This year’s crowd was Joe & Nat, Rich & Debbie, Jack & Katy, Rich & Christina, Rich’s brother Ed, Bill & Debbie and their neighbor Gina and Val & me. It was great to get everybody together and I’ll take this opportunity to wish everyone a Merry Christmas!

The Guys end of the table

The Ladies end of the table

The Couples Section

It's my site, so here's a picture of my gorgeous girl.. and you have to look at me too

Requisite Wacky Billy Pic (better than the usual view)

I knew of East Coast Supercharging from the Corvette Forum but it’s always hard to commit your precious toy to somebody without having at least a personal reference.  Fortunately my buddy Mike took his ‘08 to them after we had installed a Callaway Honker cold air intake.  He had them install AR headers and tune the car and they did an amazing job.  I’d driven Mike’s car stock and the post-headers & tune difference was amazing.  As hard as that car pulled stock the power after ECS had their hands on it was incredible.  The power came in earlier and the delivery was smooth all the way up through the RPM band. So I exchanged a few e-mails with Chris from ECS and setup an appointment.

Friday 10/24/08 was my turn to see the boys at ECS. Since I already had headers on my car I was having the ECS boys do the “Stage I” package, which is a Vararam cold air intake, a 160F thermostat and a dyno tune. I never got one of those round tuits to install my intended Honker CAI so I figured I’d let the pros take care of it.  Mike did the install on the CAI and t-stat and it’s just amazing how easy things are when you know what you’re doing. Didn’t take him much more than an hour to do both.

Once Mike finished it was Doug’s turn with the car.  He took it out on the street for nearly 1.5 hours with a pair of laptops and an O2 sensor hanging off the back adjusting the air/fuel mixture and timing.  Those who aren’t inflicted with the same mental illness as some of my friends and I are now wondering “why the HELL do you need to do that??”  Well here’s the deal… engines are all managed by computers these days and the programs that run them are designed very conservatively. Engineers can’t count on the fact that you’ll always use the right octane fuel, that you won’t fire the motor and start driving the car before a drop of oil can move up out of the pan and into the drivetrain, etc so they makes tons of compromises for reliability.  This means there is tons of room in the programming to improve performance. So this is what Doug was doing out there with my car, and then he came back to finish it off on the dyno.

ECS uses a Dynapack 4000 chassis dynamometer. There are non-stop arguments about the validity of dyno numbers, the variance from brand-to-brand, the proper corrections. I was told that Dynapack produces generally lower numbers than Mustang dynos that a lot of folks use, but while the number is certainly interesting (and Tim Taylor-like grunt producing) what really matters is how the car performs so I won’t engage in a debate about the numbers.  Doug let me watch the last couple of pulls and I took some video with Joe’s camcorder (still waiting for Joe to pull the vids off for me so I can post!).  It’s a pretty cool process.  With the Dynapack they lift the car and attach the dyno directly to the hubs so it’s inherently safer than running on a cylinder with the car strapped down.  But what you really want to hear about are the results, right?

So the final numbers were (drumroll please) 381hp @ 5761RPM with 392 lb-ft of torque @ 4570pm.  That’s at the wheels so that would be approximately 450 gross horsepower the way you’d see it advertised by a car manufacturer (they advertise flywheel power, before transmission loss).  It felt absolutely amazing on the street and with every bit of the smooth delivery I’d noticed on Mike’s car post-tune.  OK, so it doesn’t pull as hard as Mike’s car, but that’ll happen after a couple of model years and an engine upgrade!  For a convertible I am completely content with this level of performance and since you can’t take it onto the track without a roll cage installed (notgonnahappen) there’s really no point in more power.

So a big thanks to all the guys at ECS for doing a great job - Mike with the Vararam & t-stat install, Doug with the tuning and Chris for setting things up and entertaining me while I waited.  This car has always been a blast to drive but now it’s even better!  To close out, here are a few pics from around ECS.

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Random Road Shot from Highway 160

Wednesday’s second instructor was Justin, also known as JJ and according to the back of his helmet, J.Man.  When asked what he actually went by he didn’t seem to have a preference. As Jordan had called him JJ to us the previous day that’s what we stuck with.

