Well here goes nothing. The story, a bit o everything, ramplings, sidetracks, run-on sentences, mispellings, grammatical errors, you name it, it will all be here.
Oh and for Phil, all you need to read is I had fun and learned alot
*****The pics in here were taken by people other than me. My pics while decent, weren't really worth throwing in here and cluttering up the thread even more (though the skid pad ones were with my camera). As such the direct link to the pics and the other fantastic pics they took are found in the following links, thank you Gentlemen for taking the pictures, I look forward to the next event
http://s271.photobucket.com/albums/jj133/pcajeff/eightsepttwenty/
http://s335.photobucket.com/albums/m450/Brownburro/PCA track day 9-21-08/
For my pics see the picasaweb link in my sig.
The Porsche club/SCCA put on one superb fun/safe event. I look forward to doing more events with them and hope I can drag some fellow z4-forum folk to the next driving school. Thanks to everyone in the event for making it possible.
I so need my own blog page
On to the meat and potatoes
So, as many of you know, I recently attended a Performance Driving School ran by the local Porsche club and SCCA.
Before I begin I will say this....IMO EVERYONE should go to one of these, you learn so much about you and your car's capabilites!
Sign in/up was a breeze, so was tech inspection, I was expecting a thorough lookover, but no, they treat you like adults and trusted you to know if your car is good. I was unprepared for picking a car number and as I was nervous about the whole event not thinking with all cylinders firing. I picked 23, the more I thought about it throughout the day I should of picked 24 (Z4...get it?). Anyways after tech came a good bit of classroom instruction and then it was off to the high speed lane changes. I had done those before but not on a closed course in this car. So I ran a bit and pushed it it bit. I realized on my last one that I had sport mode off and all the DTC/DSC on. No big deal as normally the traction stuff stays on when I'm driving, but I usually work with sport mode on for the tighter steering.
Then came the skid pad....I was a bit nervous there because I had never done anything close to a skid pad before. I did about half with DTC/DSC on half off and sport mode on. Oddly enough while going in circles I didn't notice much of a difference between the two but then I was feeling the back end slip out and correcting by reducing throttle as soon as it felt loose so /shrug. I did go a little more here an there and got vaguely sideways testing the limits. One time I got really greedy and realized I was going to plow right into the dry area so I let off the gas completely......which was when it was reinforced to me that it is a big NO NO. It was like slamming on the brakes and I went sideways, I corrected quickly because tail slides like that is something I am familiar with but that was a valuable learning experience all in itself about proper throttle modulation.
Now the fun part, first run. I was a bit sad/happy because the instructor drove my car first, sad because I wanted to drive, happy because hey first time on any track and I didn't know the lines. So we are driving me around and showing me the lines for the track, keeping it in 3rd gear and explaining what he's doing with gas at the same time. He mentions how when you ease off the gas (not completely) the weight shifts ever so slightly and the car tucks in a bit tighter and makes the corner. The biggest surprise for me was just how damn graceful the car was. The only event I did in the car was a slalom (desert run FTW) and I remember I was getting a bit jerked around. But yeah the instructor was real graceful then let me take over the next lap and coached me through the turns and amazingly I was fairly graceful. I blame the car :evil: not my skillz. I'm not kidding either, I was expecting a real rough ride, I was in jaw dropping awe of how smooth it was.
The next run was an instructor in the S2000 in front of me with me playing follow. We went a little bit faster now but I did my best to follow lines and turn in points etc and did ok. Unfortunatly at the end of the track the S2000 lost it in one of tight corners and tried to play 4x4. So here I am with a basic understanding of what to do around the track. So I go and don't push too hard as I'm focusing on lines. Fun stuff.
I had bad luck getting an instructor as I ended up being the follow car and after two laps or so the instructor would swap outta the lead and switch to the follow car. The second run had another instructor car loose it in a corner. Fortunately I found another car with an instructor and followed him and kept to most of his lines. By the end of the day I'm going pretty dang quick but still keeping it in 3rd moving to 4th as I need to. Which most of the corners that's ok at that track, the z4 (and most cars) have plenty o torque to pull out of the corners with little difficulty. I passed a few cars, but in their defense they looked to be focusing solely on a good line and letting the hard cornering happen later (perhaps on sunday?) In retrospect I should focused like they did earlier on.
The first day I arrived back in Vegas with just shy of a 1/2 tank of gas.
The second day:
Well first run of the day, I grab an instructor by the arm and say coach me. I grabbed the extremely knowledgeable and great teacher (also our yellow group instructor) and had him coach me. He helped me all around the track (especially on turns 17/18) and he broke me of turning in too early for several corners and all around made me go around the track better/quicker (Thanks Jeff and the other instructors). At the end of the run he allowed me to bump up to the white group! Sweet.
