Nope that’s not me, and that’s not my M Coupe. My parents came for a visit over the past couple weeks, two weeks ago we attended the ALMS and WEC races at COTA. This past weekend we went up to Texas World Speedway for a couple of track days with The Driver’s Edge. This was the first opportunity my folks have had to see exactly what all this track mess was about. I’m not sure what they were expecting, but I think they were pleasantly surprised at the organization, people, and quality/variety of cars that show up. My father attended the Saturday event with me, leaving the house in the dark at 0500 to make it to College Station for registration. The weather outlook for the weekend was pretty bleak, calling for rain on and off both days. The first session was pouring, resulting in very low speeds and nearly no passing, single file traffic. My instructor, James, suggested running the dry line in anticipation of it drying out. Fortunately it did, and I was better prepared for it. The lap times kept coming down as the track dried. In my third run I had one minor off track incident, where I came up on slower traffic way too quickly, driving the normal line and putting myself right up the rear of a Mustang. I was forced to go wide into the grass, fortunately it wasn’t too water logged, and I was able to drive straight and back on the track. (Check my Driver’s Logbook for videos)
Later in the day I convinced my father to take a charity ride, which are simply rides with instructors for non-participants, paying $25 towards a charity. He’s an old Army pilot, so I figured he could hang, but he didn’t look so well after getting back, insisting that I not let my mother take a ride the next day. One positive, he was able to take a ride in an M Coupe similar to mine, though the driver really knew what he was doing and was easily hanging with much quicker cars. I tried to see if my father would take another ride, but he wasn’t up to it! I did hand him the keys for the parade lap over lunch, unfortunately the sky opened up on us. At the end of the day my instructor asked if I felt comfortable solo’ing the next day, and of course I said yes! The next day my mother went with me to the track, the weather was more of the same. I solo’d on my second and fourth sessions, it was nice to drive the track alone, and I ended up putting down my best time ever in the fourth session. I even took my mother out on the slalom course to see how she would handle it prior to possibly doing a charity ride… yeah that didn’t happen. All in all, despite the weather, it was an excellent event. I haven’t been disappointed by The Driver’s Edge and TWS CCW has grown on me, of course my last time there resulted in near-heat stroke.
at 18:00
That’s awesome your parents came out with you!