NASA Driver's Ed @ Sears Point International Raceway

After the disappointments of the SCCA Street School rain-out and the PCA time trial tribulations, the bad weather heading into the weekend was threatening to make this another frustrating track attempt. Michael (Docta Boxsta) had told me that NASA was running a driver's ed event at Sears Point this weekend, and since Sears Point is so close (45 minutes) and last weekend's event was a bust, I decided to go. I signed up for both days to run in group 3, at Michael's recommendation, which was actually fortunate since groups 1 and 2 (for those with less experience) were full.

Saturday

I headed up to Sears Point, leaving my trailer and track tires behind. The day had the potential for a wet track, so the Bridgestone S-02 street tires were on duty for the day. At least this made everything easier. At the track I checked in, found Michael and Kevin C. and then we had our group meeting. We would have four twenty-minute sessions, each with increasing passing zones: session 1, passing in the straight sections between 11 & 1, 6 & 7, and 10 & 11; session 2, add passing in the hairpins 7 and 11; session 3, add passing in 5 and 6; session 4, full track passing. Well, I was kind of nervous about this, but waited to see what the driver behavior would be like.

The track was slightly wet when we went out for our first session of the morning. We gridded, with Kevin and me following Michael since he'd driven Sears Point before and could show us the racing line, at least until we got split by passing. I had also printed out the GGR ground school notes the night before and looked them over to get a little advance picture in my mind. The worst parts of the track, where I didn't have a good sense of the racing line, and cars in front of me were not on a consistent line, were turns 2, 5, 7, and esses though 8 and 9. In other words, about half the turns!

The track stayed pretty dry for the second session, and despite allowing passing in turns 7 and 11, no one did any stupid passing maneuvers that I saw. Slowly, I got more comfortable with more of the track, but still didn't feel familiar enough with turn 5 or the esses to go fast, and 7 and 11 still needed great caution.

The weather started to look bad by the afternoon and our third session, but we'd had no actual rain, so the track was still OK. I turned on the in-car camera, and later hand-timed a random lap on tape at 2:27. I was letting a lot of cars pass me. Our group had a lot of track-prepped cars that were not street-legal. Only a couple of drivers were being overly aggressive, and it was easy enough to let them by. However, letting them pass in the middle of turn 7 was a little uncomfortable. Turn 7 is sort of a double-apex: the inside edge really amounts to a pair of 90-degree corners very close together. So it's effectively a double apex where you clip the first apex, drift wide, then clip the second apex. The alternate line is to go deeper at the start before turning, missing the first apex and turning tighter into the exit apex. The suggestion to "drive your line" when being passed would seem to be a recipe for collision, because if someone is diving inside into the corner, if you go for the first apex, you hit them; if you take the one-late-apex line, your late apex makes your passenger side a target for the passing car's late apex. So if someone was heading inside me into turn 7, I'd just take a slow outside line all the way around, missing both apexes by over a car width, to give them lots of space to go inside of my line.

As we waited for our last session of the day, the rain arrived suddenly in force. It was a torrent, and it was obvious that the track would be slippery. Unfortunately, we'd had no instruction on how to deal with it. Kevin decided to make the long drive home, and Michael and I headed for pit row to get ready. As we were fed onto the track, along with the GO sign the pit worker held up a sign that simply said "E Z". No kidding. The track was soaked and we turned off the main straight at turn 1 and headed up the hill at 40 MPH or so. I slowed to under 30 MPH to creep around turn 2. At the turn-in berm on the left I gently steered right, to the apex on the right at the crest of the hill. But as I crossed the crest at the apex, the rear end got light and started to hang out, oversteering. I tried to gently countersteer, and for a moment the car seemed to begin to correct itself. But I probably instinctively lifted the throttle, and in a split second the car continued its clockwise spin, ending in a 270.

At this point I was off the racing line but still on track, as a little red X 1/9 creeped past me, so I put the car in reverse and backed the rear wheels just off the pavement while the corner worker gave me a Wait signal. After a while pickup truck went past and the corner worker waved me back on track. It took a couple of seconds for the rear wheels to gain traction in the mud and grass (I had turned TC off for the session, and forgot to turn it back on for this situation), but I got going again. In the very next turn a yellow flag was waving. The pickup truck had gone off in what looked like the exact same manner in turn 3. OK, I'd had enough, I decided to call it a day. As if to confirm my decision, in turn 5 the corner worker pointed the black flag at me, and in turn 8 another worker did the same and held up a board with my car number. When you have a spin or an "off-track excursion" you are normally required to make a brief stop in the hot pits to have a word with the race chief and make sure your car is OK. Well, I decided to make it a final pit stop and avoid any further rain driving. As I headed for the track exit approaching turn 11, I saw Michael do the same in front of me. He was obviously thinking the same thing.

