OK folks, as promised here is the full write up on my autocross experience. I've split it up into several parts since there's really a lot to tell. Part 2 will follow soon along with links to some video.
I arrived at the Novice School on the morning of May 3rd fully expecting the time of my life and I wasn't disappointed. I had spent the previous night shining up the G, as well as checking all the fluids, tire pressures, and everything else I could think of. I had only 2200 miles on the car at that point, so there really wasn't that much to check. I didn't get much sleep that night in anticipation of what was to come. I've always liked driving my cars to the limit so I knew I was in for a full day of fun.
After the hour long drive, I arrived at Gulf Greyhound Park where the Novice School was taking place. I got there early so I drove around the enormous parking lot looking for someone that could guide me to the right place. People started showing up shortly thereafter. A few BMW's drove up mixed in with WRX's, a couple of 240's, some old Vette's and a bunch of other different cars. The Bimmers and Subbies took the majority of spots. My G was the only Infiniti in the bunch. There were about 40 students in all and about 20 instructors. We went through the registration process and then on to the classroom for a general lecture. After that we were paired up with our instructors. My instructor (Dave) who drives a BMW took myself and another Bimmer driver under his wheel, I mean wing. The students and their instructors were then split into 4 groups. We headed out to the lot and to our assigned stations.
Exercise 1 - The Slaloms.
Our first task was to attack the slaloms. They had 2 separate slalom courses which we had to navigate. Check them out here:
http://www.goot.com/autox/slalom.gif. The first was set up with minimal cones, and the second had many cones all about. Although they appeared to be very different, the slaloms were exactly the same. All the extra cones were just fluff and there to show how the cones can be deceiving. The group I was in consisted of 10 cars and consisted of mostly Bimmers. Two were M3's, three were 330's, one was a Roadster and another was a late 70's model Bimmer. There was a Nissan 240 in my group as well, and I don't remember what the other car was.
I could tell everyone was curious as to what my car could do since they had most likely never seen one in action before. Even the instructors were checking it out. After a brief inspection of the car, we all got behind the wheel, put on our helmets and lined up to take our shot at the cones. As you can probably imagine, my heart was beating a bit fast before that first run. I took the first side fairly fast (or so I thought) never once losing the back end or going out of control and the instructor riding shotgun said I did well. We proceded to the other side, and to my surprise, all those extra cones didn't distract me at all. I actually felt it to be a bit easier since I felt a bit more "guided".
After my second run through both sides, I noticed in my excitement that I hadn't turned of the VDC. [banghead] What a complete dumb-ass! After informing my instructor of this, he told me to really push it the next time, so I did. I felt much more aggressive on my third run and actually attacked some cones. I was told I was hitting them with the back tire, which is at least a good sign of how I was driving it. You're supposed to come as close as possible to the cone with the rear wheel. By my fourth and final run I was starting to push it as I could feel the back end start to come loose a bit. Wasn't quite confident enough to really give it a go. It wouldn't be 'til later that I could really let go. The 2 guys in the M3's, the girl in the Roadster and the woman in the 240 all did really well. The rest drove like a bunch of grandma's including the guy I was paired up with.
It's really late and I must get some sleep, so I'll be back with part 2 very soon. In the meantime, check out the pictures here:
http://homepage.mac.com/chefgoot/PhotoAlbum6.html
'03 AT Sedan | Brilliant Silver | Willow Leather | Sport | Premium | Aerokit w/Spoiler | Nav
Autocross in the G
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