A boxter driver (blue car #10) near me in the pits that was also in the yellow group with me were talking and we decided to try to keep up with each other (think Top Gear). I couldn't pull away from him, and he couldn't quite pull away from me. But he was able to pull away in few spots, and he was a bit better with his breaking and on some corners braver/faster. Nonetheless I gave a great showing and never let him get very far from me, there were a few corners I was just able to handle better than him for some reason and I'd get fairly close to him. Anyways, he had a transponder, said his/our best lap was 3m06s, which ain't to shabby IMO for a couple of rookies on pretty much basic cars. Notable things that run, got passed by a guy in a corvette (can't remember what spec) that drove real real fast fast, and good too. We were also passed by a (I hate to say it) Ford Focus (and not just on this run). BUT the guy had a lot of experience in APA??(some racing acronym, I vaguely recalling seeing/hearing it around one of the forums or scca sites) and had it modded. I did my best to follow him and work his lines which on some corners were farther out and quicker/better than what I was taking so that helped me out even more.
The fun stuff, I got two tires in the dirt because I got greedy! Then in another corner, I was greedy again and one tire in the dirt. Thankfully no spins, crashes, etc....but there was this....my most embarrassing moment.....We were going through turns 17-18 and I after getting straight in prep for 18 (on the spring mountain motorsports website) attempted to go to second gear. Well the stick went over but wouldn't go down.....wtf....panic....i make the corner still trying to shove the stick down it just wouldn't go. I straighten up bring the shifter back to neutral....oh I was jamming it past the reverse stop(I realize this as I get on the straight)! DOH! The two cars behind me were not happy i'm sure in fact they were real close to me, due to the fact that I was at that time unable to accelerate out, I hate to say it, but they may have been close to hitting me though I hope they were just waiting for a point by and riding my rear to say HEY! At any rate I had already judged that I was going faster than them so I popped in second correctly and continued on.
At the end of the second day I had a 1/4 tank of gas. Had to fill up before going home.
Now after all that fun driving I think I will be driving like my Maw Maw for the next two weeks minimum.
Oh and btw about the best speed I managed was around 100-105 tops, maybe a little more or a little less, by that time I was prepping mentally for the turn and not really looking down at the speedo
The drivers meeting
There were some great cars there, it was really sweet, and such a friendly crowd. I will be posting a meets/events thread for the November run. Gotta get some more Z4's to represent. Especially some M's.
At first I thought this was just a car pic...now I'm not sure.... :? 
There was some other BMW's there, I remember a M3 and a Z3M coupe, can't remember the others and I'm blind atm and unable to find pics of the other two.
The boxter I followed
Me
The dreaded focus
The very fast Vette (It was a new car and he used to race a front wheel drive car way back when so he was in white because he was still learning the car he said)
The guy in the yellow cayman was still learning the car and the track, he was still quick:
Oh and for Phil, all you need to read is I had fun and learned alot
*****The pics in here were taken by people other than me. My pics while decent, weren't really worth throwing in here and cluttering up the thread even more (though the skid pad ones were with my camera). As such the direct link to the pics and the other fantastic pics they took are found in the following links, thank you Gentlemen for taking the pictures, I look forward to the next event
http://s271.photobucket.com/albums/jj133/pcajeff/eightsepttwenty/
http://s335.photobucket.com/albums/m450/Brownburro/PCA track day 9-21-08/
For my pics see the picasaweb link in my sig.
The Porsche club/SCCA put on one superb fun/safe event. I look forward to doing more events with them and hope I can drag some fellow z4-forum folk to the next driving school. Thanks to everyone in the event for making it possible.
I so need my own blog page
On to the meat and potatoes
So, as many of you know, I recently attended a Performance Driving School ran by the local Porsche club and SCCA.
Before I begin I will say this....IMO EVERYONE should go to one of these, you learn so much about you and your car's capabilites!
Sign in/up was a breeze, so was tech inspection, I was expecting a thorough lookover, but no, they treat you like adults and trusted you to know if your car is good. I was unprepared for picking a car number and as I was nervous about the whole event not thinking with all cylinders firing. I picked 23, the more I thought about it throughout the day I should of picked 24 (Z4...get it?). Anyways after tech came a good bit of classroom instruction and then it was off to the high speed lane changes. I had done those before but not on a closed course in this car. So I ran a bit and pushed it it bit. I realized on my last one that I had sport mode off and all the DTC/DSC on. No big deal as normally the traction stuff stays on when I'm driving, but I usually work with sport mode on for the tighter steering.
Then came the skid pad....I was a bit nervous there because I had never done anything close to a skid pad before. I did about half with DTC/DSC on half off and sport mode on. Oddly enough while going in circles I didn't notice much of a difference between the two but then I was feeling the back end slip out and correcting by reducing throttle as soon as it felt loose so /shrug. I did go a little more here an there and got vaguely sideways testing the limits. One time I got really greedy and realized I was going to plow right into the dry area so I let off the gas completely......which was when it was reinforced to me that it is a big NO NO. It was like slamming on the brakes and I went sideways, I corrected quickly because tail slides like that is something I am familiar with but that was a valuable learning experience all in itself about proper throttle modulation.