The day began as the day prior had, with heel-toe shifting practice.  With 3 of us and 2 instructors it gave those of us still not comfortable with it, in other words everyone except Joe, some one-on-one time.  Actually after a few runs I found myself falling into a rhythm and noticed I wasn’t picking my heel up off the floor as I had been.  Not going to argue with it, so I stayed with it and it seemed to work better for me.  As we had the instructors available I asked JJ to hop in and offer some advice.  Overall he thought I was getting the hang of it and would improve with continued practice. I felt much better about the heel-toe shifting by the end of that session and Clown-foot continued merrily along as well.

The next thing was an exercise & self-test to see how our visual scanning technique was coming along.  Jordan had mentioned the previous day that they would put us on a track we’d never seen before. We assumed that he meant the other piece of the track they have there, the 1.5 mile layout.  Well we know how assumptions go, so of course it was something completely different - the same track we’d been running… but in reverse.  They wanted us to keep the speed to 45 mph and just concentrate on spotting apexes and turn-in points.  WOW does the track in reverse look completely different! The turn-in and most of the apex cones they had spotted around the track were useless so we were on our own. With each lap you got a bit more confident, but turns 2 & 4 (numbered running the track the normal way) were the tough ones as the approaches left you a lot of options for turn-in.  I don’t know that I turned in and apexed those corners at the same point any two laps, but I think I was sneaking up on it.  It was a very educational and fun exercise.

We did a debrief on the reverse track discussing some of the cornering techniques and then it was time to brief us on open lapping sessions.  The first new thing was that we’d have to wear helmets.  All the previous sessions had been speed limited because we were following the instructors so helmets weren’t necessary, but since in the open lap sessions we weren’t limited we had to wear helmets.  This would become an issue as the day moved along, but I’ll whine about that later. We were instructed about where passing was allowed and how to go about it.  They would call for the passes on the radio if necessary, but they preferred we keep an eye on our mirrors and move over on the backstretch (preferably) or frontstretch to let the faster car by. If you were the faster car they asked that you be patient if you caught up to the other car before those areas, maintain a 5-6 car length gap and then pass when permitted.  Also sometime during the first session an instructor had to ride with you for a few laps to sign you off to be able to run in the afternoon hot lapping sessions.

So off we went to the cars with helmets on.  I got the Z06 as Joe was content with his Atomic Orange Pfadt suspension C6 and the Jetstream Blue C6 Renee had been driving had a pedal extension strapped to it to make heel-toe easier for her to do. I will admit to some serious butterflies before this session, but once you get strapped in you automatically start into the process you’d been building up over the previous days and a lot of that went away. A loop through the paddock and we got in line for Jordan to release us onto the track.  I was first out, then Joe, then Renee.  Started out at pretty much the same pace we’d been doing in the Lead/Follow sessions, but ramped it up bit by bit.  Since everyone seems to want to know “how fast did you go” on that session by the end I had ramped it up to about 100mph on the back stretch.  The 5/8 mile long back stretch, that I was entering somewhere around 50mph, then has a long, large radius turn at the end of it. The trick is to keep yourself to a speed where you’re confident and comfortable that you’ll still make the corner.  After a few laps they called me into the pits and JJ got in the car with me for my checkout ride.  While all race drivers have to have a certain amount of courage, getting into the car with a n00b behind the wheel takes a rather large set of attachments (credit David Hobbs).  I did a few laps with him along for the ride and he gave me a few tips, particularly that I could carry more speed through that turn at the end of the back straight, turn 8.  He approved me to go, I dropped him off in the pits and finished out the session. Here’s a picture I dug up today from Spring Mountain’s online photo galleries.  The overhead shot of the track is a great view.  The back straight so frequently mentioned in this paragraph is that long straight stretch all the way at the right edge of the pic.  Click on the pic to get a bigger view.

Spring Mountain from the Air

The other thing that everybody asks: Who was faster, Joe or me?  I’m relieved to report it was me! I know this because during this session Joe moved over and let me pass him on the back straight. We got out of the cars and freshened up before lunch - wearing helmets is sweaty business, thank goodness they have everyone wear head socks! Lunch this last day they pulled out the stops, chicken breasts in a mushroom cream sauce.  However based on the previous day’s burger, I knew that a filling lunch wasn’t exactly a great idea when you’re throwing cars around, so seconds were out of the question!

After letting lunch settle and then doing another debrief to review what we’d done we headed back out to the cars.  Joe took the Z06 this time and I was in the Orange C6.  I went out first again and after a lap or so to warm up the car I began to find out what makes the Z06 so special.  The standard C6 is a great car, this orange coupe being no exception.  You can throw them around and they just take it.  But after just having driven the Z, well its amazing lateral grip and incredible brakes were truly appreciated by their absence!  As you move through the chicane just after turn 3 there is curbing on the left side that dips down and is your braking point that sets you up to come back right for the very tight turn 4. The Z handles this no problem, maybe a hint of ABS or active handling (since ABS is part of AH it’s hard to say which is kicking in at any given moment, you sure don’t have time to look at the display to find out!).  The standard Vette, EVERY time I hit the brakes at that point the ABS kicked in, and again and I crested the right hander at the exit of the chicane. That’s not intended as criticism of the standard Vette, those electronic aids are great for keeping your butt out of trouble, just a head shaker about how much better the Z06 is. This was again pointed out with remarkable clarity as I got on the brakes in turn 8 about half way through the session.  I went in as fast as I had in the Z06 and got on the brakes, got into understeer and felt like I darn near put the car in the gravel, though I probably had 10-15 feet of track left.  It was an eye opener, and in the debrief I talked to Jordan about it and he said two things that helped keep it from happening again.  The first was that when you first apply your brakes that should be the hardest on them you’re going to be for that turn, everything after that is easing up.  The second was “GET YOUR HEAD UP AND LOOK AT THE EXIT!!” He said he’d guarantee I was staring at that desert off the turn and my hands were taking me there, and I sure as heck wouldn’t have bet against him! With Joe in the Z06 this session I didn’t pass him, though I could see him by the last lap of the session.  Here’s a couple of pics of our rides for the session.

Atomic Orange Coupe

Z06

After another debrief, where Jordan helped me figure out how badly I messed up 8, it was time to head to the track again. Joe was kind, or so I thought, and allowed me to run the Z06 again.  This Z was silver this time as the yellow Z’s rear tires were nearly finished and a tech decided to swap them at the end of the previous session. As mentioned previously, the helmets became an issue, with the Z06 especially. The seats are nice & comfy in the Vette but if you’re at all tall and you strap a helmet on the combo of those seats and the low roofline (the Z06 seats are actually a tick higher and the roof a tick lower inside) means that great seating position they taught us where you don’t get tired goes out the window so your head doesn’t clank off the roof! At 6′1″ with a 31″ inseam, this became a real problem for me.  By the time this second session was over I was absolutely wiped out from having to reach so far for the wheel and from having hold myself in place in the seat, both because of the compromised seating position.  I still absolutely loved driving it, but I’d have to agree with both Jordan & JJ’s answer to the question “what’s the first upgrade I should get on my new Z06?”  A new seat!  A Recaro race style seat would take care of the problem nicely.  In this session I continued to ramp up the speed and with the confidence gained by putting to use the good advice in turn 8 and the forgiveness of the Z06 I was consistently topping 120 on the back stretch.  I probably still was getting on the brakes harder than I needed to as I consistently felt like I could have carried more speed through 8, but I was comfortable with what I was doing and was hitting the entry into 9 and then off through 10 pretty well so I didn’t push it. I think what was consistently the most fun section for me was turn 5A/5B and through the kink down into 6. 5A goes uphill with a very tight turn-in and the has a very short chute where you let the car unwind out to the left before coming back hard right across the apex of 5B, where then you can get back to the throttle all the way down to the braking zone for 6.  Did I mention that’s a blast!!??!!!  Cause it is. Oh yeah, I passed Joe on this session too!

As I mentioned, I was tired & sore at the end of that 3rd open lapping session and as much as I loved driving it, decided that it would be better if I skipped driving the Z06 for the final session.  After the break & debrief we headed back out to the cars one last time and I chose the Callaway instead.  The Callaway Vette is based on the standard C6 so you get that extra bit of roof height back, but it also has a Recaro seat which is much lower than the stock seats.  While with its high lateral supports it’s something of a challenge for ingress and egress(especially wearing a helmet!), but you can get a very good driving position and you sure as heck aren’t going anywhere side-to-side-in that seat!

Callaway Corvette Interior

For this last session they wanted us to take it easier, concentrate on the skills we’d be learning, hit our marks, “make it perfect.”  They told us to do laps at approximately 70% to help with that.  So while I didn’t get to really unwind and push the Callaway I still was pushing it up to 90 on the back straight and had a chance to wind out that supercharger a bit.  It’s an impressive vehicle and there’s no doubt that supercharger power is addictive, but I still would rather have the Z06 for its handling and bottom end grunt.  As always seems to happen with great trips like this, it seemed like we blinked and it was over, with the checkered flag flying on the front stretch telling us to back it down, do a cool down lap and head into the paddock.

We gathered back at the classroom so the sales people could have one last shot at us (membership, Level 2, etc) and present our completion certificates and a very nice 8×10 class photo.. that I still need to scan so I can post! After that it was saying our thanks and goodbyes and then back across 160 to Vegas.

We were pretty damn tired after the open lapping sessions but decided that we weren’t going to just sit in the room for our last night in Vegas, so we grabbed the shuttle from the timeshare down to Stratosphere. We had dinner at their Top of the World restaurant, which is about 800′ above the street. The food was pretty good, but of course you were paying for the view more than the price.  Still it was a nice relaxing dinner and we had excellent service. Then we went up to the observation decks and took in the views and shook our heads at the people who think that hanging 900′ in the air off a mechanical ride is fun! After the big dinner and just being plain wiped out we decided to call it a night after that, had a beer at a bar downstairs to kill a few minutes waiting for the shuttle and headed back to Tahiti.

The Strip at Night

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Did you think these posts were ever going to end?  I was starting to wonder about it myself, but here we are, at the end.  The flights home (connect via Phoenix) were unremarkable, which I guess is remarkable in and of itself, especially since we arrived 15 minutes early in Philly and our bags were out in decent time. To end it up I’m going to do the thank yous again.  Thanks to all the staff at Spring Mountain for an absolutely awesome 3 days - Jordan, Victor, Barry (go Tony!), Justin, Melinda, Amy and the folks who’s names I’ve forgotten or never had a chance to get.  You guys do a great job and I will talk you up at every opportunity. Also thanks to my sister-in-law Natalie for not immediately dismissing this trip as a ridiculous idea when I suggested it as a 40th birthday gift for Joe. Perhaps it was a more than a little bit self-serving suggestion but I know that Joe enjoyed the trip every bit as much as I did.  And now he won’t drive my car like a wuss any more!

Heading West on Highway 160 on the Vegas side

How's that for a desert road, Biggi?

We got settled into the common area with cups of coffee, chatting with Renee and her husband Bill as well as our instructor Jordan.  We were supposed to have a 4th student and were waiting, and waiting, and then a radio call came in to Jordan that he would not be joining us. He had been struggling to get the car going with the clutch on Monday as it had been a long time since he’d driven a manual and I guess he decided it was just too frustrating. It was really a shame he gave up, because that is the perfect environment to practice.  The C6 is tough to get moving SMOOTHLY because of the torque so it can easily frustrate you, but the torque is actually your friend in getting the car moving.  On the first day the instructors demonstrated this by having us get the cars moving on a level surface by simply letting out the clutch without touching the gas. If you go nice & easy at the grab-point the car will just glide forward. But apparently the frustration factor was too high for this gentleman to deal with and enjoy himself, so we moved on without him.

That left Jordan, and Tuesday’s instructor du jour Barry(that’s a joke you guys, having a different second instructor each day was actually pretty cool as it gave you additional perspectives, even if Barry is a Tony hater) to deal with just Renee, Joe and me.  It was practically private instruction and made for a relaxed environment to learn in. You’ll be relieved to learn, dear reader, that the postings for the next two days aren’t likely to be as long as the post from Day 1, but that’s not because we did any less, it’s just because we would be learning fewer new skills and therefore fewer exercises to describe.  Instead we would be mostly applying those previous lessons and trying to improve on those skills by doing laps, mostly in Lead/Follow sessions on this day.

Before we get to the day’s events, here are a few pics of the stable we had the pleasure of choosing from.

The Stable

The Morning's Lineup

We got in the cars and headed out to the backstretch to start the day with more heel-toe practice.  There’s no such thing as too much practice with this, the more you do it the more natural it becomes and therefore the less you have to think about it. Brake-Clutch-Neutral-Blip-Select-Release.  The Brake/Clutch/Neutral begins to happen as a single action the more you do it, but the blip, select and release are individual steps.  We got ride-alongs from the instructors who helped us with technique and tips and who approved each of us to move along.

The next step was a pair of Lead/Follow sessions, this time working in 4-3 shifts.  The 2 points along the track where we were to work on shift were the entrances to turns 3 and 7. At turn 3 you’re coming up the hill and need to get the shift finished before you turn in where you REALLY go uphill. This is a turn where if you mess up the shift you can really get yourself into trouble because it is a tight turn and uphill and if you get engine braking going up that hill because you didn’t get your shift done in time, you’re going to loop it and wind up in the gravel.  That is, assuming you’ve slowed down enough to even get that far!  But it’s actually a fun turn because if you hit the apex and exit it will lead you perfectly into the chicane so you can setup for the tight turn 4. The shift heading into 7 I found to be much easier because to me it seems like you have more time.  You come through the kink and keep it wide right to enter turn 6, which you make into one big sweep heading down into 7.  It’s a long run down to that entry, so that’s when you get your shift done.  Turn 7 is the most important turn on the track because it leads into the fast section.  The more speed you can carry through turn 7 lets you go down that 1850′ straight with more speed.

2.2 Mile Track Map

We did our first Lead/Follow session and then headed back to take a break and review things.  Barry presented a lesson in cornering technique and we had a good discussion afterwards.  We also found out that Kyle Busch sent Barry off on his biggest shunt by diving under two cars up onto curbing, which didn’t end well, pushing the 2 cars out, clipping Barry as he came into the corner and sending him off and tumbling end over end.  Yet Barry still seemed to like Kyle, while not liking Tony because he’s a bully and “is good enough that he doesn’t need to be.”  Race drivers, go figure!

We headed out for our second Lead/Follow session and what I have avoided mentioning until now started to become a problem, well at least it became one in my mind and we know I’m an impatient bitch. Renee was not running as fast as Joe & I were, and should you manage to come across my post here Renee, please don’t take what I’m saying as criticism or mean-spirited because that is not my feeling or intent.  Everybody has to go at their own pace and be comfortable in order to learn, I understand that and had absolutely no problem with Renee running a pace she was comfortable running.  When it became a problem, and my limited patience was tested,  was during that second Lead/Follow.  Any time Renee was ahead of us but not directly behind the instructor the pace was much slower than I would have preferred and I began to feel like it was keeping me from progressing. Jordan & Barry recognized it as well and for the afternoon sessions had Barry ride with Renee in the afternoon sessions while Joe & I did the sessions following Jordan. So a tip of the hat and thanks to them both for keeping my frustration from getting the better of what little common sense I possess!

After the second Lead/Follow it was the instructors turn to throw the cars around. We each got a ride-along with either Jordan or Barry. My ride was with Barry, Joe with Jordan just ahead of us. They said they were going about 80% and it was a fun ride.  Barry was giving a running commentary and it again was very instructive for learning the line and braking zones. It also was instructive about how much more work I needed on heel-toe as other than hearing the STRONG blip you would never know he’d done something.  Barry did miss the apex through 4 one time while concentrating a bit too much on showing me something rather than the turn he was making.  That of course didn’t mean that I cut the Tony-hater any slack, so therefore I outed him to Jordan later in the debrief! After the demo rides it was time for lunch break.  Day 2’s lunch was burgers and dogs, good stuff again.

After lunch we headed over to the skid pad again, this time for a rather interesting exercise.  I had heard about it on Corvette Forum but it was still cool to experience.  They had cones laid out around which we had to run a serpentine pattern. OK, sounds easy enough, right?  Well this was another exercise in keeping your eyes up and what they wanted us to do was to look at a pair of white temporary shelters that was at the far end of the layout at all times.  So you had to turn based on when you spotted the cones in your peripheral vision. After a couple of runs at it to get the hang of it, they added an extra twist - the put sunshields in to cover the windshield so you HAD to use the side windows for your vision, no choice but to turn your head and look around. That sounds difficult, but actually after having run the serpentine a few times before they did that, it wasn’t really any different to run it with the windshield blocked and turned out to be pretty easy.  After that they wanted to prove a point about going fast.  They told us to go as FAST as we could around the cones, and they reached in and turned off traction control and active handling.  I was first and I got the car a little sideways, but obviously not hard enough for Jordan because the taunting over the radio began - “I said go FAST!  Do I have to send your brother out after you??”  Boy did he know the button to push!!  Next time through the rotation he had Barry give a demo with Renee riding shotgun. Barry just about did a constant drift back & forth around the cones, he said later it had been a long time since he’d done the demo so he didn’t get the car as sideways as he would have liked.  OK, so my turn again and Jordan comes on the radio and says “OK guys, we don’t pay for tires.  Get it?”  Got it. I did manage to get a good slide or two, but there’s an art to getting the back end to come around the way you want it to, and I apparently was putting in too much steering before I got into the throttle and that induces understeer.  Regardless it was fun to spin the wheels, throw the car around and make a little smoke.  It did also prove the point that you ain’t gonna go fast just by mashing the go pedal.

The day ended with two more Lead/Follow sessions, continuing to work on all the skills we’d been taught - visual scanning (eyes up, eyes up!!!!), heel-toe, hitting the apexes, learning the braking zones, etc. By the end of the day I was feeling pretty good about getting the car around the track, but still was feeling uncertain about heel-toe, still having to think about it too much. Joe was pretty comfortable with it and was trying to work in some of the optional shifts as well.  When the sessions were over and the day ended we headed over to the clubhouse and took a bunch of pictures, including head up to the top of the member observation tower and getting some pics from up top. Great view up there and you can see all of the pics in the photo gallery.

We headed back into Vegas and decided we would finish off the day with a good steak dinner. We took the shuttle down to New York New York and walked over to Luxor. Amazingly we weren’t presented with a single card for a strip joint! We had a very good dinner at the Tender Steak & Seafood in the Luxor.  Our waiter heard us talking about the racing school and was clearly amazed and interested because he was a pretty big guy himself and figured if WE could fit in those cars then he could too! Thanks for the great service Dewayne, though we do wish you had warned us how many tomatoes came with that salad plate!  Hope maybe some day you decide to go to Spring Mountain and have as much fun as we did.

After dinner we walked back to NYNY and fed the $100 bills our dad had given to each of us into dollar slot machines and made the money disappear.  Joe was up $58 at one point, but our dad would have been disappointed if he didn’t keep going, so he did, and lost all of it! Mine was far less dramatic and disappeared in short order.  We grabbed the shuttle bus back to Tahiti to get some sleep and be ready for open lapping on Day 3!

And I guess my promise to keep this one shorter than Day 1 was broken, oh well!

After a drive across the desert on Highway 160 (last gas for 40 miles!) that had gorgeous scenery we arrived at Spring Mountain Motorsports Ranch.  Wouldn’t it have been cool if that picture had been taken just as we arrived? Well since I forgot my camera back at the time share that wasn’t possible (ok, you done now? Good, let’s move on).  You cross the front straight as you pull into the facility, which is kinda strange the first time when you haven’t seen how they work their gate system.  We parked out front and headed inside to sign our lives away, pretty much literally, and acknowledge the $8000 damage deductible on the insurance included with the school package. You can pony up another $200 to take care of most of that, but we were feeling confident so opted against that.  The course we were taking is the Level 1 3-Day Corvette Program.

After meeting the group, 7 of us on the first day, our instructor Jordan gave us an overview of what we’d be doing over the 3 days.  2 of the folks in the group were there for only the 1 day “Corvette Performance Highlights” class.  One guy (Sal) had been riding a motorcyle at a track day there over the weekend and since he was thinking about buying a Vette decided to hang around and take the 1 day.  The other 1 day guy (Danny) was in Vegas with his wife and while she was at a conference he decided to head on down to Pahrump. An employee of the facility, Mitch, was also taking the 1 day because he had some projects coming up for the company and needed some first hand experience.

After that introduction it was right to the cars! My first ride was a silver Z06, though for the upcoming exercise I really didn’t get to take advantage of the differences between it and a standard C6, that would come on Wednesday(cue the dramatic music) and frankly at that moment I wouldn’t have been able to appreciate the differences anyway. If I remember correctly Joe got a yellow C6. They took us over to the skid pad where they had a braking exercise setup. They start you off with the ABS fuse pulled, which disables ALL of the computer assists so we had raw, 430-505hp rides under us. The first exercise was to get the car to 35mph and when you got to a pair of cones hit the brakes and bring the car to a stop.  Here’s where it gets interesting though - the skid pad has a special, very slippery sealer on it, and they were standing there with a fire hose and had wet down the braking zone. The idea was to “threshold” brake, get the wheels up to lock and then release, modulating them to keep them as close to lock as you could but not keep them locked and bring the car to a halt. OK, so we did that a couple of times, and then they wanted us to come down at 35 again and this time just pound on the brakes and lock ‘em up, trying to get a 4-wheel lock immediately.  Joe got it first time, took me a second try as instinct kept me from really hammering on them the first time.  Even on a wet, slippery surface with the wheels locked down the Vettes come to a stop very quickly. I took this lousy cell phone camera pic while waiting my turn, since I neglected to bring along the real thing(would you PLEASE let it go).

