David McNett (Nugget)

Tomorrow I will have had my new car for nine months. In that time I've had it out on the autocross course four times (I think) and I've been quite happy with how it performs. Despite being heavier than the ///M was, it's infinitely more communicative which means it's much more rewarding to drive in a "brake and steer" environment like an autocross. Still -- it's no MX-5 and I've been teasing Monica that we'd just have to do a track event eventually so we'd finally be in a venue where my car was designed to be competitive.





We spent all weekend at Texas World Speedway participating in a driver's education event put on by The Driver's Edge. The event cost $295 and for that we had two full days (7am - 6pm) at the track with eight on-track heats of 25 minutes each. Works out to about three hours of track time. I put over 200 track miles on the car during the event. I don't think I could have handled any more track time than we got, and some people even skipped their last heat due to fatigue. I chose to just take it easy the last couple times I went out.

Since the event is technically a "driver's education" event, there was no competition and no lap timing. The upside of that is that your regular old auto insurance is in effect (check your policy to be sure). Novice drivers (like me) are not allowed to solo on the track, so there was always an instructor in the car with me to make sure I didn't do anything truly boneheaded.

I was expecting to really enjoy having my car out on a track -- and I did. It was beyond rewarding. The 911 is just pure bliss at track speeds. Unbelievably communicative and predictable and held up like a champ.

What I wasn't expecting was the calibre of the instruction. I'd sort of figured that the "instructors" angle was just some bullshit lip service in order to structure the event as an education event for all the insurance and liability implications. I figured I'd end up driving some guy around all my laps who was just there to get a discount on his entry fee and so that they could claim it was "educational." Boy, was I way off. It was pretty much the complete and total opposite of that.

The instructors for the event were all tremendously experienced and truly enthused about educating and sharing their love for high performance driving. Much care was taken to pair up instructors and students on the basis of experience and vehicle type. Monica's instructor was a semi-pro Spec Miata racer (chick!) and my instructor was there in a 911 GT3 and had several years of experience racing 911s. We used little headsets in the car so that it was easy to communicate at speed.

Each time out on the track my instructor and I identified specific skills or challenges to focus on and I got copious feedback and guidance as I learned the fundamentals of track driving and car control. I can't say enough good things about the experience and what I learned. It was quite valuable.

At the end of the weekend we had a little wrap-up session to put everything in context and lay out some realistic goals for my next track event, which I'm already eagerly anticipating. I'm hooked. photos here and you can also read Monica's experiences.

The next event at TWS is in January (not sure what dates, exactly). Hopefully we can get a large group of cows together to go.

Edit -- just to make Doppler cringe: I got 9.6 MPG over the weekend. Single-digit!