October 27, 2009 – October has been a busy month with multiple track events, kept me jumping. Have a small gap now to catch up on some things.
Just back from Texas World Speedway where I helped my friends at the Hill Country Region, Porsche Club of America put on their annual High Performance Drivers Education event. Great weather, although the track got almost 7 inches of rain a couple days before we got there. About 200 drivers including students and instructors. And what a great mix of cars! Everything from a 1963 Corvette and a 1964 Sunbeam Tiger up to a new 2010 Porsche GT3. A really fun weekend!
My operations roles this weekend kept me around the front straight when I wasn’t driving or chasing other errands, so most shots are around the finish line. Some shots down at the bottom of the gallery are frame-grabs from my on-board video in case you want to know what things on track look like from behind the steering wheel at speed.
I had the opportunity to talk to a number of drivers who screwed up out on track and had to come in for a checkout. At the student level, they seem to think they’re coming up with new excuses for messing up, but we’ve heard them all. Instructors tend to be more creative, and I actually heard a new excuse Sunday: A race car stopped on track with a flat tire and we had a minor issue putting it on the tilt-bed wrecker since the racer had not only removed his tow hooks, but also the tow hook mounts! His excuse: “I removed them to save weight and I don’t need them anyway.” Well, you don’t need them except, uh, when you need them, which isn’t something planned ahead of time. Not sure how that car’s going to pass its annual race tech inspection.
We don’t all turn off our brains when we put on our crash helmets and climb behind the wheel, but it is pretty common.
