Das Race: My '97 M3/4/5

[Jake]

April 2016 "Spring Rumble" - Summit Point Main

First "regular" event of the season in the books. Road Atlanta was truly a NASA Southeast weekend, so it was great to be back with the Mid-Atlantic family yet again. My weekend was... ugh. It was okay. The last time I was at Summit (November) I came home with a rather mangled BMW. The car and I both came home in one piece this time, so that's always a positive.

I just felt - all weekend - like I didn't drive very well.

I did our Saturday warm-up session on my RS3's, and had a buddy from New York ride shotgun. He was there for HPDE 2 and hadn't been around Summit Main ever, so I figured some "take it easy" laps to knock off the rust would be good for me and helpful for him. Ran some 1:32's and 1:33's in traffic which was alright by me.

Switched to the Hoosiers (R6) and got a hair faster - but not on "Hoosier level" of speed, at all. I think that's what is bumming me out. My best lap was on Sunday morning, at a 1:29.6. That's still kind of a street tire time.

My friend Zack rode with me on Sunday mid-morning and observed my driving, then offered some pointers in the paddock. His biggest observation was that I was a bit violent with my inputs, which was upsetting the car and, as he put it, "holy understeer." He really stressed being more gentle with my brake release and my steering input - said my turn-in was very autocross-esque - and said that with smoother transitions, the car wouldn't fight me so much. He was 100% correct and the rest of Sunday was spent turning laps that were significantly less stressful or rough. That was great.

Zack's schooling produced smoother yet slower laps. I think I was focusing a lot on doing what he said, which distracted me from jumping back on the throttle with enough alacrity to keep the momentum up. Having the stock 3.23 rear end means the car doesn't want to power out of corners nearly as well as Christina's (3.38 "automatic" diff) or the Donovan's (3.64 custom from Diffsonline). So, gotta keep the revs up which I am now seeing in the time deltas.

That said, I ran the rest of Sunday laying down 1:31's that were all within a tenth of each other. Several folks told me the consistency was something to be very pleased with, and I am. My hope is that it transfers to VIR next month and I can pick up more speed while remaining smooth with everything.

Mom and Dad came out on Saturday, and Mom ran her second-ever Hyperdrive, too. Christina hopped in the right seat and gave her a ton of great instruction, which was so fun to hear about. Her first instructor last year really didn't say much, which left her feeling unsure of her abilities. By contrast, Christina got her focused on the driving line and they picked up a bit of speed. She looked way better coming out of T10 this time compared to last year. Victory!

Photos and videos to come, but this one of Grayzen about sums up large chunks of how things felt: