CFRA @ Laguna Seca Raceway

This was my first time out with CFRA, as a guest of club member Docta Boxsta, as was Kevin C. I'd spent one day at Laguna Seca with a Miata club back in November, which was a lot of fun despite the disappointingly small amount of track time we got that day. As with the last two track events, the weather was a question, but the forecasts were for likely rain late in the day, hopefully after we would be done. Because of the sketchy weather potential, we went on street tires once again. We met at the hotel in Salinas the night before, grabbed some dinner, and planned our short morning trip to the track. It was late and I didn't get enough sleep.

On the way to the track Tuesday morning, we got caught in -- get this -- a Salinas/Monterey weekday commute traffic jam! I never would have thought this area would be enough of a metropolis to have gridlock, but on the two-lane highway 68 from Salinas into Monterey, it was stop-and-go all the way. But we got there in plenty of time.

The club president announced plans to make instructors from the Skip Barber school available at the next event (for a fee) and said that one of them was there today. Michael immediately suggested to Kevin and I that we split an instructor for the day. He found the guy, but he was already booked. However, he called another instructor who could make it to the track by the time our sessions would start. We rotated the instructor in our different run groups. So, less than $120 each, we essentially got almost individual instruction for the day. Actually, Kevin and I got instruction for two sessions each, in our four sessions of run group B, and Michael got instruction in all four of his run group A sessions, but that was a lot. Our instructor was Ken Dobson, who I thought did a great job. Totally worth it.

The number of cars was well managed, vastly better than my prior Laguna Seca day with the Miata club. With the Miata club they'd oversold the event, and in the end I got under an hour of track time. Lame. But today it was great -- we were scheduled for 2 hours of track time. There was about the right number of cars on track, so passing and being passed was fairly rare but safe and easy when necessary.

Group A went out first, the most experienced or fastest drivers, or those who'd been OK'd to move up past group B. As guests, Kevin and I were in group B.

We went out next. I got the feel for the track back pretty quickly, and Ken was giving me new information right off the bat. The main thing I learned was to look farther ahead. For example, the moment I turned into turn 5, he was telling me to look at the first brakemarker sign way up by turn 6. It was hard to do, but when I did so it gave me a lot more confidence in my cornering speed because I could see where I wanted to go, and know whether I could get there. So when you're below the speed at which your car can comfortably navigate the corner, by looking ahead you just feel it, that your speed is totally OK, and so you don't slow way down as you do when you're not looking ahead and are not sure if you can make the corner. Ken also showed me a different line through turn 2, a sort of diamond shape instead of the late apex I'd learned before. He would nudge the steering wheel in turn 2, which at first startled me, but then I saw that when he turned in sharper and told me to give it more throttle, it just worked better. The car would rotate nicely and start to power out on a much straighter line than the large arc of the old line. But it required a sharper turn and more throttle than I'd normally try. The Boxster was totally responsive to it. A Hot Lap transmitter was set up at start/finish, and in the first session my best clean lap was 2:04.42. My previous day at Laguna Seca, on sticky tires, I managed to just break 2:00 a couple of times with under an hour of track time, so I thought this was a good start.

Well, as we finished and entered the paddock, we saw the result of the first of the two incidents for the day. A guy in a shiny black Honda S2000 had gone wide in turn 6, overcorrected, and shot across to the inside of the corner exit, into the tire wall. Nothing severe, but he'll need bodyshop work on the entire right side of his car. Turn 6 seems to claim a lot of cars like this. If you get two wheels off exiting Turn 6, you really have to just drive straight off parallel to the track, where there's lots of runoff room to scrub off speed. If you bring the wheels back onto the track surface abruptly, you can easily get launched back across to the inside of the exit, and there's only a car width of dirt between the track and the tire-lined cement wall there.

Group C went out next. This group was for those with 4 or fewer track days of experience. Several laps in a row, rounding turn 3, we could hear tire screeching and see a white Subaru wagon aggressively cornering. A few minutes later, someone noticed the ambulance heading out on track. Then we heard that the Subaru had rolled exiting "the corkscrew" turn 8. Fortunately the driver was unhurt and the ambulance ride was just a precaution, but the car was probably a total loss. It had survived the roll with minor roof crushing, lots of broken glass, pretty much every body panel damaged, and motor oil leaked on the hood. Given that he was in group C, I'd guess that it was a combination of inexperience, overaggressiveness, high center of gravity, and simply driving beyond his limit.

The group C incident caused a delay, so to get back on schedule, the next round of sessions would be 20 minutes each. This time I drove solo while Ken instructed Kevin. I tried to concentrate on what Ken had been telling me. My times improved a bit, with a couple of 2:03's and a best lap of 2:02.39.

