Date : October 13th to 14th 2018

Location: Summit Point , WV

Track: Jefferson Circuit.

1. Preparation. 

Well, this time , I convinced my wife to join me for that weekend. So much of the preparation was telling my wife this is a fun thing to do and that women are into it as much as men but are too shy to participate.

Since I am the main driver of the car, this means that she needs to get use to driving the Z. we went on a couple of day trip where I explained to her the advantages and risk of a RWD versus a Front wheel drive.

Since I now moved to intermediate, we can use the same car. I was hoping for novice and intermediate to have a break between session but nop. the car will have to be on the track consecutively for 40 minutes. So again, fluids are checked , brakes pads, etc... I went thru a full inspection to make sure everything was tight and tidy.

We did watched a lot of track videos to see what line to take and get a good feel of the track flow. This track is more power friendly than Shenandoah since it has a lot less turns. We are running the extension version of the track.

In order to track my progress , I bought a cellphone windshield holder so that I can run the TrackAddict App.

Track Day 1

Since this is the last event of the year, I've decided to bring breakfast to all the staff and instructors as a thank you since most of them are there on a volunteer basis. I ordered Dunkin-Donuts the night before and went to pick it up at 6:30 that morning.  We arrived to the track and I unloaded all the coffee and donuts for them to enjoy!

We checked in, I got the car in tech inspection and we went to our respective classes. She went with an instructor for the track orientation and I went myself with an instructor. Since it was my first time on this circuit, I requested a instructor for a least the first session so I can get pointer on the track and the line. Today's schedule have the intermediate group immediately following the novice group. So I backed off the car and my wife is on her way to her first track session. Weather is wet from early overnight rain but the track is drying fast, it is cold and fortunately for me , I have a driver warming up my tires for me! ;-)

Since I was new to this track, I didn't setup the Trackaddict app for the first day of the event. I wanted to concentrate on my driving.

It took me the whole 4 sessions to get comfortable with the track. I unfortunately have to shorten my session because it takes quite some time for my wife and her instructor to get out of the car after their session. So I ended up chasing everybody in the intermediate group. But to my surprise, I was able to catch up by the end of each session.  This is promising. 

Track Day 2

Now that I feel more comfortable , I decided to start keeping track of my time. So I installed the windshield mount and plugged my phone.

1st session: around 1:30 for best lap

2nd session: down to 1:29 for best lap

3rd session was wet and my best lap was a slow 1.35

4th session was dry again and I finished with a consistent lap time between 1.27 to 1.28. I remember how much faster I felt on the Shenandoah after a session in the rain. It looks like I need rain to go faster.