Tag: proformance racing school

Posted on by

Your First Step to Track Driving: Learning the Basics at a High Performance Driving School

One of the questions we spend the most time on around the shop and track is talking with people who are interested in getting into track driving but they simply don’t know where or how to start.  So we figured we’d share our knowledge and recommendations over a series of blog posts so that these are easily accessible to anyone, at any time. 

Track day drivers at ProFormance Racing School Track Day

For many aspiring drivers, the hardest part of breaking into high-performance driving is figuring out where to start. The idea of taking your car to a race track can feel daunting. What if you’re not ready? What if you don’t have the right car? What if you… spin out? The truth is, every seasoned racer once stood where you are now, full of questions and excitement. The good news? You’re not alone—and there are programs specifically designed to help you take that first step with confidence.

One of the best ways to begin your journey is by attending a High Performance Driving Education (HPDE) course. For example, ProFormance Racing School at Pacific Raceways in Kent, WA, offers a structured, supportive, and hands-on environment to help you master the fundamentals of car control and experience the thrill of driving on a race track for the first time. However, there are many similar high-performance driving schools across the country that provide a comparable experience tailored to beginners.

For those of you in the Pacific Northwest or willing to travel to the PNW, ProFormance isn’t just one of the best options on the west coast for an HPDE course because they are the home school for Pacific Raceways, but they legit have some of the best instruction and coaching available anywhere. Their team is made up of current and past active drivers who have climbed and hung on various steps of the racing ladder, all the way up to IMSA/SRO levels of driving.

What Makes a High Performance Driving School a Great First Step?

For most schools, car options are open, meaning you can either bring your own street car or rent a car from the school. Using your own car is entirely fine, as the focus isn’t on breaking lap records but instead on developing car control skills, awareness, and safety. Modern cars—even non-sports cars—have more performance potential than most drivers realize. As long as your street car has been well-maintained with healthy tires, brakes, and brake fluid, it’s likely ready for the track.

Additionally, formal schools like ProFormance Racing School emphasize the fundamentals of car control. These fundamentals are critical because a lack of solid basics can lead to bigger and more expensive mistakes when drivers exceed the limits of traction and don’t have the skills to recover. Learning these essentials early can save you from trouble later and set you up for success as you progress in your driving journey.

A high-performance driving school typically offers a one-day program thoughtfully split into two parts: a Skills Clinic in the morning and Lapping Sessions in the afternoon. Together, they provide a comprehensive introduction to high-performance driving that’s perfect for anyone—whether you’re looking to get into track days, time attack, or wheel-to-wheel racing.

Morning Skills Clinic: Building the Foundation

The day often begins with a classroom session where you’ll learn the essential principles of high-performance driving. This isn’t just a lecture; it’s an interactive session covering topics like:

  • Vehicle dynamics (understanding how your car responds to your inputs).
  • Skid control techniques (what to do if you lose grip).
  • Brake application (maximizing stopping power without losing control).
  • Vision skills (learning to look ahead and anticipate).

Once the classroom portion wraps up, you’ll take to the track for hands-on exercises. These drills are designed to sharpen your skills in real-world scenarios. You’ll practice emergency braking, skid recovery, cornering techniques, and more. The focus is on teaching you to think faster than you drive, making split-second decisions while staying composed behind the wheel. By the end of the clinic, you’ll have a solid understanding of how to handle your car in both routine and high-stress situations.

BMW E30 doing car control drills at a high performance driving day

Afternoon Lapping: Putting It All Together

After a morning of skill-building, the afternoon is all about applying what you’ve learned. With an experienced instructor riding shotgun, you’ll transition to full laps on the track. The focus shifts to flow and precision, combining your new skills into a seamless driving experience.

The instructors work closely with each driver to:

  • Refine your technique in real-time.
  • Help you develop a better connection with your car.
  • Build your confidence at higher speeds and in more complex situations.

The afternoon lapping session is not about going as fast as possible. Instead, it’s about smoothness, consistency, and control—the building blocks of any successful track driver. By the end of the day, you’ll have not only improved your driving but also gained a deeper appreciation for your car’s capabilities.

