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Boxers and Boxsters Driver’s Education

This last Saturday was a track day at Harris Hill Road (H2R) organized by the S2k club called Boxers and Boxsters: DE to benefit Austin Boxer Rescue.  I signed up because H2R is a very fun and challenging track to run on and I wanted to get the 911 out there after not getting to take it to the track recently.  The 911, of course, has become safer and has had maintenance done to it to have it ready to go.  It got its brake fluid flushed from ATE Super Blue to Motul RBF 600, aligned and corner balanced (and teched) all at SoulSpeed before the event.  The car was officially ready for the event.

As with all track events, it starts the night before since you've got to round everything up you're going to bring with you and pack the car so you can rocket out the door in the early AM to make it to the registration on time.  So, the day started for me at 5:30am and managing to get out the door and on the road to Harris Hill at 6:15am.  The nice thing is driving in the morning is very peaceful since there aren't many people on the road and the time passes pretty quickly (helps more if you have a passenger and a quiet car that you can talk in); in my case, I had a passenger but not the quiet car, so there really wasn't as much talking as there was yelling over the noise of the vehicle.

Arriving at Harris Hill, registering, preparing the car, listening to the instructors speak and getting the schedule for the day was very standard stuff and all that was left was to wait for my turn to drive and chat with people around me, take a look at other vehicles and take in the sights and sounds of the day.  The other thing you learn to do is to dress for the weather and check the weather before leaving because you don't want to be stuck out there freezing and wet when you were expecting sunny and pleasant.  However, for the track day the weather turned out to be the perfect track day weather: mid 60s and slightly cloudy.  I dressed for weather in the 60s and at the same time was testing out how it would feel wearing the flame-resistant clothing, full-face helmet and HANS device while driving my car.  In the early morning, it was wonderful to have all of the flame-resistant clothing on because it was very warm and helped cut the chill of the wind.  By the time it started warming up around 10:30 or 11:oo am I decided the purchase of a driver cooling system like the COOL shirt or 986 Cool shirt would be a wonderful investment once it starts getting closer to summer-time and racing in full gear is going to become quite interesting.

The first session I spent driving slower than normal trying to break in the new tires and come to grip (haha) with their grip.  As the track warmed up and the tires warmed up and became broken in, their grip became greater and the car was handling much better.  One thing I did notice was that Harris Hill is much, much bumpier than I remember it.  The best lines through the course had to be altered to avoid the bumpy sections and even then, you'd still feel a lot of the bumps as you drove through it.  Midway through the third session I took a four-wheel off on one of the kinks that I should have never screwed up.  After finishing the session I decided that it was time to call it a day.  When you have an off on a section of the track that you never have and you can't track it down to anything else but yourself, it is time to call it a day.  I would have loved to have stayed for the last session, but I knew better than to push my luck and have something else happen that might not be so easily recoverable from.

The track day was very awesome, the breakfast and lunch were both great (can't be Krispy Kreme donuts and Einstein Bros. bagels and freshly grilled hamburgers), you couldn't have asked for better weather and pictures of the event can be seen here (I'm in the Yellow run group with the beige 911).  Best of all they're putting on another track day on May 8th and hopefully I will have been to the track a few more times before the next event.