They got us out of the cars and after a quick break they explained what they wanted us to do next. This time we’d again come down at 35 and hit 4 wheel lock, but when we hit the brakes we were also to put in a quarter turn of steering to the right, then when instinct told us it was time, release the brakes, let the car catch and make the lane change between the rows of cones and then bring the car to a complete stop in the right lane. This was VERY cool and again it was amazing how quickly the Vettes would catch and turn on that surface after you released the brakes, make the lane change and then come to a controlled stop. After a few shots at that, all of them successful on Joe’s and my parts I’ll have you know, we pulled the cars back over and this time they put in the fuses and life became much easier as we had full ABS, traction control and active handling on our sides. The next time through the cones was lane change again, but no preset steering input, no release of the brakes and you wouldn’t know whether to turn left, right or keep straight on until you got to the cones when Victor (another instructor) standing at the far end would point you where to go.  The purpose of the pointing was to begin to hammer in their visual scanning technique - get your head up and eyes off the road directly in front of the car, you know where you are, look where you’re going next.  We did this one quite a few times and they would have us bump up the speed until on the last runs we were doing 50 when we stomped on the brakes.

<The LazyAssGeek Steps up onto the soapbox>On the debrief for this exercise they were quite forceful in suggesting we show this exercise to other people.  ABS is great, but if you don’t use it properly it can’t help you.  The purpose behind 4 wheel locking was to teach us to give the ABS a “high initial impact” so the system would immediately know you need help.  From there the key is to KEEP YOUR FOOT ON THE BRAKE as long as you need to, do NOT let off the brake if you have ABS and you feel that hammering.  Removing your foot tells the computer you don’t need it any more, and when you put your foot back on the computer starts the process over. A lot of us were taught to pump the brakes if you felt the wheels lock, but ABS is way better at it, so use it!! </soapbox>

After the braking debrief it was onto learning heel-toe shifting.  Wow, ya know when people say that something isn’t as it seem?  Heel-toe is every bit as hard as it seems.  You’re working 3 pedals with 2 feet.  I won’t go into a long description as there’s tons of stuff on the web about it. If you have no idea what I’m talking about, watch this vid and at about the 13 second and 28 second marks you’ll see the driver pivot his foot from the brake to clip the throttle with his heel while he’s holding the clutch in.  The idea of doing this is to bring the RPM’s up so that when you release the clutch you get a smooth shift so you don’t get braking to the rear wheels induced by engine compression.  If you don’t do this and you release the clutch when the car ain’t in a straight line it’s very easy to spin the car!  So after giving us the theory we went out to the 5/8 mile long backstretch where they have cones setup.  From there we ran a loop back & forth, using cones at the far ends as markers for where to begin braking.  First just braking to get a feel for how much brake pressure we needed to bring the car down to 20mph by the last cone, then try to get that “blip” of the throttle.  Mind you, a “blip” is anything over 3000 and under 5500rpm so it’s a damn hard blip.  Anything under 3000 is a blurp.  We all did a lot of blurping but started to get the feel.  I struggled more with this than Joe seemed to, but then he has those clown feet so I’m pretty sure he could work all 3 pedals with one foot if he needed to!  After that exercise and a short debrief they let us go have some lunch.  They include the lunches and lay out a pretty nice spread each day, Monday was the typical deli tray, but not bad at all.

After lunch we got a tour of the clubhouse.  Everything there is practically new and the clubhouse is less than a year old.  It’s VERY nice, though much more relaxed than your typical Philly country club.  They have a great pool and grill area and an observation tower where members can watch races, complete with misters for the hot Nevada racedays.  Quite a few pics in the full gallery, but here are a couple of highlights.

After the tour we got a briefing on Lead/Follow sessions.  They run as a train and everybody gets a turn behind the instructor.  We broke into 2 groups so it wasn’t very difficult when they called a change on the back straight to count the number of cars and fall to the back of the group. The laps were in 4th gear, no shifts and at a fairly easy pace.  The idea was to show us the proper line around the track, see where the instructor uses the brakes and keep thinking about what we’d been taught, using visual scanning, etc. It was fun finding the line and beginning to feel like you were running the track.

