AutoX school

03threefiftyz

The Evolution Performance Driving School - Building Champions since 1993 - Autocross, Driver School, HPDE, License

cruzthepug

WOW.....how much fun was that. Since this was the first time to ever try anything like this, hell, I've only owned a sports car for 4 weeks, I really didn't have high expectations other than to learn what my new Z could do.

Day turned out to be on and off rain all day. We were divided into groups and we started off with 3 runs so the instructors had a baseline to judge by. I spun out on the first lap, finished in 43.44, and figured out quickly how hard I could push it in the wet. My next lap was 30.48 and my third was 29.40. After these first runs I was pleased with my times and they were in the same ball park with a lot of the other times. Best I could tell, I was the only true novice, there were 25 in the class and most had been doing Autocross for at least a year and some for a lot longer.

The second morning session was 2 runs with the instructor, 2 runs with the instructor driving, then 3 solo runs. The first 2 runs were 29.20 and 28.70 with only some verbal instruction on where to try to pick up some speed. Then during the runs while he was driving I could see the lines and the in my last 3 runs I was 27.67, 27.65 and 27.95. I was very happy with the 27's and they seemed to be some of the fastest times. Of all the times I saw, there was a couple of times in the 26's, some in the 27's but it seemed that most were in the 28's and above. Granted there was a wide variety of cars but I was very pleased to have some of the fastest times and the instructors could not believe that this was the first time driving a sports car. By this time it had stopped raining and the course was almost dry.

After lunch the theme was "looking ahead". We road with the instructors in sedans at slow speed and they told us how to look ahead and not to look at cones that don't mean anything. Look down the course where you want to go and let the cones in-between get picked up by peripheral vision. We did similar format as the last session before lunch but with different instructors. I did 4 runs with the instructor, 40.10 with a spin on the first lap, then a 28.82, 27.95 and a 27.26. I was starting to get the hang of it, then after he drove for a couple of laps I did 4 more runs, 28.10, 27.81, 27.12 and 27.60. By this time it was starting to rain again. We would get 3 final runs at the end of the day and I was really wanting to get in the 26's and might would have made it in the last 2 runs had I not gotten on the gas just a bit too soon in the last corner before the finishing straight and got loose.

It had really started to rain hard but I was still wanting a really good time to finish the day. In the pit next to me was a guy in a Corvette and he had some of the fastest times all day, in the last session he was running high 26's. So I really wanted to get in the 26's. He ran in the first group out for the final 3 runs, it was raining steady and he had 1 of the 3 that got in the 26's. I was in the 4th group and the rain had gotten worse and about the hardest it had rained all day and I went out with a 29.04 and knew where I had made my mistake, second run was 27.97 and my instructor gave me a couple of quick pointers where he wanted me to push it harder. My last run was 27.39 and I got loose on the last corner again and probably would have been close to 26, but with all the rain 27.3 was a great time.

Now, I'm hooked.