Observations From My First Track Weekend

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After spending my first weekend at the track, I thought I would provide some insights into some of the interesting and unexpected things you may not know going into your first weekend at the track. But first the obvious, it was amazing and I can’t wait until I get back to the track as soon as possible.

1 You have to pack lots of stuff: While I didn’t use half the stuff I brought with me, I was prepared to work on my car with all the tools I needed. With rain expected I brought a tent (that blew away), a folding chair for down time, a cooler with food and drinks and a backpack to hold my personal items while I was out on the track. You can pack a good bit in the M2 which makes it a great daily driver to take to the track.

2 The novice group is fun too: Between the green wrist band and green sticker on my car, it was easy to identify me as a novice. I was under the impression that our sessions would be relatively tame with little to no passing. This was far from the truth. I could push the car as hard as I and my instructor felt comfortable with and I passed plenty of slower cars on the track in the designate passing zones.

3 The orange X of shame: I know I wasn’t the only first timer, but I was the only car on the track to display the orange X on my rear window. This was to tell other cars coming up behind me that I am new at this and to be extra cautious when passing. I can only imagine that others were ashamed to display their first timer status, but the idea behind HPDE weekends is to go home with you and your car in one piece after a weekend of hard driving.

4 The paddock is fun: I made some new friends with the guys who were parked around me in the paddock. Most of us happened to be in the novice group together. Everyone is super friendly and happy to talk about their cars and experiences. We had Duluth PD next to us as they use events at AMP as an opportunity to give their officers high speed driver training. It was really fun to get to go flying by the police out on the track!

5 The car doesn’t matter: There was everything from a beat up old police issue chevy caprice to a brand new race prepped M2 running in the various skill level groups. The car doesn’t matter nearly as much as the driver. At the beginning of the weekend I was getting passed by Mazda Miatas and by the end I was passing a Porsche 911 GT3. We all drive at our own comfort/skill level and try not to get in the way of anyone else’s fun while on the track.

Bottom line is, if you are remotely considering going to the track, take what ever car you have and sign up for a weekend. You will have a blast!

Weather Breaks For Day 2 At AMP

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It was great to see the sun on my way to Atlanta Motorsports Park for day 2 of my Just Track It weekend after it rained most of the day before. The rain made for a good first track day, but I was ready to see what my M2 and I could do on a dry track. Being familiar with the sign in process, where to park, how to setup my car and seeing some new friends in the paddock made day 2 a bit easier.

After our driver’s meeting and the first novice class session, I was excited and not anxious to hit the track. Shortly after our two yellow flag laps to warm up our cars one of the drivers in our group went off the track and our session got black flagged. After a day of rain and witnessing an unfortunate red flag incident, Sunday wasn’t starting off much better!

The second session of the day finally provided me with a dry track and no drama. My instructor started working me through some of the finer points of driving my car around the track at pace. I worked on keeping my inputs smooth with a nice transition from braking before a turn, steering through the corner and easing on the power coming onto a straight.

I was really starting to get a good feel for what my car could do and knew the track well enough to push hard during the 3rd session. By the end of the I was trying to reel in my paddock mate, Michael in his tuned up Lexus IF. We ran out of time before I could pass him and almost went blowing by him after the checkered flag.

Session 4 was one of my better sessions of the weekend. I nailed several of the technical sections of AMP that had been giving me fits earlier in the weekend. I also managed to get through some slower traffic and felt like I had the track to myself for much of this session. With no traffic in the way, I could lay down some pretty consistent lap times.

The last session of the weekend is notorious for mistakes and I am no exception. I was pushing the car to get the most out of my last opportunity and worn out from 2 days of track driving. When a faster car came up behind me, I concentrated more on giving them a point by and not enough on my line. My two outside tires just barely went off track so I had to pit. Add this to a black flag session for our group, seeing the cause of a red flag in the advanced group and a wide variety of weather conditions to my learning experiences this weekend.

Why Rain Made For A Good First Track Day

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As a novice you have to book a HPDE weekend well in advance to secure a spot with an instructor. COVID only complicated this as many of the car club events had restrictions from BMW or Porsche that didn’t allow for in-car instructors so they just wouldn’t have a novice group at all. This was very frustrating for someone who just bought an M2 to take to head to the track for the first time.

The first weekend at a track close to me was with Just Track It at Atlanta Motorsports Park (AMP). As the weekend got closer it was apparent that we would have storms on Saturday. As you can imagine, I was already nervous about my first ever track day and pushing a new to me car to its limits. Then you throw pouring down rain on top of it and my heart was racing way before I got in the car or on the track!

AMP is a very technical track with a lot of blind and off-camber corners along with steep elevation changes. The final turn at 16 onto the main straight is deceptively hard to get just right and was the topic of many emails, drivers meetings and novice classrooms prior to our first session. My instructor reached out prior as well and started to put my mind at ease by planting the seed in my head that rain provided a good learning opportunity.

The rain was more like a down pour as we lined up for our first session and I was anticipating sliding all over the track. That didn’t happen! The first two laps of the day are always under caution so you can warm up your car, tires and mind. I was surprised how well the car did in the wet. The focus was on learning the track more than driving fast and rain meant that no one was pushing very hard behind you.

Being smooth with your inputs is important on any track, but in the rain mistakes with turning angle, throttle input or brake force are amplified. So the heavy rainfall forced me to pay close attention to the little details that the boy racer in me would have ignored and just put my foot in the floor to go fast in dry conditions.

The rain let up after lunch and our last two sessions provided us with a drying track. It was like the rain acted as a governor and each session we got to go a little fast and push the car a bit more. This incremental increase in performance allowed you to really start to nail the tough sections of the track and set us up for some great runs on Sunday.