Date : July 21st an 22nd 2018
Location: Summit Point , WV
Track: Shenandoah circuit.
He friend of mine told me about the SCCA and their club. So I signed up for their performance driving experience or HPDE for the weekend. I race online so I know the preparation required for a weekend. I live only 12 miles away from Summit Point and I am banging my head for not doing this earlier in my life.
1. Preparation.
The Shenandoah circuit is 2.2 miles course. It has a varying number of corners depending on who you ask and the SCCA is using the old Ram crossing instead of original start/finish line by the pitlane. We also didn't use the esses and just ran the Range Straight. There is a lot of elevation changes and 1 risky bump after turn 12.
So I went online and watched as many videos as I could about the track. but being on a 1.5mbs DSL line, I cannot watch high-defs to get reference points. Furthermore, my car is different and I probably won't use any of the one I think of using anyway. So I relaxed and waited for the weekend to come up and take it a learning experience and stay open to the instructors.
The morning of the event, I arrived with all the equipments I could fit in the trunk. I did remove the spare wheel to gain more space and weight ( like I need to for my first time ).
Anyway, the event is well organized with classrooms preceding all track time. this is a 3 20 minutes with 1 25 minutes sessions. Instructors and staff are very friendly and provided a relaxing environment that is needed for Stressed First timers like me.
First Day
I got assigned Steve as my Instructor. We went on the track in his car first before my turn. He explained the corners and what he expect of me during the day.
Weather was threatening all day. It did finally rained on the third session forcing all the novice group to really slow down a notch. This enabled me to really learn the flow of the track and even tried different line to see how the car reacted. They do teach us a HPDE line and my car seemed to have problem with this line on a couple of corners where the weight transfer would unsettle the car too much.
At the last session, I felt like I progressed a lot and I was more consistent with the line. I never timed myself so I don't know if this was just a feeling or I did improve my laptime but the instructor was happy by my progress.
I did however took note of my speed at the end of the back straight before hitting the brakes. First run : 85-88, second run 85-95, third run ( wet): 75-80, Fourth run: 95-105mph.
This Track is very very technical and for a novice it can be very overwhelming since you don't have any time to relax since the next corner is there before very quickly.
Second Day
I arrived the next morning. Got the same instructor. Same threatening weather. Very similar schedule. My first 2 sessions were great, where I was focusing on the Hook ( turn 6,7 and 8) and the corckscrew ( turn 17 and 18). I was able to nail those corners by the end of the second session. The third session was my worse session of the weekend. I don't know if I was tired or what but I couldn't stay in the line. It was the only time I was happy for the session to end. I checked everything on the car pre and post session. Nop. The issue was mainly the driver, yes, ME.
So I decided to close my eyes and relax. I was to the point where I was asking too much of me and I was making too many mistakes. So for the 4th session I decided that I just wanted to have fun by slowing down a bit. It worked marvelously. after 2 laps I was feeling so good about my line and breaking point that my instructor decided to push me this time. "Break later, Turn later, Accelerate earlier, etc... By the end of the session , I was hitting the end of the back straight between 105mph and 110mph. That is 30mph faster that my first session the day before. It felt so good , I had a smile for the next 4 days and coudn't stop talking about it.
here are a few pics of the event.
