After a few spins and some coaching from the Skip Barber guys on recovery, it was off to the Off Road course. Here we had new Rams, Dakotas, and Durangos to go play with. Some rough terrain set up just for us, including some larger hills bulldozed into place just for this event (figure a bulldozer rental in your VOI calculations). Very nicely done:
After running the terrain for a while, it was on to smoother pastures - the track! Now this was a set up that was challenging and very fast at times. You were able to use 3/4's of the large high-speed oval before coming down into the infield road course. Figure speeds of 130-140 on the front stretch, as shown by Kansas City's Matthew Howell:
I got out there and had a decent time. Like Slaughter said in an earlier post, it was a little bit underwhelming when the instructor would grab the steering wheel to let somebody pass. At one point I was tempted to just drop my hands and work the pedals only. Undoubtedly it was because there are numerous amateurs mixed in with the professionals, which I understand. Still, I had no problem handing the car over to Joel after just one session. Joel had no such apprehensions and went back for more. Three sessions in all! Here he is in one GORGEOUS GTS taking the track (note that great banked oval in the background, open for Vipers)...
After entering the track, you ended up coming into the road course portion of the run. One of the more interesting aspects was the abrupt change when you went from the banked oval to the flat track - and vice-versa. This caused more than a couple folks to spin out, with no damage that I know of other than some flat-spotted tires. Here is Joel again, this time making the first turns of the road course:
Back on the oval, he was really enjoying himself and nailing some great speeds:
Of course, while I was a tad partial to this car, I did manage to shoot some pictures of some of the other cars out there:
And even if red isn't your favorite color, this is a nice shot:
(continued)