After that session we headed up to another big patch of asphalt over by the skid pad.  On this pad were a paperclip oval on one end and on the other was a rather modified Dodge Stratus.  Victor had us for the oval, riding shotgun while we drove.  The oval was to teach cornering, each end having different shapes and really it was more of a tri-oval so you were setting up for 3 corners every time around.  Victor would have you pick up speed bit by bit until you finally were getting the car a little sideways(TC off again). It was a good exercise in picking up corner entries & exits.  That Dodge Stratus however.. that’s a bizarre little thing.  Mounted at each corner are hydraulically controlled wheels that can be raised & lowered from controls in the passenger seat to induce under- or oversteer. They referred to it as the “Vomit Comet” as the back seat ride is a recipe for motion sickness. I was first up with Joe & Renee riding in the back.  You just do a figure 8 around cones placed at each end.  The whole time Jordan is preaching visual scanning, get your eyes out from in front of the car and look where you want to go, not where you are.  A couple of circuits around to get a feel and then he starts pressing buttons.  First up is understeer, push in NASCAR terms. Turns out that is very counter-intuitive to get out of.  As you turn and the car stops wanting to go the way you do you have to turn INTO the understeer and come OFF the brakes(without ABS anyway). Oversteer is more natural to correct for, countersteer and gas it.  It’s also a wild ride when that back end starts to come around and Joe & I both did manage to lose it and spin it completely around - give up on it as Jordan said. After riding my turn behind the wheel I went for the ride with Joe behind the wheel and started to feel just dizzy enough that I decided one ride back there was enough. Renee was comfy as could be and claimed to be about ready to take a nap while we drove!  Both exercises were very instructive and a lot of fun.

The Vomit Comet

To end the day we did one more Lead/Follow session.  This wasn’t much different than the first one, maybe just a bit faster.  Their program is definitely based on building blocks and they make sure you build skills before you move to the next phase.  After that we had a bit more sales schtick back in the classroom with the folks responsible for different segments (the club, the school, corporate events) taking a minute to make a pitch.  Then certificates were given to the 2 guys that would not be with us the rest of the way. Instead of a certificate, Mitch the employee got to leave to head to Detroit along with Anthony (sales guy who we booked our class through) to pick up the 2 ZR-1’s they managed to get their hands on and drive them back to Pahrump.  Poor guy, I’m sure he would have preferred a certificate.

That was it for Day 1 and wow were we tired! Joe & I chatted back & forth about the day the whole way home, and it really helped to try to absorb everything that had been tossed our way. We had a few beers when we got back to the room and decided we were too tired to face the idea of getting on the shuttle to head into town.  The alarms were set for 5:30am so Papa John’s sounded like a good way to refuel for the next day.  Some pizza, a couple more beers, handled some e-mail and off to sleep to get ready for more on Day 2!

They both are smokers and as I’m not, smoking is a no-no in my house, so when Mother Nature is dumping rain on us they are forced into my garage for their fix. I am somewhat more…. relaxed than they are regarding clutter.  I can’t stand dirty, but clutter?  No problem for me, but for them….. So standing in my garage this summer has been slow torture. I also know that doing something as a thank you for all the time they’ve spent at my house factors in there somewhere, regardless of the fact that to my mind it’s not necessary.  However if I were in their shoes even knowing that they would feel the same way, I’d feel like I needed to do something as well so there’s only so much I can argue it. Now that I’ve finished typing myself into that corner, onto the details…

Pictures being worth more words than even I can manage… the before.

The Disaster that Was

Andy spent the better part of 2 days working in there.  Tons of crap thrown away, a couple of trips to the hardware store and Wal-Mart for organizing supplies, a lot of sweat and more than a few beers later…

Overhauled!

It’s hard to really capture in pics just how big the difference is because you can’t get the full perspective. Won’t stop me from posting them, of course.

After, the Lift Side

Taking in the complete project on Sunday, I remembered I had a couple of posters/decals that would now look good in there, so we had to hang them.  And after all, what post of mine would be complete without a couple of gratuitous shots of the Vettes?

Check Out the C6 Banner on the Far Wall

Some Might Think it's Sacrilege to Hang a NASCAR Banner There

To answer the question you have in your head, yes it does still look like that and I’ve even done an oil change and a stereo project!  Honestly I’m afraid Andy will kick my ass if I let it get messy at all, so I put everything away now when I’m finished.

So thank you my friend, you did an amazing job. That it was above and beyond I have absolutely no doubt and that it was as appreciated as it was over the top YOU should not doubt.

Silver

Gray

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