Track Day photos

Have Skills, Will Drive

If you haven't heard by now - and that's a possibility since I tend to speak softly - I had a rare and thrilling Monday. That's right, a thrilling Monday. Probably the most surprising part of it all. I didn't wake with the "ugh, weekend over" feeling despite the fact I was coming off a Vegas weekend of all things! No, I woke with the thought, "what is appropriate apparel for driving a race car?" Answer: Depends. Depends on what? No, just Depends. Get it? No? Oops-I-Crapped-My-Pants? Ring a bell with anyone? From the scary fast driving? You'll get it later on.

A couple design guys I work with gave me the opportunity to drive their cars, really fast, on an incredible road course here in Utah called Miller Motorsports Park. Our caravan from Salt Lake to the track included a Shelby Mustang GT, which I drove, a Lotus Elise, and a Shelby Cobra. (Not actual images of the owners' cars, just for reference.) I don't know all the car guy details of these vehicles, so don't ask. I know that they are all fast, and they make a terrific rumbly sound when the engines are revved. The Mustang had what's called a "Hurst shifter" with a "short throw". I looked it up on the Internet. It means that when you put the shifter thingy into gear and then go to another gear you don't have to throw anything very far, unless you are trying to get your opponent off the track with a green turtle shell, like in Mario Kart. "Here we gooooo!"

Once we arrived, we parked our cars amongst a variety of other souped-up rigs, like Porsches, Corvettes, an actual pointy-nosed race car, some BMWs, a Mini Cooper or two, and I'm pretty sure there was a Mazda Miata thrown in for good measure. Don't hate, it did very well on the track. The Lotuses and Cobras were the best looking cars in my opinion, very track-ready vehicles. I received an orange paper bracelet that said, "You are in the slow group, so don't try and go all Tony Stewart out there. Maybe more like Tony Randall." It didn't say all those things on the bracelet, but orange indicated my status as a novice. I could tell the organizers there weren't used to true rookies, as more than one asked me to clarify my claim of having zero experience.

"I'm Steve. This is my first time doing this."

"So what high performance vehicles have you driven?"

"Uh...my old Taurus SHO that had a stick shift? I grew up on a lot of country roads, so..."

"So how many laps have you driven before?"

"This is my first time here. It's my first time doing this."

"And which other tracks have you driven on?"

"You shouldn't end a sentence with a preposition. It would be, 'On which other tracks have you drived fastly?' and the answer would be NONE, this is my first..."

This happened at sign in, in casual discussion with other drivers, and mostly with the instructor with whom I was paired. (I forced that one a little.) Ron, who I outweighed by a good 150 lbs, seemed REALLY alarmed that I had nary a lap of track driving in my career as an amateur race car driver. I mention his size because I found driving to be a very physical activity, but his slight stature was clearly a non-factor when he threw that Mustang into the first corner off the straightaway. I gripped the door handle, the center console, the dashboard - anything I could grab to keep me from flying out the side of the car. There is NO WAY I'm going to be able to drive this car like that. How does it not spin out or flip entirely?

As Ron is whipping through the first several corners, he is trying to explain the strategy to me. A real-time tutorial on how to make your passenger barf in 10 turns or less.

"Now in this corner, it starts sharp but it levels off here, so let the car stay out wide a little longer and then get into your turn HERE and aim for the apex..."

After the word "HERE" I'm totally tuned out as I try and get my bearings after another sharp left. High speed corners have a way of reminding you what's important in life: balance, control, just living. Fortunately, I am wearing a helmet and, as prescribed, narrow shoes with a rounded heel. Surely that's all the protection I'll need in a fiery crash! We get to turn twenty-something, and we're finally on the long straightaway. I can breathe for a moment. Ron decides we better do another lap with him driving, since I hadn't spoken or even nodded my giant helmet the entire circuit. After a second lap on the 4+ mile course, we pit, and do a quick Chinese fire drill where I end up as the driver! BONUS. I shove the Hurst shifter into first gear, and promptly forget everything Ron told me. The first lesson in the driver's meeting was "coming out of the pits, do NOT cross the double white lines. Cars are doing about 140 down the straightaway here." While I did remember to check my mirrors and felt comfortable accelerating, I did maybe inch over the line just a hair. Fortunately, the coast was clear and I was into turn one before I knew it.

I mentioned the word "apex" before. I heard this word roughly 1,000 times during my laps. It's the point at the inside of corners where your vehicle should ideally reach the edge before gradually straightening out of the corner. "Use the whole track!" was another repeated phrase. Anyway, proper cornering for maximum lap speeds involves speeding frantically toward a cone on the outside of the track pre-turn, braking like you're told not to in driver's ed (stand on it!), then turning sharply to make a bee-line to the apex cone. All the while gripping the wheel like it's pulling you behind a boat and bracing your body with your knees against the door and center console, respectively. At least, that was my style. A more comfortable position, as the "pros" mentioned, was moving your seat so close to the wheel that you look like your Grandma Edna, except you can see over the steering wheel. This lets you drive with your elbows and wrists, not with your shoulders and entire torso, as I was. Again, I don't think racing is designed for people with legs longer than a newt's so that wasn't going to work for me.

