NOTE: Links to three full session track videos, and one amusing highlight involving the death of the T1 track out cone and one of my GoPro cameras are at the bottom of the post.
This month, I made my second trip to Watkins Glen, and participated in my first HPDE event with a new-to-me organization, Chin Motorsports. I’ll cut to the chase and just say up front that this is the most professionally run HPDE event I’ve ever attended, and for several reasons, a group I very much look forward to running with again in the near future. Plenty of track time, great staff, and most importantly for me personally, they allow anyone to give rides to passenger’s. I’ll come back to that last point later on.
I arrived the evening before the event to get unloaded and get the car inspected, and got to meet the staff. I also signed up for a checkout ride so that I could get into the non-novice run group. When I signed up, I was put into the Green run group, which includes both novice drivers with instructors and what they call “provisional solo” drivers. Although I have a LOT of track experience, since this was my first time running with Chin, and since I only had 4 track days when I signed up (days 5 and 6 were with Hooked on Driving back in April), they wouldn’t automatically put me into the higher run groups. I suppose some driver’s would be irritated by this but I both understand and respect the decision. Especially at a track as unforgiving as Watkins Glen, where mistakes are going to cost an awful lot.
Having unloaded everything Sunday evening, the morning of the first day was pretty relaxed, when I’m normally rushing to get everything out of the truck and setup before the first session starts. Chin gives you a total of six 30 minute sessions through out the day, although the first one is considered a warm-up, with no passing allowed. The 2nd through 5th sessions of the day are dedicated to each run group, of which there are only 3: Green (Novice and provisional solo), Blue (Intermediate) and Red (Advanced). The final session of the day at 4:30 is open to all three run groups. That’s a total of three hours of track time each day, 2.5 if you discount the warm-up session.
I did go out in the warm-up session, just to get some heat into the tires, so I could get my pressures set. I drive on Toyo Proxes RRs, and like to get them as close as possible to 38 psi hot. With a few drivers interpreting “warmup” as “parade laps”, it was hard to get up to speed, but it is what it is. The first real session I spent with the novices, and I think I caught every single car in the turns in my Miata. I wasn’t expecting to put any blistering lap times down, and just focused on my heel/toe shifting, and tried not to be an asshole by climbing up the tail pipes of slow Corvettes in the bus stop (there were several).
Since I had time, I sat in on the first novice classroom session, and was very impressed as well. The instructor had a great presentation that included lots of video examples of doing things both right and wrong. This was easily the best prepared class I’ve seen, but I can’t really compare it to others, since I normally don’t sit in on those. This is obviously a great organization for novices as well as experts.
For the second full session, I was scheduled to go out with an instructor to be checked out for the Blue Group (Intermediate). This was the first time I’ve had an instructor in the car in a very long time, and it reminded me that I would benefit from this kind of coaching. Although I “passed” the checkout ride with flying colors, and in fact was told I qualified for Red (Advanced), that would require another checkout ride in that group later in the day. I got some great feedback and tips on improving my driving technique as well, and it’s clear I really need to get some coaching if I’m going to take this to the next level. There’s a limit to how much you can teach yourself, and I’m close to reaching it.
Now, I was going out of my way to be polite on track, but every time I backed off going into a corner, he kept telling me “Get up on his bumper!!”. The fact is that my Miata, when pedaling really hard, is hard to catch in the corners, and for a lot of big heavy cars, hard to get away from. I totally confess to getting a rush out of annoying people in very expensive cars who are slow in the turns.
When we finished the checkout session, I was impressed with the attention to detail in Chin’s record keeping. He filled out an evaluation form for me, at this track, qualifying me to be in the Blue group, which we both signed, and they keep on file. Had I gone through with the Red checkout, we would have gone through that again. All the other groups I’ve run with were pretty casual about this, but I like how Chin sets the bar high for getting into the intermediate and advanced run groups.
I spent the rest of the day in the Blue Group, and was planning on getting checked out for Red the following day but the weather and conditions were terrible, so I stayed in Blue. I was even honest with the instructors, and admitted to getting a rush out of catching people in the turns, and they agreed that was a big part of the fun.
The first day was fantastic, and I managed to turn several 2:24s, almost a FULL three seconds faster than when I was here last month. When I really nailed T1, predictive lap times suggested I was running lo 2:23s, but I never got a chance to finish one of those laps without letting someone by and losing some time. In the hands of a really good driver, I think my car can probably do 2:19s or 2:18s, so I have a ways to go, but I’m getting there.
Day one did provide a very amusing highlight. On the last lap of the 4th session, I finally hit that track out cone on T1, but it managed to take one of my GoPro cameras with it. The WGI crew wouldn’t let me go look for it but they fetched it for me when the track went cold, and the short highlight video is kinda cool. Personally, I think the cone was in the wrong — track rules say I am NOT off track as long as I have two tires on the painted curbing, and the cone was too close. You can judge for yourself — watch the video.
Day two kinda sucked, as the skies opened up and the track was damp for most of the day. I don’t have a lot of experience in the wet, yet in my OUT lap in the first session of the day (I skipped the warmup), I hit the chicane going only about 65, but did NOT stay off the curbing, got sideways and spun, throwing dirt and mud all over the track. WGI is really babying their new, mega-buck repave, and we lost about half of that session while they cleaned things up. So, to all the other Blue Group driver’s, yeah, I was that asshole, sorry. I personally apologized to the Chin staff, as well, which I think they appreciated. I want to earn the respect of other driver’s, more than anything else, and not be That Jerk who screws things up. I own my mistakes as well as my successes.
The rest of day two I spent focusing on my shifting, and never really got to run that fast, plus someone blew up and put oil all over the main line in the early afternoon, making things really treacherous, so I called it an early day and blew off the last all-hands session to get a head start on the 3+ hour drive home. While I was packing up, the guy who had been riding along with one of the novices all day, who I assumed was his instructor, comes over and asks, “So, do you ever give rides?”. Um, no, I’m not an instructor, but…
And that was how I found out that Chin allows ANY driver (provided they are solo-qualified) to give rides to passenger’s, provided they sign their life away and sign a waiver. Of course, this is well documented on their website, which I thought I read, but, um, yeah…. This is a VERY big deal, because while I usually attend these events alone, I’d really like to bring my wife along, so she can enjoy this whole experience, too. Most of the HPDE organizations I have run with allow ONLY instructors to give rides, so this is a huge plus for Chin. While I am targeting reaching instructor status in the coming years, this will give me a lot of incentive to run with Chin again, and bring my wife (who is the entire reason I am into this hobby — separate story…)
Since I am trying to get to WGI as often as possible this year, and since we bought tickets to the Indy Car race there labor day weekend, I’m really hoping that WGI allows Chin to keep the two days they had reserved, which are the day AFTER the Indy Cars run there. That’s up in the air still, but if that event is run, that would be a dream weekend — watch the return of Indy Car to WGI, and then drive the track!!
I can’t recommend Chin Motorsports highly enough — great people, and great organization, and they are nationwide as well. I will most certainly attend more Chin events at this, and other tracks, in the coming years.
Here’s the video links, as promised. The first one’s very short, and the others are the complete session. Note that these all 4K HD videos, so find a good internet connection to watch see WGI in it’s complete, full glory!!
Chin Motorsports @ WGI 2016-05-16 Blue Group Session #2
Lunatick Racing 