Why High Performance Driving Schools Work

The beauty of these programs is their approachability. You don’t need a race car to participate; a street-legal car in good condition is perfectly fine. The instructors meet you where you are in your driving journey, tailoring their feedback to your skill level. This ensures that every driver, from absolute beginners to more seasoned enthusiasts, leaves with valuable insights and improvements.

Another major benefit? Safety. These schools prioritize creating a safe and controlled environment for all participants. You’ll learn how to push the limits of your car without endangering yourself or others, which is essential for anyone planning to progress to more advanced forms of motorsport.

The Next Step: Earning Your Sports Driving License

Once you’ve successfully completed a one-day high-performance driving course, you’ll typically leave with what’s referred to as a “Sports Driving License.” While not an official license, this credential is widely recognized by track day organizers as proof that you’ve received foundational training in high-performance driving. With this license, you’ll be eligible to participate in track day events, often under the oversight of an instructor.

This is where the real fun begins. After earning your sports driving license, it’s time to sign up for track days. We encourage new drivers to attend as many track days as their schedule and budget allow. Why? Because practice is everything. The more seat time you get, the more you’ll hone your car control skills and build muscle memory for critical driving techniques. Think of it as applying the “1,000 hours of practice” rule—consistent seat time leads to significant improvement and confidence behind the wheel.

Sports Driving License? Unlocks driving at many track day organizer events across the country… in your own car!

Alternative Options for Practice

Not everyone has access to a race car, a track car, or the resources to participate in frequent track days. But that doesn’t mean you can’t continue developing your driving skills. One excellent alternative is using a racing simulator on platforms like Xbox, PlayStation, or PC. Games such as Forza Motorsport, Gran Turismo, Assetto Corsa, ACC, and iRacing provide a surprisingly effective way to practice car control, learn new tracks, race against the clock in time attack events and even race wheel to wheel against AI-powered drivers and real people all over the world. 

Sim racing is not just for fun; it’s a valuable tool for honing your driving instincts and mental focus. Many professional racers use simulators as part of their training routine and not just the incredibly expensive simulators. If you’re serious about improving but need a more accessible option, simulator racing is a fantastic next step. Stay tuned for an upcoming blog post that dives deeper into getting started with sim racing and how it can complement your on-track journey.

Can’t afford to do as many track days as you want? Get a simulator! Yes, even an Xbox or PlayStation 5 will work!

Step 2: Picking a Car to Drive at Track Days

Once you’re ready to take your driving journey to the next level, the question arises: What car should you drive in the future track days? This decision can range from using your daily driver to renting a fully prepared race car. Each option has its benefits and challenges, depending on your goals, budget, and level of experience. Stay tuned for a future blog post where we’ll explore these options in detail, helping you find the best fit for your track adventures.

Take the Leap

If you’ve ever dreamed of driving on a race track but didn’t know where to begin, a high performance driving school is the perfect place to start. Programs like those offered at ProFormance Racing School and similar institutions across the country will teach you the fundamentals of high-performance driving, build your confidence, and give you an unforgettable introduction to the world of motorsport.

Ready to get started? Look for a reputable high-performance driving school near you, book your first session, and take the first step toward becoming the driver you’ve always wanted to be. Trust us—once you’re out there, you’ll wonder why you waited so long.

Posted on by

I crashed: HPDE Edition

What: The very first time I crashed, which happened to be an HPDE road trip/event.

If I knew then, what I know now:

  1. I would have actively sought out training on how to handle “going off track.” Going off track is not a bad thing inherently and will happen. Handling it properly would have saved me a ton of money.
  2. Had a HANS or NecksGen device: the impact was a classic sudden forward neck movement, with a concrete wall.
  3. Reinforced that in motorsports, even recreational – if you’re competitive (I am) it’s not if you will crash, but when you will crash.  How are you going to move forward?

Things you should check out:

The car: 2006 Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution 9 GSR

This car, was technically, my wife’s car. A few years prior, I had decided it was time to get back into ‘car game’. It was about 3-4 years from when I had graduated from college, had paid off my student loans and bought a house. Prior to college and for some time in college, I was active in ‘modifying’ street cars.  But after several cars, experiments, blown engines and essentially sunk money, I bought a 1999 Ford Contour SVT (black), which had an aftermarket exhaust, broken sun-roof and called it good.  So I thought.

Fast forward to 2011 and we had a heavily modified (and unnecessarily) 2008 Subaru WRX STi (mine) and a 2006 Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution GSR (my wife’s).

