Doug,
As one who just came back from school, I can tell you that you can expect fun!
Seriously, the cars didn't give us any trouble at all. Well, except for an old wire on Tim's that decided to let go on the first lap. I passed him as he sat stranded on the front straight and thought "damn, that was an expensive lap for him $180!" And as I had mentioned in another topic, and your previous owner wrote back with a fix, you may find fuel starvation when you get down to half a tank.
Simple solution, keep it above that.
Our crew filled the cars every couple of sessions so we never had that issue this weekend.
Non-car related issues:
Bring crew! People stressed this to us and I really didn't believe how much we needed them but it's true. You will have no time, we didn't get much more than a 10 min lunch break and luckily bathrooms were in the same building. We even moved the van back to the garage area so we could keep everything close.
We had 2 friends that had been helping us with the car, an ITA racer and one of his crew. Buddy was able to take pix and the other 3 were always there for us when we came off the track. They filled the cars with gas, helped us get buckled in, checked brakes and air pressure and even redid my toe alignment . We had two cars, you have one, but bring at least one person!
Pre-school week. Get plenty of sleep! And drink tons of fluids (non-caffine, non-sugar, basically water). It was far from hot last weekend but hydration is so important! We put 70oz Camelbacks in our cars and while I didn't use it on the track, I was sure sipping from it on grid.
Keep some quick snacks on hand for between sessions, you may need them. Nutrition bars or something? Stay away from greasy foods! Last thing you need is your stomach yelling at what you put in it while you're on the track.
I don't know about other regions, but NER instructors will go out of their way to trick you. This is a good thing. I was caught by a couple (actually they set me up hehe) but you learn from your mistakes. Better to learn them now than in a race situation.
They put slow moving track vehicles out there so we could see what it's like to look for one and go around it. They also put licensed drivers out there to follow us and then to show us the lines. They would crowd us, cut in on us, and a couple of times I ended up coming up on an instructor on the line that I had to pass off the line (in the scary spot
)
It was an absolute blast. I was in awe when we got home last night that I had just left the house Sat morning - so much had happened that weekend.
So in a nutshell: bring crew, drink lots of water, get lots of sleep, pay attention in class, and have fun! You will do great!
Diane