Sunday

Given that the rain was supposed to be worse on Sunday, I fully expected to skip it even though I'd be wasting my already-paid entry fee. I was truly spooked by my spin, because I had been driving so slowly and cautiously at the time. If the rain was going to worse, there was no way I was going to drive on the track. I looked at the schedule for Sunday and decided I could get there at 8:00 AM still be OK. So I set my alarm for 6:45 AM, so that I could wake up, check the local weather radar on the web, and go only if the radar was clear.

I woke up and checked the Sonoma weather radar. It was clear. Damn. Now I was worried that I'd make the 45 minute drive only to find crummy weather and a day of waiting around in the cold and staying off the track. But since our four track sessions would be done by 1 PM (the racing groups' actual races were in the afternoon), I figured that it was worth trying.

Second hint: (wish I'd had this one the day before) Turn 2 has a very different wet line from the normal dry line. Instead of hitting the apex on the inside of turn 2, in the wet it is important to go around the far outside of the turn. Otherwise, you can easily do what I did on Saturday: get light across the apex crest, and spin. The outside not only has a gentler elevation profile, but you can see as you drive it that it has a bit of a grooved surface to get rid of the water and give more grip.

Once again we would add passing zones with each session. We headed out for session one with a very wet track but only intermittent light rain. I was tiptoeing around the track, driving like a little old lady. I was determined to be very cautious, even if it meant waving five cars by on every turn. Once again, almost all drivers were courteous and safe, but there was one jerk in a blue M Roadster who I saw try to pass Michael and another car deep in the braking zone of turn 11 after I waved him by out of turn 10. This was in the first session, with passing only allowed in the straights, and not in the braking zone. A bad move, made more dangerous on the wet track. In our session debriefing another driver complained about a similar move by the same guy in turn 1. He seemed oblivious and completely unapologetic. He was definitely going fast, but what a jerk! Whenever I saw this guy anywhere in my mirrors, I gave him a wave-by and a lot of room to go by. Another fast driver, but one that wasn't driving like an idiot, was an instructor in a Honda S2000. He was hauling ass around the soaking wet track. Once, I saw him in my mirrors, getting all squirrelly exiting turn 11, the rear end of the car swinging side to side a couple of times. I strongly suspected he was playing with the car, not getting out of control. Turn 11 was extremely slippery, and was a place where I had to be very slow and smooth, not getting on the power much at all until the car was pointing straight. Any little excess throttle would kick the back end out.

The second session saw no rain, but the track was still soaked. There were a couple of off-track excursions, but nothing requiring a track closure, just single-corner waving yellow caution flags.

Before our third session the rain came down hard, and stayed intermittent for the session. A couple more offs--including a race prepped Z28 straight into the tires at 1, and an RX-7 off the inside of 3 into the tires, both undamaged and back on the track next session--but for the most part people were being pretty cautious. On tape, I timed a lap out at 3:20, nearly a minute slower than my time from yesterday as a beginner on a mostly dry track.

Finally, for our fourth session, the rain stopped and the sun peeked through the dark clouds. Some parts of the track were actually getting dried out from evaporation and traffic. It was like night and day. Whenever I found dry track, my confidence was back to normal because I felt like I knew how the car would grip. On those dry corners I could revert back to my Saturday mode of trying to learn a corner with strong braking and strong corner speed. On the wet I had almost no such confidence. It became very important to adapt to the changing conditions from corner to corner. Early in the session, rounding turn 6, the 180-degree carousel, a silver M3 was sitting on the grass having spun to the inside of the turn. Then, a lap or two later, a car passed me along the inside of the carousel. As we passed under the bridge, a slow-motion movie played though my left window as the passing car developed oversteer in the wet and its rear end went around. I heard tires screech, saw the car rotate, and thought that it might head backwards in my direction. I squeezed the throttle and pulled away onto the flat exit of the turn. I imagine he probably spun onto the inside of the curve, not actually crossing to my outside line. With the combination wet/dry track, I timed a lap on tape at about 3:05.

So it turned out that Sunday was great, with a lot of wet track learning but with conditions much better than what we'd had at the very end of Saturday. Driving on a wet track not only requires much lower speeds, but also demands ultra-smooth input. I could feel the loss of traction even when it didn't seem to move the car. For example, out of turn 4, through 5, and into 6: it's slightly off-camber, and when wet, you have to be very careful. The car would often feel light, as if it were on ice, and ready at any moment to head off the outside of turn 5. I would just have to be sure to go easy on the throttle without lifting, and to maintain my turn angle or even slowly unwind it rather than turn sharper to hit a perfect desired line.

It was fun on the wet, but I want my next track day to be dry! Next date: Laguna Seca, coming soon, Tuesday March 7!