Soon after we bough a house, we had an STi and then an Evo 9. This was in 2008, maybe 2009 but not sure why the pictures look like it was in 1988 or 1989.

Yes, we did car shows and here is my wife claiming a prize for best something. Oh the shame…

Proof from the car shows…

And we even did photo shoots. Oh, the double shame!!!

I slowly took over the Evo because I had gone too far with the STi, making it not track-capable.  With an upgraded turbo and 400whp, it was too much car for to handle and very likely wouldn’t make it a day or two without over-heating or blowing up as EJ25 engines were and are notorious for not liking even mild track sessions.

I’ll be writing a car profile post and update this article later on, but in terms of specs, it had the basic bolt-on’s, a tune by Cobb Tuning, a harness bar, some gauges, upgraded brakes (lines, pads and rotors) and I removed the rear seats for “weight reduction.”  😆  Functionally, it allowed space to bring alone a full set of track tires/wheels, a jack, jack-stands and pretty much everything I needed for a track day.

My experience thus far: Intermediate run group, on the cusp of Advance

This was the first year that I had decided I was done with simply modifying cars and hard-parking.  I had taken an HPDE full-day event the prior November and the bug had bit.  I had spent that entire spring and summer, attending track days and this was also the first year a friend and I had started developing Track Attack.  Each time we went out on-track, it was not only fun but a chance to test and improve Track Attack.

At the time, I had somewhere around 8-10 track days, without any real incident; a spin here and there.  Generally, I felt quite ‘seasoned’ by the time this trip came around but by no-means did I feel fast.  I had also done a couple autocross events and had decided that was not my path.  Nothing wrong with Autocross but all that standing around, with no practice runs and for at most 4 under 60 second runs (of which I sucked at all of them) – I was OK sticking with track days.  🙂

YouTube player

The setting: A three-day track day road trip (Portland International Raceways and Oregon Raceway Park)

Most of my track days were with either ProFormance Racing School or The Ridge Racing School (now the majority of their events run by Turn 2 Lapping).  Each year, ProFormance racing school would organize a ‘road trip’, hitting Portland International Raceways for two days and Oregon Raceway Park for another two days (Thursday through Sunday).

I was excited and intimidated a little about Portland, mainly because it had the ‘International’ in the name – implying, at least in my head, the more professional and potentially hard aspect of the track.

The back-straight at PIR getting some instruction and likely told I suck.

Coming off Turn 12 at PIR

Holding up traffic in the Festival Chicane

The first two days at Portland went great!  I had hired an instructor for the first day at each track, to help guide me through the track as it was my first time at each.  At the end of the day on Friday, we caravaned over the mountain range.  I stayed with a friend (Robert) I had made in my modifying days, that was a Shop and History (I think) teacher, in The Dalles, OR.  He was/is a big car guy and had just gotten into Evo’s and was gracious enough to let me stay at his house.

That first day went really well and aside from frustrations with the Track Attack app (no cell phone reception at all) was ready to get back to the track and make some serious gains on my lap times.  That Sunday morning, Robert came out in the AM and we were able to give parade rides, which was fun to show him around the track.  Once he left, it was time to get back on it.

What happened

It was what would have been the second to last session of the day.  I forget my exact lap times, but I want to say they were in the 2:10-2:15 range, of which looking back on it now, is well below the abilities of that car.  I honestly don’t recall having too much of a structured learning or driver development plan, so I was pretty much just lapping around “trying to go faster” but no real thing I was actively or consciously working on.

Oregon Raceway Park is an incredible track, with lots of rolling hills, blind corner exits and no real long straightaway, giving little time for brakes to cool down or a rest for the driver.  It is ran primarily in the clock-wise direction, though it is regularly run counter-clockwise.  It’s out in the middle of nowhere, high central desert, Oregon, where if you go off, there really isn’t anything to hit.  Generally, go off, pick up small rocks and dust – come back into the paddock, clean and vacuum your car and you’re back at it.

Except one section: Start/Finish main straight with a wall

Check out this video of one of the best club racers (and drivers in general), Cody Smith in a race at ORP.  You’ll see that right at the last corner, there is a wall that protects the hot-pits.  The only real place to get in trouble here is that wall and that’s what I learned.

