[SSLance]

I guess this was my 4th track day experience with this car. First was a SCCA PDX at Heartland Park Topeka, then a 2 day NASA HPDE at Heartland Park, last summer I did the USCA event at Gateway in St Louis then this USCA event at National Corvette Museum Motorsports park.

HPT is big, fast, has a couple of difficult corners depending on the configuration you are running but is basically a fun course to run that eats tires like crazy.

I loved Gateway, could run the whole course with basically only two braking points, was very easy on the car, didn't eat tires and the driver could really make a car work on that course once they learned it. Part of that course, maybe even half...is on the NASCAR oval and is basically just straight line fast while the rest is fast turns easily handling if setup properly.

NCM was a whole 'nuther beast... It's basically all technical turns with little runoff and large K-rail barriers everywhere and several elevation changes that create some blind corners. The surface is fantastic, butter smooth and very grippy, tire wear was next to none for me which really shocked me considering how hot it was there. I couldn't imagine learning this track on my own, I took advantage of an instructor even on the beginning lead follow laps and am glad I did. This is not a track to mess around with, there is almost zero chance to breath or relax on a lap. I spent session one learning what corner was coming up next, 8-9 laps maybe...and began picking up a little speed...not really worrying about outpacing other cars or anything, just learning the track. I had my fastest lap on lap one at speed of session 2 then our session was cut short after about 3 laps because of an incident. I was just getting to where I didn't have to think about which corner was coming up next at this point.

I did session 3 on my own as my instructor was in another car and started working on bettering my line, getting my brake and turn in points down and trying to find the best shift points. I let other cars by twice as I was thinking I was holding them up but really we were all running about the same times overall. This is NOT a track to be worrying about the car behind you running you down, it will bite you in an instant and you need to be concentrating on what is coming up in front of you...so I didn't really get into "racing" any of the other cars I was around. Self preservation was the key here at least for me anyway. It was just starting to get "fun" for me, I was learning the track and where and what to do with my car to get around the corners carrying more speed...I never really started to push the car hard in the corners or brake points. Then it was over... I heard the wheel bearing just as soon as I let off when I saw the checkered flag and knew immediately my day was done.

I would go back to NCM for sure. I would just be a bit more prepared, a bit more knowledgeable about the track and ready to run some faster laps right out of the box.