This past weekend I was able to get out to my first track day at Pacific raceways. I attended the event with the BMW club and they did a phenomenal job organizing the event and making me feel welcome. I was assigned an awesome instructor as this was my first time on the track and he was brave/crazy enough to agree to get into a car that somebody built with 440 horsepower to the tires, in the rain, who had never been on a track before.

I was able to get in 8 20 minute sessions over the course of the day and the first 3 before lunch were in the wet. On my first trip out, my second lap I ended up spinning the car at turn 3B. This was a huge learning experience for me because the car spun from me getting off the gas not pressing on the gas. With how wet it was the front tires completely lost traction and the car Understeered really bad, and when I felt that my instinct was to lift off the throttle and as soon as I did that a front tires hooked and around we went. I'm glad we were only doing about 30 miles an hour at the time and the car never left the track. Fortunately, I didn't have any other issues the rest of the day and after lunch when things dried out, I was able to start picking up some speed and by the end of the day I felt like I was really pushing myself. I was nowhere near the limit of the car but, I was definitely at the limit of what I was comfortable with, this being my first time out on the track. Again, a huge shout out to my instructor who always kept pushing me to go faster and had more confidence in me than I had in myself.

I think one of the big wins of the day was that I didn't have any mechanical issues whatsoever. I haven't done a post track day inspection yet but, I had no issues with any of the major systems and all I had to do was throw more gas in it. I am looking forward to getting out to at least a few more track days this year and try to get as much experience and confidence as I can.

The car got a lot of attention at the track. I got to spend a lot of time talking to other participants and spectators. One of my favorite questions of the day was, “is that a Ferrari 250 GTO or a kit car?” If people have trouble telling the difference between the car I built and a $30 million Ferrari, I'll take that as a win.

Here are some pictures from that event. No data from my race box or camera yet, I was too busy concentrating on driving to worry about any digital media.

V/R

Shakey