We took a lunch break to get gas and food, and got back with everything on schedule but the weather looking a little more threatening. So they decided to go with 20 minute sessions to make sure we beat the weather and darkness. This time Ken was really pushing me to look far ahead, turn in tighter with more speed, and power out of the corners better. He also kept emphasizing the turn 2 diamond-shaped line. It was pretty intense with his gung-ho coaching commentary! There was only one brief moment of drama, when I missed the apex of turn 10 by a foot -- my instinct, probably incorrect, thinking that I couldn't turn in that sharply -- and thus ran a foot wide on the exit. My left tires were on the ribbed pavement rumble strip, and I thought I should keep the wheel straight until the car was fully settled, which was a little bit hairy since I wanted to cross the track to set up for turn 11. Of course, Ken considers the rumble strip a normal usable part of the track and thought I should take my normal line, so he thought I was a deer in the headlights when I waited to pull to the right and remained heading for the patch of dirt between the end of the strip and the late pit lane entrance. In any case, I got faster with a best lap of 2:01.57 on that very lap.

After the third round of track sessions was the "qualifying" session. The club has a points system awarded through the season based on lap times at each event. Since a good number of people had Hot Lap timers, they decided to allow people to have their choice of a Hot Lap time given a clean lap in session three, or to take a lap in the organized timed session. Since the points didn't matter to me, I figured I'd experience the organized qualifying lap regardless of the fact that my prior time of 2:01.57 felt fast and I presumed was aided by having Ken goading me around the track. So they gridded us and sent cars out at intervals. We entered on the main straight, got a partial warmup lap up to turn 9 where the person with the stopwatches started the clock, then took a full timed lap back to turn 9, and headed into the pits after turn 10.

Michael's hot lap receiver had not been working right all morning, so his qualifying lap was his only timed lap. He turned in a 1:59:57 in his speed yellow Boxster S. On my qualifying lap, for some reason they didn't record a time. Tracy said he'd recorded a time and would sort it out later. I hand timed the in-car video later at 2:01:69. As I'd been waiting to go on the track, very light sprinkles of rain gathered on my windshield. I decided that as long as I didn't need to use my wipers, I would consider the rain non-existent and I could go full speed. And fortunately the sprinkles never amounted to enough to need a wiper swipe. However, Kevin's qualifying lap got messed up. He did his warmup lap and then as he screamed down the front straight towards turn 2, they sent out another car in front of him on its warmup lap, too late to keep a good lead on Kevin. He was forced to slow down and tail the car through its warmup lap. After he pulled into the paddock, they offered to give him a re-run, but at about this time the rain sprinkles were starting to get a little more consistent, wipers definitely necessary, and trying to do a hot lap on a freshly moistened track seemed like a bad idea, so he declined.

The rain started to come down as we waited for the fourth round of sessions. People were starting to leave on account of the rain. But the run groups continued. Ken went out with Michael in group A and then with Kevin in group B. So I was driving solo on the wet in group B, but Ken had time to tell me basically to stay off the racing line in the wet. I went out driving very slowly and carefully to get a feel for the track. In each corner, I tried to take a line that avoided the normal line, which was awkward but doable. Of course, you have to cross the racing line when you do this, so I was gentle with brakes and throttle any time I touched the racing line. The rain was very light, just sprinkles, and as I got more comfortable and felt not a touch of slipping, I started to go a little faster bit by bit, and began taking a line that was on the racing line in the straights and a car width off in the corners. I just took turns 2 and 11 really slowly, since they're the sharpest. I got lapped a couple of times by a 914-6 that was one of the fastest cars there (he ran in groups A and B) and I felt a little bad that I held him up through turns 8, 9, and 10 a couple of times, but in group B you can't pass there so he had to wait for me to tiptoe on a dry line through these turns until I waved him by in 11.

The session seemed to run forever! This was great. I realized that the exodus of drivers must have meant that there were few enough cars on the track, and none left in the paddock, that they were going to just let us run until time ran out. As the session wore on, and I got faster and faster without feeling even a hint of sliding, I started to think the track was actually pretty dry. The rain had stopped, and I began to simply take the racing line at a less-than-normal speed. It was fine. At some point it seemed like there were no other cars on the track. Kevin and Michael were probably half a lap away from me, at similar speeds, so we never saw each other. Finally, the checkered flag came out. In the end, the session probably lasted close to an hour. Wow!

Almost nobody was left, many having bolted when the rain started, so the paddock was mostly empty as we packed up. We headed out and got stuck in the Monterey-Salinas evening commute! After 45 minutes or so it was dark and at around Gilroy I noticed I was really sleepy and caught myself with heavy eyelids, so I desperately headed for the next exit that had commercial buildings. I pulled into a McDonalds parking lot and took a 20 minute nap before getting a snack. Much better! Another hour of driving in intense rain and I was home. We had managed to get in essentially a full day of dry track time just before some really bad weather.