Last weekend (9-10 July 1994) I got to get my '94 MR2 Turbo (absolutely stock except for BFG R1s and a harness -- not even shocks, yet!) out at Road America with the TrackTime driving school. I had been there previously, but this was the first for my MR2. It was really a blast! Road America is a 4 mile, 14 turn road course near Elkhart Lake, Wisconsin. The Indy cars will be there next month, I believe. TrackTime is a "performance driving school", specifically not a "racing school" (for insurance reasons, at least) and they have schools at tracks around most of the country. Their program consists of classroom and in-car instruction.
On Saturday, I was getting used to things and pushed a little too hard a couple of times. First, on entry to turn 13, I apparently dropped a wheel off right before turning in. This put the car into a slide, but it didn't go around. This turn is under a bridge, and visions of backing into the bridge support filled my mind as I tried to assert some control over the car while things were happening awfully fast. This provided a bit of excitement, but thankfully not enough to even slow down too much. The other bit of excitement was going into turn one at the end of the *long* front straight. I had been thinking that I was lifting and drifting before getting onto the brakes and losing time there. So, I thought I'd push it a little more next time around. Unfortunately, I pushed it a little too much and ended up just giving up the corner and standing on the brakes until very late into the turn. OK, so now I know that the proper braking point is somewhere between these two points!
Second session on Saturday, it started raining just after getting onto the track. So, I learned the rain line. Nothing too remarkable this time, but also not too much speed either. I was interested to see how the R1s would do in the rain, and they actually did quite well. There wasn't much standing water on the track, but there were puddles everywhere. I had learned my lesson previously about smoothness getting onto the throttle coming out of a corner, and didn't repeat this again.
Third session on Saturday had the track drying, but still just a little damp. My instructor had signed off and I did this session solo, but there was little to say about it. I did see quite a few cars off the track, though, so there was frequently a yellow flag somewhere on the track.
Sunday was clear and I got three good sessions in. A friend was timing my laps and I was getting very close to breaking 3 minutes. On Saturday, I had been around 3:10 the first and third sessions. For reference, the Indy Cars normally run around 1:45. Anyhow, during the first session, I had one clean lap where I hit most of the corners the best I had yet. This turned out to be 3:00.44. Missed it by that much!
The second session I was out near the start of the field, and the second lap was entirely clear (passing is only during 6 passing zones and by point passing only, so coming up on a slower car can dirty an otherwise good lap time). It also turned out to be the fastest, but at 3:00.48! Sill, all of the times were pretty consistently between 3:00 and 3:05, so it looked OK.
On the third and final session, I didn't have a single lap where I wasn't passing somebody, so I figured that my hopes of breaking 3 minutes would just have to wait. It turns out, however, that my fifth lap came in at 2:58.65! I know that this is just a number, but it sure feels significant to me. This is an average speed of almost 85mph, but I was hitting 120 down the back straight going into turn 5, which is about a 45mph corner. It's well known to really test brakes there! I was reaching 115 on the front straight and kettle bottoms as well, so there was a lot of acceleration and deceleration going around the course. There's also a fair amount of elevation change as well. The Indy Cars have a hard time making 1.8 miles per gallon at Road America. My MR2 made about 9.
My car's safe back at home now, ready for an oil change and brake fluid change (the pedal's a little soft now, so I guess I boiled the brake fluid just a little bit), and I'm replaying the in-car video. This was fun!!
marcus hall '94 MR2T - Solar Yellow!