Skip Barber School at Laguna Seca
Joined: Oct 2003
Posts: 642
Likes: 1
From: Pasadena, Ca.
Skip Barber School at Laguna Seca
Andrew and I just got back from Monterey where we spent the last three days (Fri-Sun) taking the race driver course at Laguna Seca. Andrew was doing super well and having a blast going fast. He will have to be real disciplined with that TT 350Z of his on the streets after this adrenaline building (and draining) experience.
Diving down into the hairpin turn 2 at 90-100mph, downhill with the pedal floored in fourth gear and waiting, waiting, waiting to get to the brake cone...well past the point where your self preservation instinct is screaming in your head that you are going to die in splatter like fashion if you wait that long to hit the brakes....becomes fun....just not the first time. Lots of work on hard on the pedal while still rolling the foot to blip the throttle and do downshifts, twice in rapid succession (fourth gear to second gear), and trail off the pedal as you go into the first apex, then ease back onto throttle and hit the second apex and squeeze down throttle with an upshift to third as you track out, with a bit of rear oversteer drift............was just one of the exercises. Instructors were great and it will take so long to digest all that we learned. But what we don't know would fill a hundred books the same size.
Still and all, a great weekend.
(All the learning was in these little four cylinder open wheel Dodge Formula cars, that weigh about a 1,000 pounds, are two inches off the pavement, and go like stink, with cornering capacity at about 1.25 g's. So, since it was not in our 350Z/G35 cars, no video this time to make a link to since it really is not directly relevant).
We also did autocross exercises, passing exercises, race start situations, and had gobs of track time, in addition to classroom lecture and question and answer time. A lot of feedback too as instructors stationed around the track would radio back comments to your driving throughout the session and at the end of each session.
Andrew can add to the thread when he gets home tonight or later this week when he has time with his thoughts.
Diving down into the hairpin turn 2 at 90-100mph, downhill with the pedal floored in fourth gear and waiting, waiting, waiting to get to the brake cone...well past the point where your self preservation instinct is screaming in your head that you are going to die in splatter like fashion if you wait that long to hit the brakes....becomes fun....just not the first time. Lots of work on hard on the pedal while still rolling the foot to blip the throttle and do downshifts, twice in rapid succession (fourth gear to second gear), and trail off the pedal as you go into the first apex, then ease back onto throttle and hit the second apex and squeeze down throttle with an upshift to third as you track out, with a bit of rear oversteer drift............was just one of the exercises. Instructors were great and it will take so long to digest all that we learned. But what we don't know would fill a hundred books the same size.
Still and all, a great weekend.
(All the learning was in these little four cylinder open wheel Dodge Formula cars, that weigh about a 1,000 pounds, are two inches off the pavement, and go like stink, with cornering capacity at about 1.25 g's. So, since it was not in our 350Z/G35 cars, no video this time to make a link to since it really is not directly relevant).
We also did autocross exercises, passing exercises, race start situations, and had gobs of track time, in addition to classroom lecture and question and answer time. A lot of feedback too as instructors stationed around the track would radio back comments to your driving throughout the session and at the end of each session.
Andrew can add to the thread when he gets home tonight or later this week when he has time with his thoughts.
Thread
Thread Starter
Forum
Replies
Last Post
Mad A
Not G35 Related
4
Dec 8, 2015 01:45 PM