Day one: wet skidpad @ Tirerack and Autobahn CC (South course)

And so it begins. We got plenty of sleep last night (a luxury we're not expecting to continue) at the Waterford Estates hotel in South Bend as the wet skid pad didn't start until 10 am. This event isn't very exciting, for the drivers or spectators, but it does count as much as any other event. Unfortunately, we didn't fare very well, placing 51st overall (out of 71 teams), despite inflating our tires to 42 psi to try to get a convex shape to the tread to minimize hydroplaning, and being on tires that we choose specifically because we thought they'd do much better than the tires that are faster in dry conditions (i.e., BFG Rival S, Bridgestone RE71R). This result was very disappointing. Oh well... it is what it is. Onward to the next event!

We soon had other things to worry about, as a TPMS stopped reading on the highway shortly after leaving Tire Rack on the way to Autobahn Country Club in Joliet, IL, for the first on-track driving event of One Lap.

We needed to get this resolved ASAP because the C6 Corvette won't allow disabling the stability control and traction control when it's not seeing good signal from all four tire pressure monitoring sensors. Without the stability and traction control functions turned off completely, or at least set to "Competition Driving" mode, our car would be about as fast as a rental V6-powered Mustang GT on track. Luckily, we called ahead and got in contact with the Discount Tire store in Portage, Indiana, where the employees took care of us immediately (we removed the wheel/tire in the parking lot with our trusty Harbor Freight floor jack; they just pulled the bead and swapped put the TPMS) and installed a spare TPMS I brought just in case of an issue like this.

After the TPMS was swapped, no more issues—whew. Since this transit leg from Tire Rack to Autobahn was very short and we had plenty of time to get there, we still arrived at Autobahn with plenty of time to unpack the car and get a lay of the land before our track session started... very fortunate.

At Autobahn, we'd decided I'd be the sole driver on this track, as there was only one session starting at 4pm (the track was hot with other open lapping and racing activity before 4).

I was very nervous and I think I drove terribly; despite having watched videos of others driving this track on YouTube repeatedly, I still confused somewhat-similar corners, resulting in being on the wrong lines and overbraking for faster features. I nearly drove right off the edge of the track on the corner exit of turn 3. But, somehow I ended up 7th overall, 4th in class.

Very surprising, obviously it's very early still and maybe the cars that finished behind us had some issue or were holding back, their drivers were being extra cautious on tires than are not really well scrubbed in yet, etc.

Note that the "raw time" listed for each team is a sum of THREE laps on track: the first of which is recorded when the car crosses start/finish, having started from a dead stop just ahead of that line; and the second and third laps consisting of times with the car flying across start/finish at speed from the previous lap. So, unfortunately, the official results don't show the individual lap times to see the best time. And dividing the time by three isn't accurate either, since the first lap will be several full seconds slower than laps 2 and 3.

By running the TrackAddict timing app on my phone at each event, I am able to record my actual lap times. Not that these are anything to brag about, because unfamiliarity with the track results in times far from what that specific vehicle and driver combination would be capable of after several dozen laps to familiarize.

Here is a video of the straight between T14/15 and T1, from the south tower, before the One Lap competitors took the track at 4 pm:

Here is my in-car experience at Autobahn. I've been driving on road courses for more than 20 years, but this was my first time ever trying to drive 8 or 9/10ths on a track I've never been on. I wish it were possible for the video to communicate how nervous I was... besides through my jerky inputs and hesistant use of throttle in the corner exits and sweepers, I mean:


And here's a fun pic, taken at a gas station after Autobahn, just because:

Tomorrow we'll be at Gateway Motorsports Park for another road course time trials event + two 1/4-mile drag racing events (lowest ET, single pass; and bracket racing).