I just completed my 1st Driver's Course with Cascade Sports Car Club at PIR.
I learned a ton and improved my driving from 40mph to over 60mph during the day. I learned that Vipers need to be driven like 'making love to a woman'. Although vettes, and ordinary performance cars like it rough and agressive, the Viper reacts to aggressively to be treated rough. ie. normal car needs 4" of steering wheel movement to go around a slight corner. In the same corner the Viper only requires 1" of movement to steer around the corner. It takes a half sec or so to move a steering wheel 4" and a quarter of that to turn the Viper's wheel 1". I had little problem adjusting to the shorter steering wheel movements, but had a tendency to move the wheel the 1" fast, which is bad. I spent much of the day trying to slow all my steering, throttle and braking inputs down to slow speed. Although JonB had me running many good lines and smoothed out I still need to work on the "smooth and gentle".
That's right, I had JonB from Online Shopping - Home as my instructor. Now I know why he's abrupt on the phone sometimes. At slowdown point on the straightaway Jon answered his cell saying that he was on the racetrack in a car at 140mph and couldn't hear through his helmet, please call back later. Now that's service!!! Haha, personal service without an answering machine.
Jon provided his time and pacecar for free to help out a few of us non-experienced wannabes, lOL. Jon got to instruct myself, Denise in her Viper and took over instructing a BB vette. I'd like to add that he instruucted the student to turn the TC off during his second run because it was slowing the car and limiting the student's abilities. Jon also got to supply Viper rides to the TV cameraman, myself and the volunteer security guard during everyone else's lunch break. Yah, it'll be on TV. Thanks to the CSCC and expecially Jon B I had a total blast. I figure another 2 track days I'll even be good at it. There is nowhere on the street that you can get the opportunity to even open up a stock Viper to what we were doing on the track, so therefor, you can never learn to drive your Viper anywhere near it's limits without a race track and an instructor makes your learning time extremely quick.
Most instructors don't want to sit in a big hp car never mind take a passenger seat while someone else does the driving at high speeds. It's only a special few that are willing to risk death and destruction. I'd like to thank all those guys, espcially Jon for that instruction.
I drove 900mi. to Portland, visited my buddy Bill at Barrett's Automotive. Jon had sold me a set of PS2s and shipped them to Barrett Automotive for me and I got them installed on School Day. By the time I got to the track I had about 30 mi. on the tires. Track times the tires were great and really pulled the corners well. I used a full tank running track day and when I had trouble finding my wallet Jon handed me $50 so that I could fill my car again without losing a turn around the track, thanks Jon.
I found out that I had tuning problems when I started around the track as the car was puffing black smoke and crapping badly after half throttle. Half throttle was OK as it would only help on the straights and I usually slowed down on the straights so that when I sped through the sets of corners I usually caught up to the cars in front of before coming out of the corners. Going slow down the straights gave me enough room to slide through the corners at high speed. What a rush. I demonstrated to Jon that I am experienced at 'recovery' as I squiggled and fishtailed through a few corners and regained control without going off the track or getting too far from my 'line'. Recovery I learned on the street!
The weather was interesting as we started dry, got some speed happening and then it started to sprinkle, rain, dry out, then sprinkle again. Great for experience anyway. We also learned about the difference between traction on the all new asphalt surface and old cement Chicane. Next was how slippery the polished cement surface got with a small amount of rain. Denise spun her '01 R/T Viper a couple times, straightened and continued with her line. The next Mazda Pro car spun off the track and tagged the wall with the pass front of his car then took off leaving his bumper cover at the tire barricade. As Icame around a set of corners I noticed dirt sprayed all of the next corner then saw the red Lancer off in the dirt and the yellow flag, all in that order. See, should have been the yellow flag first - need more experience at that.
All the people I met were very helpfull and a lot of fun. One of the track guys gave me "thumbs up" twice, it took me a moment to realize that that he wasn't telling me he was agreeign with what I was saying - he was telling me to get my ass "the hell off the short crash wall", but he was smiling while he did it.
Jon mentioned that he has also done Cop driver training, which is pretty much the same as what we were doing. I recommend that everyone take a driver's training course, even if it's just for the fun of the experience. You'll also finish the course a better driver, but that's just a benenfit of having a blast. I'm working on my tune and bought a wideband sensor and guage because the dyno tuner I stopped at told me that he'd need to study my instructions for the tables before he could help me with my tune (I didn't have the paper instructions for him to read). So I'll be learning to tune during the next few weeks, then back to the track for more fun.
Ted
I learned a ton and improved my driving from 40mph to over 60mph during the day. I learned that Vipers need to be driven like 'making love to a woman'. Although vettes, and ordinary performance cars like it rough and agressive, the Viper reacts to aggressively to be treated rough. ie. normal car needs 4" of steering wheel movement to go around a slight corner. In the same corner the Viper only requires 1" of movement to steer around the corner. It takes a half sec or so to move a steering wheel 4" and a quarter of that to turn the Viper's wheel 1". I had little problem adjusting to the shorter steering wheel movements, but had a tendency to move the wheel the 1" fast, which is bad. I spent much of the day trying to slow all my steering, throttle and braking inputs down to slow speed. Although JonB had me running many good lines and smoothed out I still need to work on the "smooth and gentle".
That's right, I had JonB from Online Shopping - Home as my instructor. Now I know why he's abrupt on the phone sometimes. At slowdown point on the straightaway Jon answered his cell saying that he was on the racetrack in a car at 140mph and couldn't hear through his helmet, please call back later. Now that's service!!! Haha, personal service without an answering machine.
Jon provided his time and pacecar for free to help out a few of us non-experienced wannabes, lOL. Jon got to instruct myself, Denise in her Viper and took over instructing a BB vette. I'd like to add that he instruucted the student to turn the TC off during his second run because it was slowing the car and limiting the student's abilities. Jon also got to supply Viper rides to the TV cameraman, myself and the volunteer security guard during everyone else's lunch break. Yah, it'll be on TV. Thanks to the CSCC and expecially Jon B I had a total blast. I figure another 2 track days I'll even be good at it. There is nowhere on the street that you can get the opportunity to even open up a stock Viper to what we were doing on the track, so therefor, you can never learn to drive your Viper anywhere near it's limits without a race track and an instructor makes your learning time extremely quick.
Most instructors don't want to sit in a big hp car never mind take a passenger seat while someone else does the driving at high speeds. It's only a special few that are willing to risk death and destruction. I'd like to thank all those guys, espcially Jon for that instruction.
I drove 900mi. to Portland, visited my buddy Bill at Barrett's Automotive. Jon had sold me a set of PS2s and shipped them to Barrett Automotive for me and I got them installed on School Day. By the time I got to the track I had about 30 mi. on the tires. Track times the tires were great and really pulled the corners well. I used a full tank running track day and when I had trouble finding my wallet Jon handed me $50 so that I could fill my car again without losing a turn around the track, thanks Jon.
I found out that I had tuning problems when I started around the track as the car was puffing black smoke and crapping badly after half throttle. Half throttle was OK as it would only help on the straights and I usually slowed down on the straights so that when I sped through the sets of corners I usually caught up to the cars in front of before coming out of the corners. Going slow down the straights gave me enough room to slide through the corners at high speed. What a rush. I demonstrated to Jon that I am experienced at 'recovery' as I squiggled and fishtailed through a few corners and regained control without going off the track or getting too far from my 'line'. Recovery I learned on the street!
The weather was interesting as we started dry, got some speed happening and then it started to sprinkle, rain, dry out, then sprinkle again. Great for experience anyway. We also learned about the difference between traction on the all new asphalt surface and old cement Chicane. Next was how slippery the polished cement surface got with a small amount of rain. Denise spun her '01 R/T Viper a couple times, straightened and continued with her line. The next Mazda Pro car spun off the track and tagged the wall with the pass front of his car then took off leaving his bumper cover at the tire barricade. As Icame around a set of corners I noticed dirt sprayed all of the next corner then saw the red Lancer off in the dirt and the yellow flag, all in that order. See, should have been the yellow flag first - need more experience at that.
All the people I met were very helpfull and a lot of fun. One of the track guys gave me "thumbs up" twice, it took me a moment to realize that that he wasn't telling me he was agreeign with what I was saying - he was telling me to get my ass "the hell off the short crash wall", but he was smiling while he did it.
Jon mentioned that he has also done Cop driver training, which is pretty much the same as what we were doing. I recommend that everyone take a driver's training course, even if it's just for the fun of the experience. You'll also finish the course a better driver, but that's just a benenfit of having a blast. I'm working on my tune and bought a wideband sensor and guage because the dyno tuner I stopped at told me that he'd need to study my instructions for the tables before he could help me with my tune (I didn't have the paper instructions for him to read). So I'll be learning to tune during the next few weeks, then back to the track for more fun.
Ted
Looks awesome!! I have only been on a dragstrip with other cars. I am looking forward to taking the Viper to a roadcourse one day!
Since it is better to own up to your mistakes, I Doris Rose spun in turn two. It was a good learning experience because I have never lost control before and always wondered how I would react. Lucky for me and the car we never left the track and it was the first lap so everyone was going slow, no collisions. I didn't let the incident effect me in a negative way except that I was a little shy until the last session. I love the driving schools because they make me feel 100% confident when I am on the public roads. Too many Viper owners (and lot attendants) have avoidable accidents that just one school could have prevented. 
Roll on the power.