YouTube player

You see what happened at 2:32 mark?  That’s exactly what happened to me. 

On what would end up being my last lap for that weekend, I was coming up on the final turn, I braked, turned but turned in too early and probably too lazily.  As I started exiting the corner, was on throttle but noticed I was going to run out of road and I lifted.  🙁

Off-Throttle Oversteer: Engaged

Not sure if the car actually dropped a tire but the rear end whipped around and next thing you know, I am sitting there, staring at a wall and corner workers running over to me.  I then look to my left to see if any other car is going to collect me and this awesome green E36 M3 purposefully goes off-track, along with a nice 370z.  No damage to them, aside from a dusty car.

Within 10 minutes, I’m out of the car, physically fine and am able to limp the car back to the paddock, where front end is pushed in a few inches, the Seibon carbon fiber hood latch is broken but that’s about it.  If it weren’t for the leaking radiator, I might have even tried to drive it home.

The aftermath

First, I have to thank Don Kitch Jr on how calmly he handled himself (not having been his first rodeo by a lot) as that helped calm me down.  I had recently started working with English Racing, in Camas, WA and made the call to see if I could have the car towed to their shop, so they could take over assessing and fixing the car.

I also called my insurance and told them I had run into a mechanical issue while on a road trip and needed a tow truck.  With no approved partner within 100 miles, they allowed me to use the local tow truck provider (a story for another time) and I had the car towed to English Racing, with me going along for the ride.  Myles Kerr (Gringo Integra) was incredibly awesome, meeting me at the shop (I think they were actually there anyway) and giving me a ride to the local airport, where I picked up a rental car and drove home.

At the end of the day, the damage wasn’t bad at all and the learnings were great.  The majority of the front end needed to be replaced (front bumper cover, lower lip, radiator support, radiator, intercooler, headlights [I think]).  The rest of the body parts were repairable and while it was at a body shop, I had the body shop massage all of the fenders so I could easily fit the 275/45/17 rubber I was running without rubbing and had English do a full mechanical evaluation, tune-up, install a new TRE rear differential, bigger injectors, new fuel pump and a new tune, bringing the power to 334whp and 276ft/lb torque.

YouTube player

The Dark Side

I’m not gonna lie, I had some dark thoughts in the first 24-36 hours after the incident.  Even before I got out of the car, staring at the wall, I thought to myself – “What the hell am I doing?  This isn’t for me.  I’m not good at this and I can’t afford this.  Did I just financially ruin us?”

The scariest thoughts were those “this isn’t for me and I’m not good at this” thoughts.  I had already heard from Don and other experienced drivers that crashing on-track isn’t a question of “if but when” it will happen.  And multiple “when’s.”

Luckily (or maybe not), I’ve had a history of dealing with thinking and being told that certain things weren’t for me and that I sucked at them.  In most cases, I’ve been stubborn and hard working enough to prove others and myself wrong.  So it took some time, but I consciously decided that this incident would not hold me back.  Motorsports and specifically, being the best driver I could possibly be was something I wanted to be a significant part of my life.  So I picked myself up, dusted off, fixed my car and got back it.

At ORP a year later and more than 10 seconds faster than the prior year.

Posted on by

My first track day!

What: My first track day!

If I knew then what I know now: I am not sure I would have changed a lot. The never give up attitude can get you along way at the track, and in the end I ended up driving a great car!

Check out: The Proformance Racing School has many great programs to choose from to fit your driving needs. Also other schools have arrived in the northwest as well like The Ridge Racing School and Dirt Fish Rally School.

The line up from the Family at my first track day!

My first track day was my 18th birthday gift from my parents. I thought it was the best thing I ever could have received as a gift. A chance to drive as fast as you can and not worry about the law. It turned out to be SO much more than just a thrill. My dad was always into track events as far back as I remember. As kids we would get to go watch him drive his, at the time Porsche 912, at the then called Seattle International Raceway (SIR) now called Pacific Raceways. I was hooked by the motorsport bug early. This brings us back to modern times at Proformance Race School for the One Day Advanced Driving School. Excitement level: high!