Now the fun part, first run. I was a bit sad/happy because the instructor drove my car first, sad because I wanted to drive, happy because hey first time on any track and I didn't know the lines. So we are driving me around and showing me the lines for the track, keeping it in 3rd gear and explaining what he's doing with gas at the same time. He mentions how when you ease off the gas (not completely) the weight shifts ever so slightly and the car tucks in a bit tighter and makes the corner. The biggest surprise for me was just how damn graceful the car was. The only event I did in the car was a slalom (desert run FTW) and I remember I was getting a bit jerked around. But yeah the instructor was real graceful then let me take over the next lap and coached me through the turns and amazingly I was fairly graceful. I blame the car :evil: not my skillz. I'm not kidding either, I was expecting a real rough ride, I was in jaw dropping awe of how smooth it was.
The next run was an instructor in the S2000 in front of me with me playing follow. We went a little bit faster now but I did my best to follow lines and turn in points etc and did ok. Unfortunatly at the end of the track the S2000 lost it in one of tight corners and tried to play 4x4. So here I am with a basic understanding of what to do around the track. So I go and don't push too hard as I'm focusing on lines. Fun stuff.
I had bad luck getting an instructor as I ended up being the follow car and after two laps or so the instructor would swap outta the lead and switch to the follow car. The second run had another instructor car loose it in a corner. Fortunately I found another car with an instructor and followed him and kept to most of his lines. By the end of the day I'm going pretty dang quick but still keeping it in 3rd moving to 4th as I need to. Which most of the corners that's ok at that track, the z4 (and most cars) have plenty o torque to pull out of the corners with little difficulty. I passed a few cars, but in their defense they looked to be focusing solely on a good line and letting the hard cornering happen later (perhaps on sunday?) In retrospect I should focused like they did earlier on.
The first day I arrived back in Vegas with just shy of a 1/2 tank of gas.
The second day:
Well first run of the day, I grab an instructor by the arm and say coach me. I grabbed the extremely knowledgeable and great teacher (also our yellow group instructor) and had him coach me. He helped me all around the track (especially on turns 17/18) and he broke me of turning in too early for several corners and all around made me go around the track better/quicker (Thanks Jeff and the other instructors). At the end of the run he allowed me to bump up to the white group! Sweet.
A boxter driver (blue car #10) near me in the pits that was also in the yellow group with me were talking and we decided to try to keep up with each other (think Top Gear). I couldn't pull away from him, and he couldn't quite pull away from me. But he was able to pull away in few spots, and he was a bit better with his breaking and on some corners braver/faster. Nonetheless I gave a great showing and never let him get very far from me, there were a few corners I was just able to handle better than him for some reason and I'd get fairly close to him. Anyways, he had a transponder, said his/our best lap was 3m06s, which ain't to shabby IMO for a couple of rookies on pretty much basic cars. Notable things that run, got passed by a guy in a corvette (can't remember what spec) that drove real real fast fast, and good too. We were also passed by a (I hate to say it) Ford Focus (and not just on this run). BUT the guy had a lot of experience in APA??(some racing acronym, I vaguely recalling seeing/hearing it around one of the forums or scca sites) and had it modded. I did my best to follow him and work his lines which on some corners were farther out and quicker/better than what I was taking so that helped me out even more.
The fun stuff, I got two tires in the dirt because I got greedy! Then in another corner, I was greedy again and one tire in the dirt. Thankfully no spins, crashes, etc....but there was this....my most embarrassing moment.....We were going through turns 17-18 and I after getting straight in prep for 18 (on the spring mountain motorsports website) attempted to go to second gear. Well the stick went over but wouldn't go down.....wtf....panic....i make the corner still trying to shove the stick down it just wouldn't go. I straighten up bring the shifter back to neutral....oh I was jamming it past the reverse stop(I realize this as I get on the straight)! DOH! The two cars behind me were not happy i'm sure in fact they were real close to me, due to the fact that I was at that time unable to accelerate out, I hate to say it, but they may have been close to hitting me though I hope they were just waiting for a point by and riding my rear to say HEY! At any rate I had already judged that I was going faster than them so I popped in second correctly and continued on.
At the end of the second day I had a 1/4 tank of gas. Had to fill up before going home.
Now after all that fun driving I think I will be driving like my Maw Maw for the next two weeks minimum.
Oh and btw about the best speed I managed was around 100-105 tops, maybe a little more or a little less, by that time I was prepping mentally for the turn and not really looking down at the speedo
The drivers meeting
There were some great cars there, it was really sweet, and such a friendly crowd. I will be posting a meets/events thread for the November run. Gotta get some more Z4's to represent. Especially some M's.
At first I thought this was just a car pic...now I'm not sure.... :?
There was some other BMW's there, I remember a M3 and a Z3M coupe, can't remember the others and I'm blind atm and unable to find pics of the other two.
The boxter I followed
Me
The dreaded focus
The very fast Vette (It was a new car and he used to race a front wheel drive car way back when so he was in white because he was still learning the car he said)
The guy in the yellow cayman was still learning the car and the track, he was still quick:
