Pacific Raceways WA Complimentary HPDE

First Name
Abraham
Joined
Sep 23, 2021
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0
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Location
Texas
Car(s)
2014 MB C300, 2021 GR Supra, 1989 Ferrari 348 TS
I can't recommend ProFormance at Pacific Raceways enough. It was an incredible time. I was extremely nervous since I drove 3.5 hours to get here and didn’t know what I’d do if I shortened the car. Sitting there in the fog there was quite a bit of self-talk, that was, take it slow, focus on what they want to teach you and you’ll be ok. The skills practice prepared me for the afternoon on the track, but more than that it teaches skills that transfer directly to everyday street driving. Right off the bat they checked to make sure I was in a proper driving position. The skills involved ABS braking, slalom driving through cones while watching for a flag to skip one. On the other side of the track was the moose evasive maneuver where you had to react and take the indicated escape route at the last second and the most difficult one for me was the understeer recovery training. Part of it was to set up and understeer, something the Supra wasn't keen on with the safety systems enabled. I had to disable them as much as possible, and the second last run was amazing. I had a big stupid grin on my face.

We did some more classroom work and then finally Duane Martinsen took me around the track for 2 laps overloading my poor brain with way too much info. We did a quick swap and I barely hit 60 during my initial two laps. After lunch we talked some more about the track and lines, and we were off to do some more track driving. Once again Duane coached me along as I started to learn some of the lines and gain confidence in the Supra. It was only the HPDE class participants on the track, but I left the car in normal driving. This was fun, but the car would sometimes aggressively downshift and somewhat upset the balance, no big deal since I was probably only at 5/10ths.

I asked if running the car in Sport mode was advisable and Duane said go for it. What a difference that made. It was like a whole new car on the track, everything was controlled behaving as expected, and the suspension and steering was so much crisper. When we were done Duane mentioned that he was surprised at how much the cars personality changed. I think I still would have preferred a manual, but not worrying about the gears allowed me to focus on all the other skills, braking and modulating it at the end, picking the right line with using as little steering input as possible, carrying momentum and all the time using my high eyes and low eyes to look at where I am while planning on where I am going to be.

I started out saying that all I want to do is go slow and be safe, so I don’t shorten my car by being stupid. I didn’t realize that I was passing most if not all my classmates. There was a dad and a son that drove a C8 Corvette, not sure who was in my group, I think the son, but I passed it several times. Suddenly, I am hitting 120 on the straight and carrying that speed through turn 2 and scrubbing most of it off for a long turn 2. The back half of the track is really my favorite, you lose a lot of elevation after turn 2 and 3A and 3B bottoms you out starting a long climb up.

I believe I was hitting 140 on the straight, and that is with me still trying to get turn 8 right and taking it slow since turn 9 is a blind apex around a concrete wall. It takes some time to work up the courage to hit the apex of turn 9.

If I weren’t so far from the track, I would be back there this weekend getting my solo sign off. I was nervous going out there but, in the end, I am beyond grateful that I went out and for Toyota paying the NASA membership and footing the bill for the HPDE (~$700).
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