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Eric S · #1 08-19-2009, 03:50 PM

Photos and video to come, but here is a summary.

Excellent Trip!
8 Potomac drivers made it to Road America, 3 drivers stayed all the way through Mid Ohio.
Total trip covered over 2,100 road miles and 8 track days totaling about 800 track miles per driver.
First event was the "34th Annual Shelby Club Midwest Invitational" August 7-9. Nice group of people; worst tech line process ever, and no instruction even for the lowest run group – and they were allowed to take passengers! Mustangs averaging 500-700HP are fast (although generally easy to out-brake).
Road America is an absolute blast. Very fun, very fast track; a definite top-tier track and return trips are certainly warranted. It is also a wonderful place to visit in the sense that the people were very friendly and the small town of Elkhart Lake, WI was comfortable and nice with many great restaurants within a few miles of the track and hotels. We even lucked into an acoustic music festival one day and their annual street festival where every restaurant in the area had food for sale at little tents.
Glad we planned our schedule conservatively; we had an extra day planned for the way out that I needed to get my LSD replaced (thanks again, ASG), and having 5 consecutive track days at RA was useful because we had some rain each of the first four days (averaged 2 runs a day); the fifth day was beautiful and provided 4 full run sessions.
Tidbits: All crops looked phenomenally healthy; farmers are set for historic production. Funniest hotel sign: “Wi 5”. Funniest road names: “PP” and “Fangboner”.
The second RA event was with PCA Nord Stern Region August 10-11. You think that Schattenbaum runs a relaxed event? Well, Nord Stern makes Schattenbaum look like NER. No students, defined schedule with no PA announcements, and everything worked perfectly. Of course, the fact that there were only about 100 drivers total for 4 run groups on a 4 mile track helped too.
The ALMS/IMSA teams started arriving on Monday and the Patron GT3 Cups ran with us Monday and Tuesday. Potomac member Darrell Carlisle stopped by to say “hi” on Monday – props to Darrell, he got his first podium and doubled up with his first IMSA win at Road America!
The third event was with NASA at Mid Ohio August 14-16. A couple of things of note: there was a drivers meeting after every session; if you didn’t attend, you didn’t get the Grid Pass that allowed you on track the next session. I have never attended a driver’s meeting where the primary theme was “stay on the gas more or you’ll get your ass kicked!”. Experienced how Expanded Passing should work – and how much fun it can be. Tom and I were in the second highest run group (the highest run group was combined with Time Trials which was 5 minutes shorter each session, required a transponder to grid, and was incompatible with our desire to start fast). We were significantly faster than most others in our group resulting in multiple passing signals each lap (many in corners) and I had never been on some of those parts of the track before; some passes made sense as at least they were to the inside, but some were more “innovative” like passing on the outside of Turn 11 and Carousel. I guess we might have been a little intimidating; the funniest thing was that they wanted us to grid by lap times; Tom lined up at 1, I lined up at 2, and the next car was in about space 10!
Extended Passing Protocol: If aborting a late/corner pass, get back in line behind the other driver – that way you both know that the corner is clear and you can proceed at speed.

The experience of driving with varied clubs is enlightening. It’s easy to reaffirm why Potomac does some things the way we do, but there is also an opportunity to find little tidbits that we can adopt. In general, PCA and Potomac events are much less expensive (Shelby and NASA averaged about $200/day) and we provide much better entry-level driver training. NASA definitely pushes the envelope regarding open/aggressive driving and the lure of competition may be the slipperiest slope of all…

}{arlequin · #2 08-19-2009, 04:23 PM

sounds like an awesome trip. can't wait for the pics eric!

MBuck951 · #3 08-19-2009, 10:56 PM

Sounds like an awesome trip Eric!

I need to get out to Road America.

HoodPin · #4 08-20-2009, 07:14 AM

Nice write-up! If you haven't already, you and the others that were with you should consider submitting an article to DV/Panorama about the trip.

Trak Ratt · #5 08-20-2009, 07:43 AM

Cool, any of the others post here?

Eric S · #6 08-20-2009, 08:25 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Trak Ratt

Cool, any of the others post here?

Tom Trew will be a lap of in-car video; not sure if anyone else posts here (Anne Marie, John & Melonie, Nando, Rod, Charlie).

And I forgot to add to my summary that my ABS failed on the second day at Road America (broken ground wire to RF speed sensor). With some heavy/downhill braking zones at RA it added a new challenge as I had to modify my braking points be disciplined with pedal pressure, but I was still able to continue reducing lap times.