Racing Boots on the Ground: Tuesday Open Thread

I am generally Risk Averse.

I am a conservative (taste, not political) white middle aged guy. I’ve got a wife, two kids, a mortgage, and a prescription for statins.

If you don’t know what “statins” are, congratulations- you have at least 10 years until guidelines suggest a colonoscopy.

Even when I was Young and Dumb, I generally confined the Dumb part to chasing inappropriate women rather than things that would leave (physical) scars.

But I have always loved speed.

Apparently the enduring memory of me from the neighborhood in Buffalo where I was born is that I would spend hours tearing up and down the sidewalk on my Knight Rider Big Wheel, hunched over to reduce drag before pulling a skidding j-turn and thundering back the other way. I wore through two front wheels in one summer.

In retrospect, there were probably some red flags for ADHD and mild autism that were missed.

Now, I do track days. More specifically “High Performance Drivers Education”- a euphemism that the lawyer in me cherishes, since it was (allegedly) formulated to get around auto insurance coverage exclusions on racing.

In fairness, HPDE is not racing. It involves racing speeds and takes place on a racetrack, but it is not competitive. There are Rules, and the organizers will Fuck You Up if you violate them.

Essentially, it is this:

You go to a track, usually in your own car (though some have rentals available) and usually godawful early in the morning. There are a bunch of other people there. You are divided up by experience level into (generally) four groups:

1. Novice. First-timers, first-couple-of-timers and folks who want instruction. You will be paired with an instructor, usually sitting in your passenger seat. More on this later. Most of these folks are driving stock(ish) vehicles.
2. Intermediate. You know just enough to get yourself in trouble. You have the basics down, and an instructor has signed off that you are unlikely to kill yourself or others. You have Knowledge (“I need to brake here and take this line at about this speed for this corner”), but are still striving for Understanding (“Here’s what that feels like”). Highly diverse group in experience, skill and equipment- you have Shawn from Marketing in a factory-fresh 911 GT3RS and four track days under his belt, and you have Jill in a clapped-out 1993 Miata with no bodywork, a rollbar and a hand-tuned four cylinder that could kill God but might blow up after three laps. Treated like teenagers in a convenience store, and not without reason.
3. Advanced. Don’t know much about them. You don’t talk to them much, because if they are not on the track, they are probably under their cars trying to figure out what is leaking or huddling with others of their ilk talking about gear ratios.
4. Instructors. In exchange for risking a fiery death at the hands of a novice, instructors generally don’t have to pay for that track day and therefore get some free seat time. It’s not a deal I would make, which I suppose shows you where even my special-purpose risk tolerance ends. These folks are fun to watch.

You start with tech inspection. Some organizations require you to go to an actual mechanic ahead of time, who certifies that your car isn’t an inherent death trap (relatively speaking). Others let you self-tech, on the principle that if you sign a thing and then later die because your wheel fell off, well- they told you not to do that. In any case, you hand in your tech sheet, get your helmet looked at to make sure it’s safe, and get a car sticker (or wristband or something) to show you’re legal to be on track.

Then there is a Driver’s Meeting. The organizers go through the various signal flags they will use, the overall schedule, and the Rules. The most important of the Rules (other than “try not to die” and “obey the signal flags”) is Thou Shalt Not Pass Without a Point-By.

This is the primary distinction between racing and HPDE. In HPDE, you may not pass a car in front of you unless the person in front sticks their hand out the window and affirmatively tells you to do so on a designated nice, straight part of the track. It means everyone knows what’s going on, everyone consents, and minimizes the chances of colliding and dying.

Which is nice, if you have plans for dinner after the track day.

Every once in a while, someone will violate this Rule and pass without a point-by. It can be a simple misunderstanding, but it is Extremely Problematic. This past weekend we had one guy do it to multiple people in two separate sessions. A group of us went over to the guy (always, always a guy) after the second session and had a brief chat regarding Courtesy. He was then kicked out by the organizers. It was nice.

ANYWAY: once the drivers’ meeting is done, generally novices will go to the classroom. You get a quick course in how track driving is different from normal driving, a refresher from high school physics on friction and momentum, some notes on weight transfer and the concept of tire contact patches, and a briefing on the various turns and straights of the track.

Then you go pee, because hydration is the key to a good track day. If you aren’t peeing every hour or so, you will end up dehydrated by the last run of the day and a. will feel like shit, b. will not be driving your best, and c. may end up binning your car. All of which make track days less enjoyable.

Then you get you car, get your instructor, line up in the pit with your fellow novices, cinch down your helmet and drive.

And you just…stop thinking for a while.

Your brain is working overtime, sure. You’re processing every sight on track, the instructor’s input, the feeling in your hands and in your butt, the position of the other cars, what gear you need to be in, where you need to brake, what the next sequence of turns is…

But you are There. Nothing matters except what’s within 50 feet of you out on that track. You are Present in the Moment in a way that I find very difficult to replicate, at least with my clothes on.

Sessions are generally 20-30 minutes at a time, but they feel like both forever and no time at all. You’ll likely get three to four in during a day.

In between, you talk to your fellow drivers, check your wheels and tires, grab a snack and maybe a nap.

Oh, and you pee.

It really is an amazing experience, and you don’t have to have a sportscar to do it. At one of my first track days, a guy pulled in next to me with a stock Honda Civic Si and proceeded to get two car seats out of the backseat. Such a baller move.

Anyway, I strongly encourage you to try it. Go to motorsportsreg.com and search for HPDE near you.