My car: 1985 Ford Mustang SVO Comp Prep – needed to be prepped

Leading up to the event we went over the recommended things to do before a day at the track. That list will be covered in another post but needless to say I did non of them. The car I had at the time was going to be great for this event. I was going to drive my 1985 Ford Mustang SVO Comp Prep. It was a bare bones version of the special edition SVO Mustang that was built to be sold to club racers in the 80’s. One problem was the car had no motor. So in the weeks and days leading up to the event we were trashing on the old SVO to get it running again. There is a longer story for another time. Got the car running about 1:30 am the day of the track day. So much for a good nights rest…. Wake up early and warm the cars up and I find a coolant leak from a bad sending unit under the intake manifold. Can’t drive a leaky car on track. Bummer factor:  Max at this point.

Drivers meeting.

Enter Dad for the save. He had recently got into BMW’s and was getting an E30 325is ready for track duty. He also had gone through and rebuilt an e28 533i BMW to daily drive as well. Being that he had two capable track worthy cars and is a 100% bad ass dude, he offered to let me drive the E30 for my first event. This may have been a bad thing because I have a couple E30 track cars, now. We unload my gear from my car to the E30 and dads gear from the E30 to the E28 and we were on the road. Excitement Level: Back to pumped!

The day of the event

It was the most enlightening thing I have ever done in a car. In the morning we did driver skills training with a panic braking stage, an eyes up flag drill and an emergency lane change drill. In these drills the basics of driver safety are tough, things like steering wheel hand position, seating position and were to look out the windshield. I felt like I was a sporting driver before but I had know idea I was just passing over the simple things to make me a better driver. The main thing that set in was eyes up and forward looking. Look to see whats ahead, what a novel thing. I still practice looking ahead every time I get in a car. Feeling pretty mind blown at this time.

The afternoon was spent lapping at Pacific Raceways. Now we are getting into some speed. Using the ideas we learned in the morning to improve our actions during spirited driving. I had a great instructor. She was calm and was very clear on instruction. As the afternoon progressed my vein tap was deeper and deeper. As I started getting more comfortable in the car the speeds came up and the fun factor as well. I would say I was getting to maybe 70% of the car capabilities but at the time was more than enough to fill my speed fix at time. Later this would change, but being the first time I had done anything at speed on a track I was cool.

All happy after a good day.

Literally the most valuable driving thing I’ve ever done

To this day I think this is the most valuable thing I have done to help my safety as a regular day to day driver. The lessons of eyes up and looking forward has become how I drive, not just something to do when I drive. Following this has saved myself and property from many (read lots of times) events on the road. Being able to see whats coming and react/ anticipate to whats about to happen, you end up being out of a situation before it even happens. You can then watch it and go “man, Glad I wasn’t in that” rather than “damn, I wish I would have seen that.” In my opinion this course should be done by anyone with a drivers license. The roads would be a much safer place. This was my gateway into the track world.

Posted on by

My first track day!

What: My first ever track day experience

If I knew then, what I know now:  I would have bought a Miata or E30!!!

Check out:  Proformance Racing School if you are in the Pacific Northwest.  One of the best driving and racing schools around with everything from half day track days to 2-day competition licensing school and more.

It has been almost 15 years since the first time I drove on track for the first time. When I started thinking about writing about it I was like, dang, it has been a long time. How am I going to be able to recall some of this stuff. I remember it like it was yesterday! It was a really nice day in June and my Dad had gotten both my twin brother and I “racing school” for a combination of our 18th birthday, and graduation presents from high school. It was a wicked good gift! At the time I had a Volvo. It was an 850, and did actually have a manual transmission. In all fairness, it was a terrible car for a track day. But for me, at the time, it was a great chariot for hustling for the first time. I started off the day a bit jealous. My brother already had a way cooler car than I did, and even though it was broken, he got to use another cool car which was an E30 BMW. I had my Volvo. Never the less. it was school day, and time to get after it!


We both attended the Proformance Race School at Pacific Raceways in Kent, Washington. I have actually been through their one day course, 2 times and each time was great! The second time I paid for it myself, and it was still worth it! It is a good balance of classroom instruction, low speed car control skills building, then a half of a day on the track with an instructor.

I remember being pretty intimidated when we started the classroom session. Lots of people there. Lots of serious machines also. None of that ended up mattering. Each instructor is set with you, for the day. They don’t care what you are driving, they just want you to learn how to drive the snot out of it, safely.

