[england1987]

I arrived at the performance center a liitle early, about 7:45am. I went in and filled out the waiver form. Everyone else started to appear. The course started off on time at 8:30am. We started in the classroom for a half our session. The instructors intruduced themselves. First was Larry, an older guy who has done some pro-racing for shelby in the past. Next was Donny, another older guy who also has done pro-racing. Then finally Allison, a women maybe in her thirties, who is work toward a pro-racing deal in stock cars. Larry gave the verbal instruction. We spoke a lot about contact patches on tires and how acceleration and braking adjust the variations in contact patch size, and how this affects handling. They we got put into groups of two. I was put with Steve in car #2. Our first event was a slalom course to get used to the vehicles handling and to increase your confidence. We also went on to the autocross for some hot laps. Another event was understeer/oversteer on the skidpad. We did this with the DSC on and off. That system is absolutely amazing. We went onto the upper skidpad and set up a little race, which they call a Rat race. What they do is set up a large oval and soak the track in water. Two people start off on opposite sides of the oval next to a cone. The first person to pass their cone after five laps is the winner. So we had a mini contest, which I won by a close margin. We also did a braking exercise and a emergency lane change exercise. The lane change was by far the most annoying event trying to avoid the cones, which luckily I did. We finish the day off with a timed trial around the autocross course. I came third out of eight people. 1st position was 25.3 secs, 2nd position was 25.8 and my time was 26.3 secs. A wierd thing was that on one car the ABS failed and all four wheel locked up and the guy skided over a cone and blew the front drivers side tire. So thats the event for day one. I didn't have time to take pictures, Sorry!

I forgot to mention that the British Press were here today driving the hell out a bunch of Z4 M roadsters. That was the coolest thing to watch. they were doing hot laps and driving on the skid pad. They were spinning out on the skidpad and the course they set up for the journalists. Those guys can drive.