May 1 - Track Day

My wife and I had a deal. I would spend a Saturday morning doing her stuff, and she would spend a Saturday morning doing mine. That meant that I would do a morning of yoga. Less OMG and more om. In return, She Who Must Be Obeyed would do a morning's track day with me. Most observers felt that I had the better end of the deal. The yoga session was mostly bearable - I cycle regularly, so I am fairly fit. I wasn't so fond of the home made physics and physiology ("Now, I want you all to close your eyes to conserve energy...energy leaves the body through the eyes!") but the rest of the morning was OK.

May 1 was payback time. I drove Blossom to Killarney and SWMBO and my 6 year old son followed in her car. WPMC track days are run to simple rules - drivers split themselves into fast, medium and slow groups. The different groups aren't really split by speed at all, but by rules of engagement. In the slow group, no overtaking from the moment the car in front's brake lights go on. In the medium group, outbraking is allowed, but cars must drive single file through corners. In the fast group race rules apply.

My son loves doing track time, despite the fact he is too small to see over the scuttle. He insisted on going out first. We joined the slow group. Behind us was my friend Alan in his near new Elise SC. I was to show Alan my lines around the track. All went well until a Ferrari came roaring past us. Naturally I had to hare off after it, and fairly quickly caught up, at which point the Ferrari let us past and off we went, my ego fairly out of control.

SWMBO did not much enjoy her track outing. I started out slowly and built up speed over two laps or so. We went past a number of cars, and towards the end of the session caught up with a Porsche GT3. As we were in the slow group, I was not allowed to outbrake the Porker, and the Porker would not pull over to let us past. At every corner exit Stuttgart's finest would power away from us, and at the end of every straight, we'd be right back with them.

"How was it?" somebody asked her.

"Dreadful. Ghastly. Just fucking awful!" was her reply.

"But why?"

"It's loud, windy, too close to the ground, there's no side protection, the seat's uncomfortable and James drives like a maniac. He goes too close to the edge of the track and too close to the car in front!"

So, a fun day out for me and my son, less so for SWMBO. But there was worse to come. A morning of monstering Porsches and Ferraris left me complacent and over-confident for the next race meeting...