Today was my rally car driving experience at Rockton Fair Grounds with Crazy Leo and I had an excellent time. They were well organized and on time. The first part of my day was the “Arrive and Drive”. There were 2 cars available a standard and an automatic. The standard, which I chose, was a Suburu WRX Turbo.
A word about the track conditions. They were extremely challenging, no snow cover, deep ruts, puddles and patches of sheer ice.
The Arrive and Drive package consisted of 2 orientation laps, the first with Leo driving and the second with me driving. We both had boom mikes and speakers in our helmets so we could communicate. Leo gave a very good commentary describing the line and, more importantly, where to deviate from the line according to conditions.
After the two orientation laps, the basic package included one “hot” lap and I had bought two more. The idea being for me to drive as fast as I felt comfortable doing, following the correct line and getting faster each lap as I absorbed the tips Leo provided gave me as we went round the course. My best time was 2 minutes 22 seconds, which, when I looked at the times set by the drivers who participated in the lapping event in the morning, was middle of the pack. Not bad for a novice.
At the end of the runs Leo took a couple of minutes to give me some pointers and gave me a couple of take aways to practice. Great experience.
The second part of the day was “Ride Shotgun with Crazy Leo”. We got in his car, a Subaru that was stripped to the metal, full roll cage, racing seats with 6 point harnesses…and away we went. This was driving of a different order of magnitude. His time was nearly 20 seconds faster than my best time and that was in spite of getting sideways near the end. Once again he gave an excellent commentary and that included where he made an error.
The whole day was great fun. I learned a lot about car handling and the proper techniques in very dicey conditions. I would certainly recommend checking it out
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