Watkins Glen Int'l, Sat.-Sun., October 25-26, 2003 (who's going?)
This is a tracquest.com event-could be a great meet for 6speedonline.com

 

I should be there, serving as an Instructor. I've run a couple of TracQuest events,and Todd Serota is a friend of mine. They are GREAT events - more track time than almost any other driver's ed event I've attended, and a great attitude. Great lunch and drinks are provided. Run whatcha brung!

Also, Watkins Glen is arguably the best track in the Northeast. Woo-hoo!

So, everyone should come play!

vty,

--Dennis

 

OK, so who was there! Let us know!

 

Quick write-up of the TracQuest event at Watkins Glen this past weekend.

First of all, what fun! The weather held out for us for most of the weekend, with nice cool dry weather thru lunch on Sunday. Sunday afternoon was damp with some rain, but it was a good opportunity to practice different lines and maintaining control. Most everyone had more track time than we could handle.

Turnout was quite good, with a LOT of Porsches, some BMWs and Corvettes (as well as a few pony cars), a few WRXs and other Japanese machinery, and some surprisingly fast small FWD vehicles, mostly Mini Coopers and a pair of nice silver Focus SVTs. One nice guy showed up in a "riced-up" slammed Accord with a Prelude engine that, alas, expired in a cloud of white smoke and copious oil leakage, just as he pulled into the hot pits in his first session. Fastest cars? Hard to say. Bill Chadwick had just finished his 935, and was still setting it up. If I had to guess, I'd say that it'd be the 996 Cup cars, though the 993 cup cars weren't far behind. Fastest street cars... hmmm... maybe the brand new yellow GT3? The Z06s circulating quickly?

Unfortunately, my friend (and F-car mechanic) John had to drop out at the last minute, as he went for a ride last Monday in his friend's newly completed Cobra replica; as he was reaching forward to adjust something, his friend mashed the throttle and the car took off, snapping John back in his seat and leaving him with some minor whiplash. :-( Of course, the most tragic part of this incident is that John was unable to schlepp my slicks out to the Glen, so I ended up stealing The Lovely Jamie's (tm) 996 once again. Her car is shod with old Michelin Pilot Sport tires, which are excellent rubber, but not so much when they are old and have 20k street miles and probably 25+ total track days between the two of us on them. Though they've been heat-cycled to the point where their coefficient of friction approximates that of granite, they still have friggin' tread and I'm too damn cheap to replace them until they're completely gone, gone, gone. I was hoping to use them up this weekend, but don't think I'm quite there yet. Aside from the tire issue, man, this is one awesome car. Comfortable, fast 360 mile commute out to the track, dependable, reliable, and wicked fast... I do so *love* this car!

I did tell Todd that he needed to build pee-breaks into the schedule for instructors, as we were hopping from car to car to car. The schedule was set-up for maximum track time, and NOT for urinary comfort. I found that my helmet stayed on for hours at a time, as I ended up with a pair of novice students and four intermediate drivers. I ended up skipping a couple of fast/instructor sessions just to catch my breath! Though the great lunches included in the admission price did salve my wounds quite well.

The Toddler himself finally caught a ride with me during the last session on Saturday. He made some excellent suggestions to correct my mistakes. It must be said too that he is pretty aggressive, perhaps more so than I was - being afraid to ball-up TLJ's car, and with the rear end sliding all over the place already, I left the traction control on, as it really wasn't kicking in except in a couple of places (e.g., coming out of turn 7). Todd noticed this, and said that HIS TC kicks on in almost EVERY corner (if he hasn't shut it off), which showed just how much of a wuss I am. I need to get onto the gas earlier and harder.

A few highlights. A novice student, John Gaines, drove his newly acquired 315-hp M Roadster from IOWA out to the Glen for this event! John was incredibly friendly, and did quite well for his second event. In a similar car, Than Orens was a very fast learner (fast in the sense of traveling quickly but also in terms of absorbing tips quickly). Alex Lewin drove his newly acquired M3, and made great improvements. David Husak showed up with his 964 RS America-based race car -- absolutely beautiful. Though it must be said that this used to be TLJ's car, before David bought it and took it apart! And in another example of a small world, after buying Jamie's RSA, David sold his seats to Ray Bahr, who showed up in his new STi, and who in turn sold his M3 to... Alex Lewin.

My good friends Charlie and Alex Vest showed up with Charlie's Ferrari 308qv, which didn't start the event well, as it was running poorly and really down on HP. Worse, it suffered a minor off-track excursion (going into turn 6), possibly as a result of a mechanical malady (we'll know more in the post-mortem). Charlie decided not to drive it any more, so he took on the Herculean task of trailering the sucker home to CT then turning around in his wife's Mini Cooper! Back on the track on Sunday, he turned in some respectable times in the dry, about 2:52. Then, Charlie learned that his 17 year old son, Alex, in only his second track event, was turning 2:47... and to Charlie's full credit, he was giddy with delight at the skill exhibited by his son! (Boy, I can't *wait* until the Principessa here gets old enough to drive!!!)

On Sunday, I took out the long-suffering Barbara Ilsen (she was helping with registration and logistics and had to put up with her husband Kevin AND the Toddler for the entire time) out for a ride. She warned me that she gets carsick, so we'd be able to only go a few laps. Luckily, my babbling distracted her enough that she was pleasantly surprised to see the chequered flag wave. The next session was probably the best of the weekend for me. I (finally) got a session without a passenger, and spent much of it playing with the Porsches from GTC Performance and a pair of Z06s. Whee!

Final casualty count was relatively low (I'm guessing on some of these). A Mazda RX-7tt was the injured the most, with damage pretty much everywhere as a result of the spin. There was the aforementioned Ferrari 308qv. A Mitsubishi 3000GT had a catastrophic tire failure in the toe of the boot. I'm told that a Corvette also blew a tire (dunno if it was a result of a hit). Mechanically, an E34 M5 stopped in the laces, the Honda blew its engine, and a older white 911 blew a lot of oil as well. Most tragically, a beautiful 996tt showed the legendary "Watkins Glen Armco Blue" on its nose. Its owner, a really nice guy, was apparently not paying a whole lot of attention when he exited the paddock for the start of his session. He made a right turn into the hot pits... and kept turning right. Doh. But he didn't let this stop him, and kept of running!

After lunch on Sunday, the rain finally started, but it never got drenching. Here's where the rain became the great equalizer... fun watching the Foci keep up with the 911s, and Minis passing Corvettes. More and more track time became available as the weather caused some of us to leave early and run groups became combined. Charlie and Alex, as usual, drove until they locked up the track for the winter. BTW, I'm convinced, for New England commuters, that the "southern" route to and back from the Glen is faster. From the track gate to my driveway in Lincoln, MA, including one stop for gas, was exactly 5 hours and 15 minutes, which is a lot better than anything I've been able to get with the "northern" route.

See everyone at WGI again in the spring?!?

vty,

--Dennis

 

I was out there to the bitter end, driving in the rain. And I was the last to leave the garage after loading my car back up. Much better than last year when I had to quit 15minutes before the end of the session because I was out of gas and out of brakes!