Hello, my name is Marc and I am an addict.  Some would say it’s not possible to be addicted after only one try, but they’ve never tasted the sweet combination of exhaust, tire rubber and brake dust.  Mmmm, brake dust . . .  But I digress.  The point of this post is not to justify what appears to be an emerging personality weakness, but rather to provide some insight into what the first time feels like, from someone who has the experience fresh in their mind.  You do realize that I am referring to my first time on the track, right?  Please, get your mind out of the gutter.

Before I recount the actual day, it may be helpful for me to provide some background and context.  It all started many decades ago, when Speed Racer was my favorite TV show, and an early obsession with all things cars and racing was born.  I’ve wanted to drive a race car for as long as I can remember and have made an ill-planned start towards that goal once or twice along the way, including sending away to my local circle track for the rules to build a hobby stock car when I was 18 (I guess I didn’t think it mattered that I had no money, no garage and no real clue).  My knowledge of how to go from dreaming about racing to actually doing it never seemed to overcome my ignorance, and time went on.  Until my last birthday.  This is when my extremely thoughtful wife gave me a gift certificate to drive a stock car at a local roundy-round track.  It made me realize that the time is now, and that if am ever going to fulfill my dream of driving a real race car on a regular basis, I needed to figure out how to do it.

So I did research.  I read through the SCCA site, and found Dave’s site www.goaheadtakethewheel.com.  I read about Dave’s experience.  I learned the steps needed to go from no experience to obtaining a competition drivers license.  I learned what High Performance Drivers Education (HPDE) is about.  I learned about the different racing classes, and how I could get involved without having the Bill Gates fortune behind me.  And then I signed up for an HPDE event at Lime Rock with a rented Spec Miata.  And then I waited for the day.

October 14^th was a beautiful, crisp autumn day, the kind that makes New Englanders forget about the impending doom of winter, at least for the moment.  I arrived at the track early and waited nervously in my car listening to Howard Stern ramble on the radio.  I watched the cars come in, some driven right to the track, some on open trailers and some in what appeared to be full race trailers, complete with lights and workshop.  The cars ranged from street-driven Mini Coopers to full out tubular chassis race cars and almost everything in between.  I was parked just a couple of cars down from a bright red Lamborghini.  Clearly, I was not at Stop and Shop.  I made my way to the registration office, told the nice lady my name, and received my information packet that outlined the schedule of the day.  She handed me a helmet in exchange for my drivers license and pointed me towards the car I would be driving.

Lucky for me, Dave was an instructor at this event and agreed to be my instructor for the day.  As a Novice, I am required to have an instructor in the car with me at all times.  At 8:30, I went to the drivers meeting, and listened to the rules for the day.  The organizers of the event emphasized that this would be an instructional day.  There would be classes available between track times, there would be no timing of laps, and passing would only be allowed on two straight-ish parts of the track, and only with acknowledgement of the car being passed.  The objectives of the day would be to learn, have fun, and be safe.  Along with the Novice run group there would be an Intermediate group (for those that are still relatively new but no longer require an instructor in the car) and an Advanced group.  The instructors would also get to have some fun by taking to the track without the white-knuckle burden of a Novice driver making them wonder why they agreed to teach someone to do what now comes so natural to them.

My first time on the track, Dave figured it would be a good idea for us to start with him driving a couple of laps and me in the passenger seat.  This would give me a feel for the uber-important “line” and a sense for what the car can actually do.  Roughly 10 seconds into the first lap I realized that this was not going to be a sweeping, leisurely ride through the hills of Northwest Connecticut.   Coming out of the pit, Dave was on the gas immediately and aimed the little Miata sharply towards the first turn, a sharp right hander that leads directly into another sharp right hander, giving the illusion of a single turn that eventually has you pointing 180 degrees from where you started.  Dave quickly brought the car close to its cornering limit, with the sticky little R-compound tires seemingly defying the laws of adhesion physics.  Corners led to straights and to up-hills and down-hills and more corners.  By the time we pulled into the pit to swap seats, I had a new appreciation for what it takes to really drive a car at speed.  “Can I do this?” I thought.  The sheer violence and aggressiveness of the ride was far from how I had imagined it in my head and from how it looks when passively watching cars go by as a spectator.  As I strapped into the drivers seat I wondered whether I could ever have it in me to throw a car around the track the way Dave did.