These minor details are endless and I cannot possibly do them justice. So let me get to the point which is HOW AWESOME WAS DRIVING A RACE CAR ON A RACE TRACK?! In my 14 or 15 laps over 3 sessions, I got better and better at the throttle-brake-turn-apex scenario and started really having fun and really testing the car. The hardest part is learning to trust the vehicle through these corners. Especially considering it was not my vehicle! A man I've known less than a year was trusting me with this machine, and that may have been the subconscious restrictor plate that kept me on the track. (WHOA! Race-speak in metaphor, kids!) If you've never been subjected to G-forces like this in a car, as I hadn't (despite my Mom's best efforts on the way to church years back), you just can't imagine that you'll come out of the turn with the nose pointing forward. But it did, over and over, and I hit straightaways at 120+, and I bested S-curves at 80+, and I only maybe lost a layer or two of rubber in the process (sorry, Zach). Ron was super pumped with my very last lap, where I reached deep within my 40 minutes of racing experience to finally nail the double-apex turn in the middle of the track, and certainly pull off my best lap time. My shirt was entirely sweat through, my arms and knees ached, and my ears burned from being shoved into that helmet, but I had the biggest grin on my face the whole way down pit row the final time.

An epic experience, and I recommend it to anyone who truly enjoys driving. My folks always bought cars with a little "extra" under the hood - even if it was a giant, gold Oldsmobile, which I proudly drove for several years as a hand-me-down - and I've always been the "I'll drive" volunteer when it comes to friends or family or road trips. I also had the benefit of learning how to drive on manual shifters from permit days on, which took out a potentially challenging part of this event. So this was a true thrill, and I'm very grateful to Zach and Allen for the opportunity. I have some photos and video footage from them, and I'll try to get it online somehow for those who think I'm a big fat liar.

Did I mention they let me drive the Lotus home from the track? That is, after I folded my legs up into my body so I could get in. Rolling at 90 down I-80 in a yellow convertible import didn't suck.

And if anyone needs an amateur race car driver with an impressive resume driving one car on one track with a professional instructor, then I'm your man. Shake and bake, baby!

Seatbelt update

If you haven't read about the Seatbelt Shot, consider yourself lucky. It hit me last week that I hadn't tried it since then, so after I picked the kids up from daycare the other day, I tried it about 5 or 6 times -- never got close. The kids also thought I had suddenly become entirely inept, mechanically speaking. (In reality, I'm only MOSTLY mechanically inept).

It just proves that the Seatbelt Shot is something to be admired and treasured. Feared even.

The Seatbelt Shot

I have a pair of jeans with pretty tight hip pockets. This story ends with a call to action, so hang in there. I also have a mobile phone which I keep in my pocket most times - I don't have one of those clip things. I've had those belt clips before with 2 other phones, and they both broke. They both broke in the same way, too. Getting into the car. They would somehow catch on the edge of the seat or on the seatbelt buckle as I sat down, and it would snap the clip off. They should make mobile phone belt clips stronger.

I like to call them mobile phones lately, not 'cell phones'. I know that 'cell' is really short for 'cellular', but I don't know what 'cellular' means in relation to the phone. Does it mean it's a living, breathing thing? Mobile phone makes much more sense, because the key benefit of mobile phones is that you can take them with you. Well, that's the original key benefit. Now the key benefits of mobile phones are the ability to play music or set your lineup for fantasy football (nerd alert!).

Anyway, I was driving the other day and my phone was really uncomfortable in my tight hip pockets, and I wanted to get it out. Actually, I can't say if the phone itself was experiencing any discomfort, but my hip certainly was. But due to the tightness of the jeans and the lap portion of the seatbelt, I couldn't get it out. So at the next stop light, I unbuckled quick and pulled the mobile phone out.

The light turned green, and I quick shoved the phone into the cup holder and resumed driving. I'm a left handed driver, by which I mean I steer 95% of the time with only my left hand. I grew up driving stick shifts, so my right hand was often shifting gears and I was 'left' with only one hand free to steer. (I apologize for that horrible use of single quotation marks.) Also, steering with both hands is something only done by driving instructors, and driving students.

Needless to say, I needed to buckle up again. And this is when the cool thing happened. The cool thing happened, and I'm sure it has happened many times before, but for some reason I thought about how cool it was this time. I'm steering with my left hand, and my right hand reaches under the left arm, grabs the seatbelt, and in one swift motion, my eyes up on the road ahead, shoots the seat belt directly into the buckle. CLICK.

