Coming soon to a vintage race near you

I wish I could say I was a natural. But after a day to reflect on the experience, here's what I learned from my track day.

1st: Racecars are not durable. They are fragile. You know how some things are forgiving. Like a Timex. Racecars are not like a Timex. If you do not warm them up, cool them down, shift them, brake them, accelerate them, steer them properly they do not take a lickin' and keep on tickin'. They don't just slow down or wear out over a period of abuse. Oh no, the day will usually result in catastrophic failure. For instance, when you downshift from third to second without incorporating a good solid blip to match the engine RPMs you can break a differential, a transmission, a drive shaft, a transaxle. Or all of the above. Don't ask me how I know.

And breaking something is never a good feeling. And as you limp back to the pits, if you're lucky enough for your car to still be capable of moving under it's own power, instead of the clunking of broken gears, or whatever it is you broke, all you hear is cha-ching, cha-ching, cha-ching, as in the money draining from your racing budget. So the lesson here is the way to keep your bank account balance up, and your lap times down, is to be smooth. Smooth inputs of the throttle, the brake, the steering wheel, the gearbox. As a person who just naturally seems to be hard on equipment, this is not going to be easy. I mean I knock things over constantly, I can't close a cabinet door without slamming it, I hit my head most times I get in the car. I am the proverbial bull in the china shop. Which gives me a sneaking suspicion I might be seeing a lot of broken mechanicals in my near future. But hopefully I'll become more mechanical in the process and learn to treat my equipment nicer.

2nd: Mid-engine, rear-engine, and front-engine drivers are not created equal. I'm not cut out to drive a Porsche 911 S race prepared car. While being able to comfortably drive the 911 S would make me a better driver, I don't think there's enough money in our bank accounts to support finding out whether I could ever drive a rear-engine car or not. So while it may be the "easy" way out, I'm going to stick with a front-engine car.

Until now, the Ford GT had been the only car that was really scary to me to drive, but only scary in the sense that the power of the Ford GT probably (not probably, but certainly) far outweighs my driving talent, but not my innate need for speed. You can see how that might be a bad, if not lethal, combination? But that doesn't stop me from driving it, I simply have to work harder at expressing self-control, or throttle-control rather.

But the Porsche was scary to drive in a different way. The car was just so foreign to me. Apart from being a rear-engine car, there was the shift sequence. Not a standard H pattern. Instead 2nd is where I'm used to 1st being and 3rd is where 2nd usually is and I guess 4th is where 3rd should be but I never made it that far. So every time I went to shift I had to really think about what gear I was in and where I was going. I've been driving a standard H for 12 years, so it was difficult for me to break out of that pattern. If you ever find yourself in such a situation, here's a tip: Amidst the turmoil of trying to figure out what gear you're currently in and what gear you're ultimately trying to shift into, don't forget to brake. As not braking enough before heading in to that very sharp turn will cause your Porsche 911 S to spin. I didn't believe it at first, so I though it best to try it a few times. And yep, it's a Porsche that's what it does.


3rd: Thankfully, some cars are not only more durable, but also more forgiving than others. For instance, the car I will actually be racing, a 1959 Austin-Healey Bugeye Sprite, is not nearly as ass-happy as the 911S, whether I'm carrying too much speed into a turn, or didn't quite get my blip right, the Bugeye seemed to handle it all without getting too upset. And as nothing broke, it seems it may be able to handle my less than gentle touch. But most importantly, I felt comfortable in the car. Not intimidated at all. I wish I could have a track day everyday. Wouldn't it be great if every time you felt like driving your racecar there was a place you could go, without it costing a ton of money? The only way for me to get better and more comfortable is to log the seat time. But it's not that simple. You have to find a track day or rent a track and then transport the car and then have track support. And on and on. Some times I think it'd be easier to be a stamp collector. But what fun would that be?