Great NHMS4 thanks to Mark, Mark, Nick, Mark, and Marc!

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DanB
Speed Racer
Speed Racer
Posts: 360
Joined: Thu Nov 17, 2005 3:15 pm
Location: Providence, RI

Great NHMS4 thanks to Mark, Mark, Nick, Mark, and Marc!

Post by DanB » Mon Oct 13, 2014 10:30 pm

First I didn't book a room early enough and wound up staying in Manchester (dang). Then Saturday AM at the Gulf station near the track where I filled up with 93-octane I spilled about a half gallon of coffee on my passenger seat and helmet (shite!). Then leaving the parking lot of said Gulf station I heard metal-to-metal contact from the left front brake (FFFFUUUUU!!!!). Of course I absentmindedly left my spare brake pads in Pawtucket RI...

In my head and in my heart, I was in a bad place at this point. But to tell the absolute truth, simply signing in at registration with the gloriously moustachioed registrar put me in a totally different frame of mind. I was going to by God *enjoy* just being at the track and thinking about my students' progress and not driving. Yeah...

I did make it a point at the morning driver's meeting to ask if anyone had spare pads that would fit my calipers in the drivers meeting, but alas, no one did...

Then a fellow longtime COMmer offered to let me drive his Miata. Sweet! I took it out and damn if that car wasn't a HOOOT to drive! It reminded me of my old 240Z (albeit with a lot less power). Manual steering, light weight, very physical and very rewarding to drive, it just responded immediately to every little input :)

Then I was offered a drive in an awesomely fast (with a certain driver, anyway) E36 M3 out. WHEEEEE!!! Jeez Louise that car just did what I wanted, everywhere. Drift around 3 with barely-abated speed? No prob. Rail around the oval at unbelievable velocities, foot on the floor, with no scary business whatsoever? She did that too :)

By mid-afternoon, my student was doing very well, but I wanted to show him my line without taking any laps away from him. So I took him for a ride in his car in another group. I never would have guessed that a 2000ish era A4 4cyl turbo with only springs could be so much fun to drive at the track!

Then at the end of the day on Saturday I got to take a great track-prepped S2000 out. What a riot! Tail-happy in places, but dead-stable in the oval thanks to it's super-cool computer controlled rear wing 8) Way way way fun. Quite a bit quicker than my stock '01 S2000 :lol:

So thanks to you all of you guys for making my Saturday! It made the long trip down to RI to get my brake pads and back up Saturday night a lot more tolerable :)

Sunday went well for me in the RX-7 :) I had a great time driving it even though it didn't seem to have any drive grip anywhere! It has taken a while but now I really feel on top of the car, even if it's not really turning the lap times it probably could/should.

Really really glad to have one of (perhaps THE) best drivers in the club take it out and not pronounce the car a total disaster! Consensus is that it needs more serious tires and possibly stiffer suspension. Since it's supposed to be a street car, I'll try serious tires first...

Anyway, one of the best weekends I've had in a long time thanks to those mentioned above and ALL the guys who make the club work!

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