My First Track Experience

[b1adesofcha0s]

Went to Hyperfest at Summit Point today and had my first track experience there. It was just a 20 min hyperdrive session, but it was fvcking awesome! I was sad when it ended because I just wanted to go around more and more. It was a relatively short track around the Jefferson Circuit at Summit Point (1.12 miles I think), but I got a total of 12 laps in.

It was definitely different from any other driving experience I've had before. This was the first time I could feel some of the limitations of my all season tires. I wasn't really pushing it to the point where I was at the limit of my tires, but I could hear and feel them sliding like I was in a controlled drift. That's the best way I can explain it. I'm guessing that with summer tires, the limit where this starts to happen is higher so you can carry more speed into turns with more grip and control. I have bought a set of used summer tires and I'm planning on using them the next time I go out on the track.

The instructor helped me a lot too. I could feel myself getting faster and more confident with every lap. I tried to go a little bit faster each lap around, but I was "drifting" a lot coming into some of the turns hard. Around midway into the session I think the instructor asked me to slow it down on some of the turns and try to focus more on car control. I went a little bit faster than he wanted at first just because I was having so much fun. The main section he wanted me to do this at was the last series of turns right before the finish line. This is why a bunch of people were passing me coming into that straight at the start of the course. I didn't mind it though, I just wanted to improve my skills.

I think the one thing that I really want to work on next time is knowing when to start braking. I feel like I was braking too early a lot of the times, but then again I wasn't really trying to push the car as hard as I could. Wanted to take it at a decent pace for my first time and not try to get overconfident. My oil temps were over 260 early in the session, but I didn't really look at it again after that. Did the early part of the session mostly in 3rd gear and switched to 4th after that.

My gopro video is posted below. Any thoughts, comments, advice, criticism, etc. is welcomed and greatly appreciated