1. Classroom sessions

The classroom session was the part I did not care for. Having done some auto-x in the past, and lots of race watching in my past and felt I had a pretty good idea of what the flags were, and what a turn station was. Things got deeper than that though, and it was much more informative than I was expecting. The classroom session was not long and was out of the way first thing in the morning. Once you break in the class room it is time to get into the cars and start driving.

2. Low speed car-control skills

The first part of the driving curriculum is the low speed car control skills session. This was a lot of fun. We went through a few different scenarios and I found that later in life, these skills paid off in spades in the real life. There were emergency lane change drills. Braking and turning sharp (like making a ‘J’ with your car), Threshold braking, which is very different depending on if your car does or does not have anti-lock brakes. My Volvo obviously did. We did eyes up drills using a man with a flag, and a slalom course. These skills seem so basic, but being taught how to use them, and then implement them at higher speeds will make a huge difference in your skill set both on and off the race track and street.

This brings us to lunch break at this school. During lunch my brother, my dad and I got to chat a bit about the morning. Both of us were more excited with driving on the track that afternoon though.

3. Track Time!

After lunch it was track time. We took two laps in our cars with the instructor driving to show you the basic line and where each corner goes. After those 2 laps it was game time. My first session in the car was great. I was going fast, relatively anyway. I was turning laps on a race track! It was an amazing feeling. Not having to worry about cars in driveways. Kids playing the street were non-factor. You just get to haul ass!

I started getting into it more. My instructor was great, and encouraging throughout the afternoon as I picked up pace. We picked up enough pace to send my street welly tires strait to a fiery hell. They were by all accounts and purposes a street all season tire. By the end of the second session on track, they were screaming for mercy on every brake zone and corner. I also started to run into a fuel starve, or electrical issue. When exiting a left hand corner (of which Pacific has a majority of) the car would bog down, and then get on its way. It started to get frustrating. I felt like it was dampening my total experience, but it really was not. I needed to focus on skills building at that time, not how fast my car was going.

The start of a lifetime of motorsports

By the end of the day. I had not broken my car. I had not crashed into anything and I had learned a lifetime skill set that, as I said before, would show itself to pay off many times over in the real world. Mainly by avoiding idiots trying to crash into me! I was hooked. As it may be apparent. I found sport driving and racing to be what I truly love to do. It is a way for me to show aggression and not be physical (like boxing or wrestling, or martial arts). I can work my butt off in the car and it is a good work out. The mechanical symphony that is a race car is fascinating to me. I know this was going to be fun!

Posted on by

Day 9 – Going for the win!

It’s race day!  Although I had races yesterday, today was the big race – the race that counts towards the PRO3 Championship, one of the most contested and desired club racing crowns in the pacific northwest and if this series was national, I think it would be up there with a Spec E30 or Spec Miata national championship.  Big fields, hard racing and really needing to drive these cars to the limit, without losing momentum to go fast.

Taking the green flag on race day at Pacific Raceways

The plan of attack

Yesterday, I improved some of my personal best lap times by over a second and in worsening conditions.  I turned a 1:37.2xx in the afternoon, which was nearly 10 degrees warmer than during qualifying in the AM and repeated that almost exactly, in the second half of the 1-hour endurance race… with tires going on their 11th and 12th heat cycle!

So today my goal was to keep improving and try as best as I could to crack the 1:36.xxx range of lap times, of which in my going back through official race records on the ICSCC.com website, there are less than ten people who have ever gone under 1:37.000 in a PRO3 car, at Pacific Raceways on official record.

Part of this is that up until a few years ago, the track surface turns 8 and 9 were absolutely horrendous.  They were the original concrete or whatever the surface type was, full of bumps, pot holes and smoothened over years and years of beatings.

Pacific Raceways – it’s a beast!

It got so bad that a few track day organizations essentially boycotted holding events there because they had customers, with really nice cars, suffer bent wheels and damaged tires.  The reality was that it wasn’t great, not the worst ever but because it was deterring people from coming to the track, it needed to be fixed.   Here is a video of Cody Smith, of Code Red Racing, who also won the PRO3 Championship in 2013, flying through Pacific Raceways.  Cody is fast and smooth!

YouTube player

How’d it go?  1:37.104!