My first impression in the drivers seat was that I was sitting too low in the car.  “Don’t worry” I was told “you want to sit low to keep the center of gravity down”.  I am sure this is true, but I am a shorty (5’4”) and even though I was able to adjust the seat forward, sitting almost directly on the floor felt like an odd driving position.  “Well, I guess this is just how they do it” I thought, as I cautiously motored through the pits and onto the track for the first time.

And so I made my way around the track for the remaining 10 minutes of the Novice run group.  I was cautious.  Slow.  Not aggressive.  Not “grandma in the right lane” slow.  Not “a line of cars behind me honking” slow, but slow nonetheless.  I did not feel in control of the car.  Sure, I could hit the gas and make it go, but could I control where it actually went?  It didn’t feel like I could.  Still, the thrill of being strapped into a race car, and on a real race track, was enough to make me smile and ready for more.

Before I had made my first run, I attended one of the instructional sessions for Novices.  The instructor was from a nationally known racing school and was very good.  He explained some basics about getting in and out of the pits and pointed out track etiquette for the day.  Most of all, he emphasized the value of learning by watching others.  “Put your ego aside” he coached.  “If someone wants to pass, let them pass and then follow to see why they are faster than you.  Take every opportunity to learn”.

So I survived my first run but had not really impressed myself.  Any nervousness I had before I had arrived was related to whether I could actually do this or not.  I had dreamed of driving on the track for so long, what if I couldn’t do it?  What if I was really awful?  Intellectually, I realized that one day (especially a first day) wouldn’t make or break anything, but I had a certain expectation of myself that was formed from years of visualizing what it would be like to be behind the wheel.  And now, after my first run, I was not feeling confident at all.

Before my second run, Dave recommended that I ride passenger with him during his run in the instructors group.  “This will give you more time to learn the line and feel what it is like to move around the track”.  So I went out with Dave, but this time in a car that he co-drives with a friend.  That means it’s a car that Dave is familiar with, unlike the Miata that he drove like a roller-coaster the first time.  And so we go.  Lap after lap, Dave is throwing the car around the track like he’s running from the cops, all the while calmly pointing out things I should remember – brake here, turn in here, hit the apex here, track out to here, stay on the gas here . . .  Did I mention that we actually got slightly airborne when cresting the up-hill?  Did I mention that we were doing this in what once was a mild mannered Honda Civic?

Now I’m ready for my second time out, and ready to be convinced that I’ve just been dreaming all these years, and won’t in fact have any natural affinity for this.  As I strap back into the car, I decide to try something.  I take off my fleece jacket and bundle it on the seat.  This raises my line of site a critical inch or two.  Probably not enough to really matter but enough to psychologically make me feel more in control.  Gradually, lap after lap, I start to feel like I am establishing a rhythm.  Dave points out when I should turn in later and hug the apex more.  I begin to go deeper into turns, and harder on the gas coming out.  I begin to catch some cars, and even perform a pass or two.  Wow, what a rush!  Then the checkered flag indicating that the run is over.

“Ok, that wasn’t bad” I think.  I wasn’t breaking records, but I was beginning to get some momentum, and most of all, beginning to feel a little bit of what is referred to as “car control”.  My third and fourth runs were a continuation of my learning.  Dave instructed me to keep the revs high, and when to shift.  At one point, he began to instruct me to “floor it” as I began my turn-ins.  “No way” I thought “there’s no way the car will stick”.  But trusting my instructor’s instinct more than my own, I began to “floor it”.  And you know what?  It stuck.  So I tried it again.  And again.  And with each corner I tried to go in a bit deeper, and come out a bit harder.  Sometimes I would catch up with traffic and perform a pass, going deep down the straight and braking hard into turn 1.  Other times, I would be passed and then try to follow the line of the passing car, to see how they were going around the track.  I know I was in the Novice group, and I know the learning curve is still very steep, but I walked away feeling like this is something I can learn, and most importantly, need to learn.  So there it is.  I am addicted.