Daytona International Speedway, Daytona Beach, Fla. While most people living in the northeastern United States were shoveling snow from their driveways, a small contingent of driving enthusiasts and pro racers and their teams were making their way south for a very rare and unique opportunity. On December 7 through 9, 2007, the Ohio Valley and Florida chapters of Audi Club North America held the first ever driver’s school at Daytona International Speedway. The event was the culmination of several years of tireless work by the organizers and other individuals in an effort to convince the administration at Daytona to allow such an event. Anyone who has done a high performance driving event (or HPDE for short) knows how the events are run: students have instructors and instructors have their own run groups. As Daytona had never hosted an HPDE, it presented an odd problem for the organizers — how would the instructors teach students when they had never been on the track themselves? The solution was to invite professional teams and drivers to the event, offer them abundant track time and ask for those drivers to teach the instructors. Many of the pro teams and drivers participated in the Rolex 24 Hours of Daytona on January 26th and used the opportunity to get valuable experience on the track. It wasn’t the only reason the pro drivers and teams showed up — they also used it as a way to “give back” to enthusiast drivers. The weekend started on Thursday afternoon with check-in, tech inspection and a turn-by-turn tour of the track. Arriving at the track after a 14-hour overnight drive from Pittsburgh, your authors took to the task of unpacking the car and getting the car ready for tech inspection.
Then it was off to ride the trams for a narrated lap of the 3.56 mile track. The infield portion of the track is very fast and is basically all late-apex turns. While it isn’t overly technical, it can be difficult to get right every lap. Exiting Turn 7, you are exiting the infield portion and entering the transition to the banking of NASCAR Turn One. The word that comes to mind when standing at the bottom of the 31-degree banking is “overwhelming.” Another thought that came to mind was, “Is it too late to get a refund?” It’s very hard to grasp how steep it truly is unless you’re standing at the bottom looking up. Photographs and television coverage do not do it justice. Your mind instantly thinks that there is no way a car can stay up there. In fact, that thought is somewhat true — in order to not succumb to gravitational pull, you need to stay somewhere around 75 mph or the car wants to track down. We soon found out that staying above that minimum speed would not be an issue. Upon check-in at registration, your authors found out that we would be driving in Group 1, which was an instructor group, as solo drivers. We wouldn’t have an instructor. After the track tour, we were nervous about the banking, but were tempered by the thought that we would have an instructor with us to help ease us into it. Now we were going out on our own. Blood pressures were rising quickly, heart rates were approaching that of a hummingbird and little sleep was to be had that night. All of the nervousness was for naught. At the driver’s meeting on Friday morning, event organizer Craig Leichty informed the drivers in Groups 1 and 2 (the instructor/solo groups) that they would go out with pro drivers in Group 0 for their first session on track, with the pro driver behind the wheel of the instructor’s car, or doing lead/follow laps with the instructor following the pro. These sessions were extremely informative and most of all, they were a lot of fun. The pro drivers were all very courteous and extremely helpful. One item of particular interest is the feeling you have the first few times through the banked turns. Physically and mentally, there are several dynamics at work that you would never experience at a traditional road course and it takes a few laps to get used to the differences of what your body, eyes and brain are telling you. Because the track is so steeply banked, centrifugal force does not really push the car to the outside of the track, it actually pushes the car down to the track. That causes a really odd feeling in your stomach — kind of like your internal organs are being lightly pushed into the seat of your car. While this is happening, your eyes are telling you several things. First, you’re essentially traveling in a bowl. In order to see a proper distance forward you need to tilt your head slightly to the right so you can see around the A-pillar. Second, you can’t see anything behind you, and for the most part, your vision to your left or right is more or less useless. Lastly, your brain is telling you that you’re in a turn and that there’s no way you can drive at wide open throttle, but your body is telling you that you can basically treat the turn as a straightaway. It’s a very surreal dynamic.
Because of the sight limitations, and because the banked areas were passing zones, the organizers came up with a creative solution. At most HPDEs, all passing is done with hand signals — if there is no hand signal, no pass is allowed to be made. Given that there is no way for a driver to see a hand signal from another driver in the banked portions, drivers used their right turn signal to allow faster drivers to pass. Slower cars would use the middle line in the banking and faster cars would use the higher line. Passing someone in the banking is rather surreal the first few times you do it. If you look at them to your left, you can see right through their car and directly into the ground at the base. Yet another of the amazing feelings you experience at Daytona. On Saturday, yet another surprise for us: Since there wasn't a Group 0 on the schedule, which was the group for the pro racers, they were allowed to run freely in Groups 1 and 2 on Saturday and Sunday. We would be on track with race-spec Porsche GT-3s and BMW M3s as well as the GTIs from Team APR. Again, initial nervousness was quickly put to rest after a session. The pro drivers were courteous and gave us our space, and did so with respect. Saturday night brought the participants' banquet held at the Daytona 500 Club. The facility is amazing and we were amazed at the service we received from the staff. Organizer Craig Leichty spoke about how the event came to fruition and the amount of work that went into organizing such an event. Team APR driver Randy Pobst spoke about his experiences with ACNA and racing various Audis over the years.
Sunday brought more track time and more opportunity to attempt to drive smooth laps. At the end of the day, it was time to take the track wheels off, put the all-season tires back on, pack up the car and start the long drive home. A few other fun parts of the weekend:— Visiting the Daytona International Speedway was an experience in itself. Even the causal race fan knows the name “Daytona” and its place in racing history. It was amazing be in the garages, walk the pit lane, and imagine what those areas would feel like on the day of the Daytona 500. Race fans would have been envious of the access we had over the course of the weekend. — Pro driver Chip Herr driving Jim Baur’s Porsche Carrera GT at over 190 mph down the front straight. — Team APR driver Randy Pobst sharing his experiences and wisdom at the morning driver meetings and at the banquet. His enthusiasm for all things driving is clearly evident. By Saturday night, his voice was more or less gone, yet he soldiered on. — The respect that the pro drivers gave those of us who aren’t pro drivers. — Team APR helping the guys in the garage bay next to us who blew out their clutch early on Friday. They were working tirelessly to shake down their GTIs, and yet, they took time to come over with several employees to look at the guy's car. It was pure class on their part.— Having the privilege of meeting factory Mazda/Tindol Motorsport driver Chip Herr. He's 25 years old and has been racing for 10 years. He's won a ton of races and yet is amazingly polite, courteous and does not possess an ounce of arrogance. He spent most of his weekend driving students' cars and spreading his driving wisdom to anyone who would ask. — Starting the trip home and driving 75 mph on Interstate 95. After driving 150 mph at times over the weekend, it felt like we could get out and run next to the car. One of the reasons for doing HPDEs is to become a better driver and it was very clear how this can be achieved by participating in even one HPDE. Real world situations seem to happen more slowly and you’re more aware of your car and your surroundings.
In conclusion, it was truly amazing to be able to participate in such an event. The event would have never been if not for the tireless work of Craig Leichty, Chris Smith, Rhen Avner, and Dave Pierson and all of the volunteers. We would like to thank the administration and staff of Daytona International Speedway for not only allowing us the privilege of being able to hold an HPDE at their facility, but also for their hospitality over the weekend. We would also like to thank our sponsors: BBS USA, Motul Lubricants (P1 Performance) and Koni North America.
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