Evolution School

[autxr]

Well, we took the GTS out to the Phase 1 school yesterday (Sally did it). The repaired car drove fine and held up fine.

There were 7th gen Celica's out. Our GTS, Charles' and Donna's GT (pitcrew) and Keath's GT. All of the GT drivers showed some great improvement, with Donna consistently upping her limits in the car and getting very comfortable driving it, and Charles and Keath both learning to finesse theirs around a bit more.

GH Sharpe was also there with his GT (but didn't drive it).

I was crew chief for the day with Sally driving, she did well, and GH made her start working on some throttle control (something that I've chosen not to harp on up to this point), so Sally is starting to be nicer to the inside tire in turns.

I think all of the GT drivers are out there again today doing Phase 2 of the school, and I know Charles and Donna will be back next weekend for Phase 3 (I'll be doing Phase 1 next weekend).

The Kuhmo Ecsta V700's are holding up pretty well, though it was cold out. The front got pretty hot, the rears never did. I'll run one more weekend then think about getting them flipped. They look like they are starting to wear down enough they are wearing evenly (the rather large squirmy tread blocks were cupping at full tread).

If I ever buy them again, it will be shaved, unless I want a dedicated rain tire.

Charles has a very nice little set up for accessing the rear adjusters, a little trimming of plastic here and there yielded a beautiful finished product. his craftsman background certainly shows!

Bout it to report from here, Sally bounced back nicely from her last incident, she was consistent (and consistently fast) all day. G. H. babied the car when he drove it, over a second behind Sally's best. Tim Aro had no such reservations and abused the car (drove it how I would try to), turning a time within 0.1 of Sally's best.

Our car ought to be over 40,000 miles by the time I get back from Ft. Myers at the end of the month.

Scott

[afghan]

Nice Work!

[pitcrew]

We just got home from the Phase2 school. Phase 2 built upon the Phase 1 school skills to take them up a notch. We ran 6 - 10 runs on each version of a larger, faster course than yesterday. After each set of runs, they would alter the course, changing both the direction and adding cones to make the course more difficult and challenging. The first course, we were allowed to walk only twice, then drive once, with instructor riding, concentrating on looking way ahead, and setting up for features and finding fastest lines. Then you drove while telling the instructor what you were looking at and thinking about through the run. The instructor then drove 2 times, verbalizing what he was seeing. Then he drove while you told him what to look at and where to drive. Then you drove several more runs having to describe what you were looking at etc.. They then changed the course, and without a walk through you repeated the whole exercise on the new course. This was repeated twice more with the instructor driving less each time and eventually you started to run solo, finishing with 3 runs on the final course, all solo.
It was amazing how, by the end of the day you could find the proper line and fastest way around a nearly unfamiliar course without even walking it, in one or two runs and how smooth and quick everyone was driving!
Athough no timing equipment was used in this phase, it was clear to everyone watching, students and instructors alike commenting that Driver was definitely one of the quickest and smoothest out there.
I learned a great deal about how to drive the Celica this weekend, and feel like we will both be very competitive this season. We can't wait until phase 3 next Sat, while Scott goes through phase 1, where we will be working on course analysis, an area I can greatly use the help in. Then we'll run the AX on Sun, before heading for Ft Myers on Thurs for the Pro and Tour events.

[nullsurfer]

:thumbup:
Yep. I made phase 1 and 2 (Keath's GT). It was a great experience. I will also be attending the Phase 3 next week. Hopefully tire rack will get me my new rims and tires fairly quick so I am not running on street tires this next week (I ran one of my poor beat up Kumhos to thread bare on the outer edge. I move it to the back but it really hosed me for the rest of the day. I couldn't get the rear to stick at all and it made a very nasty vibrating sound instead of just slipping a bit under hard turning.)

Keath

[CamaroFS34]

Our car ought to be over 40,000 miles by the time I get back from Ft. Myers at the end of the month. That's it, Scott? (totally tongue-in-cheek). Honestly, I think my car was the highest mileage vehicle there this weekend. It turned 210K on the way to Legends Saturday night!

I always thought Dean Sapp was just promoting the school when he would tell me that even he learned something by taking the phase 1, but I did learn some stuff. It was really hard for me to totally concentrate on the school portion because I was also worried about how things were going administratively, but I talked to Sam for a while Sunday evening, and he said I did amazingly well for someone who couldn't dedicate 100% of her mind to the task at hand. ;)

I don't know about you guys, but I was really, really nervous about participating. Tim and I are really good friends, and having him as an "instructor" was weird. Of course, we codrove for an entire year, so he knows my car (you think he thrashed your car? You should have seen what he was doing in a car he knows intimately!!), and he knows my driving, so I wasn't sure what he was going to say to me that he hadn't said before. Same thing with Sam -- we've driven each others' cars many times before, and I wasn't sure what he could say to me that I hadn't heard before. Even GH had driven my car before, so, maybe I was in the wrong school group... Oh wait. Rob Falkner, Pat Salerno and Mike Johnson have all driven/ridden with me at some point. Do you see my dilemma? ;)

The biggest thing for me was being able to practice the ever-elusive art of "looking ahead" in an environment where there was no competition. There was no "first place," and cones didn't count. Taking the competition out of it makes it easier to concentrate on what could be working for you, as opposed to what is working, even if what's working for you is only getting limited success.

I guess I'll see how much of a difference the schools really made over the next two weekends. :)

Karen