Gingerman

Tim:

I plan on loading my truck up tonight. The only thing I put in the trailer is the car. I won't load that up until tomorrow night - assuming its a go.

My plan is to keep an eye on the hour by hour weather forecast all day tomorrow. If things look like they'll be clear during the day I'll still go.

Look for texts throughout the day tomorrow.

Steve
 
Gingerman Report:

Yay....we're back! :D The following is a report on how Gingerman went. As you may have read above, we were really contemplating not going due to weather....well, just goes to show that the weathermen don't know what the hell they are talking about as we didn't have a lick of rain during the day for track sessions at all. At night, yes, but not during the day. It started kind of ominously as Steve had a blowout before leaving St Louis and had to get 4 new tires. He almost went home.....but we threatened to put I love Obama signs and donate in his name to Obama's trust fund and he decided to go. :D Jim and I arrived around 7pm and setup the redneck RV. The next morning brought about a bit of trepidation on my part as I hadn't been on a track since May of 2013. I left my street tires on as I knew how they felt and thought it best to learn the track this way and there was a threat of rain. I did ok, but my track brakes were much better than my street tires and I was locking up in 2 or 3 of the turns. I ran 2 sessions and it cleared up, so the slicks went on. An instructor rode with me the 1st session, yes, without a passenger roll bar, and he gave me the line which helped greatly. The 2nd session I went by myself and practiced what he showed me. I ran a session before lunch with the slicks, and things felt right with the world again :D Things felt good, but still, not real fast. After lunch, I let the instructor drive my car while I sat in the passenger seat and actually laughed a couple of times because I couldn't believe my car was cornering as fast as it was. He brought the car in, and he then understood why I had some limits on some of the turns and lines he was showing me. He gave me a few more pointers, and I went out without him. I practiced what he was doing when driving, and man, I was quite a bit faster. I didn't take any video or time myself as I had too much to learn to think about that stuff, but I was significantly faster in the afternoon than morning. Steve burned up a left rear tire and finished the day in the paddock.

Steve was right in that it really is a wide open track much like Putnam and it was really a fun track. I got over my apprehension and most of it came back to me. The car performed great, no issues at all.....until I got home. I started unloading my truck, and in walking back I noticed my tailgate open :eek: yep, I had left it open in my haste to get home after 6 1/2 hours of driving after dropping Jim off. This coupled with an enclosed trailer and a sharp left turn has now left me with a dent in my trailer and a bent up tailgate that I forced shut and can now not get open. I had to break my toneau cover hold downs to get stuff out of the bed, so now, I will have to replace my tailgate AND toneau :mad: CRAP! This on top of a not so good Dr's report on my Dad that he will find out more about Tuesday. Overall though, a great weekend, met a lot of new people and learned a ton. :D
 
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Thanks for the recap. Really glad you went and had some fun. Maybe one of these days I'll be able to join you, but probably not while I still have kids at home. Keep up the good work and you can be our instructor. :) I hope everything works out with your dad. Keep us posted. BTW that was a great threat for Steve. Sounds like he had a rough weekend. Sounds like one of mine. :rolleyes:
 
Tim and Jim:

Thanks for coming up to Gingerman and for giving me the proper incentive to not bail out.

Steve
 
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