This time, we decided to start towards the back of the field and use the first few laps to warm up the tires, build tire pressures, get a solid lap in and then adjust track position.  We did just that and towards the middle of the session, I fell back to latch on a to pack of PRO3 cars running together.  Though I didn’t know for sure, I felt like I was faster than the whole group, so I fell back, created some space so that ideally, I’d be catching them the hardest at the end of the lap and getting the tow from them on the main straight away.

So close!!!

And it worked!  I actually had a 1:36.9xx going for most of the lap but on the turn 8, I got just the tiniest bit of sideways and I think that caused the lap to not be better.  Regardless, I was happy to get it and in the end, it would have been a stretch, in that session to go faster.  The consolation for me was that in that session specifically, I made an improvement but the competition ahead and behind did not.

So how did I make the improvement?

Data and video.  I recorded the video below to go into more detail but essentially, I focused on three things (see below the video):

YouTube player
  1. Comparing with a faster driver: I had the benefit of getting a hold of data and video from another driver, who was faster than me (and won the PRO3 championship last year) and leveraged an alpha tool we’ve been working on with Track Attack.  Essentially, with Track Attack, we’ve figured out how to make data from different systems, comparable with each other.  Olivier uses RaceLogic’s Video VBOX and I use AIM or Track Attack on iOS.  In the video below, you can see how I used this tool to compare the data and see where Olivier was gaining the advantage.  Conclusion? Corner entry and mid-corner.  Oliver was consistently able to roll more speed into a corner, maintain it mid-corner and then carry that advantage on the straights.  He was and still is, much better under braking and controlling the slide of the car.
  2. Understand the line and what the differences looked like: Similar to Olivier, I am also a very visual learner.  Though I understand data, graphs and tables, I have an athletic background, where muscle memory and training are critical.  So being able to see what a faster lap time and specific segments look like from outside the car and from the driver inputs, was incredibly valuable.  I was able to see in the track map comparisons, the differences in the lines taken.  He would usually brake earlier and turn in later for most corners, trying to carry as much speed as possible.  You could visibly see how he had to dance with the car in mid-corner and be more precise getting on throttle, to not light up the tires.
  3. Theoretical fastest lap: Lastly, one awesome feature we have in the Track Attack alpha product, is the ability to generate segment times AND the video associated with each of those segments.  Further, we stitched together all of those segments, to show what the theoretical fastest lap time actually looks like.  I generated this video and watched it over, and over, and over and over again, trying to program the muscle memory of that lap into my eyes, mind, hands, feet and core.  I wanted that low 1:36.xxx lap time infused into every fiber of my being.

When will this be available?!?!?!

Soon! Racer on Rails is intended to be un-biased about products, so I won’t talk about it much here but know that we’re working on this with the Track Attack team and that this summer, this type of analysis and capabilities will be available to everyone and support all major data acqusition system file types (AIM, MoTec, Bosch, RaceLogic, TraqMate, Alfano and Unipro).

Race Result: Qualified P3 and Finished P3

This was an awesome race, see the video below.  The high points are that I got a decent start, positioned myself exactly where I wanted to be and was able to make a really fun overtake on lap 2, turn 2 to get into 2nd position.  I knew that if I got behind Brian Bercovitz, I would have to stay with him and pressure him into making mistakes because he is a good driver and has a rocket ship car (not that mine is a slouch).

YouTube player

I found myself in just that position a couple laps in and determined that I had an advantage on him under heavy braking (for turns 2, 3a, 3b and to a lesser extent, 8) but he did a great job through 5a, 5b, 6 and 7.  So at the end of each lap, we’d end up about the same distance and with me being close enough to tuck under his draft.  Trying to go for an overtake going into turn 2, I decided to try to get an incredible run out of turn 8 and while doing so, carried too much speed into the corner, got sideways, saved it but let two cars by.

That was just under halfway through the race and while I had a better pace than those to cars, with the rear tires getting lit up during that drift, I had to baby the tires and by then, the gap was too big to overcome.  I technically finished 4th but due to the 2nd place finisher being disqualified for being under-weight, I inherited 3rd place.

Taking the green flag on race day!

Although I was disappointed a little with my mistake, overall, the weekend and day was a great success.  We made improvements on the car, the driver and lap times.  We established that we can compete for wins and just need to be more consistent.  Thanks to the whole crew for all the work before, during and after the weekend.  This hardware is for you all!