"Big deal", right? But think about it. Seatbelt buckles are generally perched on the end of a semi-rigid piece of plastic, or sometimes just on thick vinyl material. The flat part on the belt-portion of the buckle obviously must go squarely into the buckle. How do we do this without even looking, much less in a quick one-shot pull? Think of the spatial variance between where the belt is mounted and where the buckle happens to be angled that day. What if your hand bumps your hip on the way down? Even worse, what if you smash your hand into the buckle and pitch the fat part of your hand into the buckle? Now stop thinking about those things, and go take a drive. And unbuckle your seatbelt at a traffic light. Then, because you instinctively fear being unbuckled in your vehicle for even one second because of the Click It or Ticket campaign, go for it:

The Seatbelt Shot

I should write more, too

It's been a while, and so much has changed. I've been to Orlando (via Denver), Salt Lake City (via Memphis, then Denver), Los Angeles, Salt Lake City, Denver and Salt Lake City in the past two weeks (...I've been ev-ery-where man, I've been ev-ery-where...). Travelling by plane is the best time to catch up on a growing favorite activity of mine: Reading. Nerd Alert! Joking. All the cool people I know read, and they read more than me, and probably better books than me. In the past few months I've read, and recommend based on x out of 4 stars, the following books: Devil in the White City by Erik Larson (4 stars) - I can't believe this part of American history is not more well known; Skeleton Coast by Clive Cussler with Jack DuBrul (3 stars) - Cussler weaves another tale of shipwrecks, political unrest, unbelievably diabolical plots to cause harm, and the heroes who prevent it; The Meaning of Sports by Michael Mandelbaum (2.5 stars) - recommended by a brilliant sports/political journalist, Gregg Easterbrook (Tuesday Morning QB), this book compares the defining traits of the 3 major American sports - Baseball, Football, and Basketball - to 3 distinct social eras in our history: Agrarian, Industrial Revolution, and post-Industrial Revolution. I gave it 2.5 because I knew a lot of the factoids already, but LOVED the section about baseball's history - that alone makes it worth the read for any baseball fan - and found the comparisons interesting. I'm currently reading High Fidelity by Nick Hornby (incomplete) - easy, fun read but difficult to separate the book's British setting and characters from the Cusack/Hjejle/Black cast of the US movie.

I was travelling for work, doing a marketing presentation to groups of franchisees as part of day-long regional meetings. As small as 4 in our own Salt Lake market, to a group of 50+ in L.A. My portion was about an hour and a half of presenting, discussion, and answering questions. Tiring, frustrating at times, but rewarding. I probably learned more from them than they from me. (Charon - was that an acceptable sentence structure? Sounded weird.) I also ate a lot of cookies and catered lunches, which is one of two reasons my dress pants have been, well, not exactly 'fitting' lately.

Annie and I find it difficult to be separated when we travel for business, which is ironic considering we 'dated' from a distance greater than the entire Central time zone for a couple years. I'm home now for a week, then I leave for a Chicago-St. Paul leg of the same meetings. 3 weeks from now, I'll be in Hawaii for my first time! A much needed vacation that Annie has been diligently planning in my absence thanks to The Ultimate Kauai Guidebook (TBD stars). Time to stop donating money to the local 24-Hour Fitness (the other reason for the tight pants) and start getting in beach shape.

Let's see, what else... Oh - since I last wrote, Michigan got Duck-waxed by Oregon, then rebounded for 4 straight wins. Speaking of 4 straight, I'm the only 4-0 team in my Fantasy Football League. Double Nerd Alert!! Hey guys - remember how I won the league last year and how much of a fluke it was? Check yourselves before you wriggedy-wreck yourselves. Tommy Brady just hit for another TD pass...it's going to be a great Sunday.

And the big news? (drum roll please...)

We bought a new car! Gotcha, suckers. We leased it, actually. I say 'we' only in the sense that I was present for some signatures. Annie did all the work, since it is her need for new, shiny things with satellite radio and 3rd row seating that led to this decision. Nissan Pathfinder - gray, leather, loaded. Bu-bye to the Jetta, hello to extra space for soccer gear and trips to Costco (48-pack of TP? No problem.) Babe - we've finally made it! New TV, furniture, the car, and nearly unmanageable debt. We're so 21st century.

I am Driving Excitement

I finally got a new car. This one feels good. I've been driving for nearly 13 years, and this is the first time I've purchased a new car just for myself. (Thank you to my parents, who handed me down several very groovy cars over the years, which were fast, well-equipped sedans.) It's not brand new, but considering the newest vehicle I'd ever owned was a 2000 model, my 2006 Grand Prix GT with 20K miles on it feels, like, way new. Not surprisingly, it's a fast, well-equipped sedan. White was not my first choice, but this thing was the perfect package and the best 'deal' on the lot. I'm still only partially employed, so 'deal' is relative. The fact is, I can't afford it. Which is why I flash a wicked grin every time I step on the gas.

Looking back, the oldest car I can remember our family having was a '78 Pontiac Bonneville, and it was white. I guess I've driven full circle now.