow group but blue is "solo" - without an instructor in the car. It was with mixed feelings that I enjoyed adding the blue band to my arm. I like meeting the instructors and they really do know their stuff. But at the same time, I see how much work it is for them each track day so it's nice to be able to have them be able to focus on other, newer drivers that can use their help. Now it was just me in the car!
I was supposed to have two more sessions on track, but unfortunately one of the instructors, in his own car, lost his brakes going into the clubhouse turn and had to use the wall to stop his momentum. His poor car was severely damaged and you could see that he was quite distraught. Who wouldn't be after that! We were all quite sad for him. It took some time to repair the spot where his car went into the barrier, so a few sessions were dropped off the schedule. I was left with one final session on track to try my new solo arrangement.
The crowd had thinned a bit by this later hour and I got some decent laps in. But I could feel that I was pushing the car hard in some of the turns. I got many point-by's and tried to not be too greedy with them. I was certainly thankful for them. My best lap time of the day was a 1:28, a tad slower than my fastest lap from last fall. But, like I said, it wasn't really about lap times anymore for me. It was about finding a good place in this community of people who were learning and really enjoying something as mature adults. I took a cooking class once at a restaurant in Providence many years back and the experience was similar in that everyone thinks they can cook at least a little, only to learn that they really can't and that the other people in the kitchen is what really makes the experience rich and rewarding.
For me, the community of drivers is finally becoming familiar enough to really know and enjoy. It certainly is nice to find your place in the kitchen and your place in the pack.
