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So there I am in the line for tech and helmet inspection at a BMW Club track day at New Hampshire Motor Speedway when I hear a voice saying something like, "Hey, it's great to see you here! I look right to see a guy in a black Viggen next to my 9K in the line. Guy's name (I think) was Ben.
We would up being in the same run group, which made it even more fun. As it was,there was a mix of BMWs, VWs, Audis, Minis, a Lexus sedan, 2 Corvettes, 2 Acura NSXs, a bunch of Porsches, a Mazda RX7, a Ferrari, and even a Mustand and a Pontiac Firebird of all things! Maybe 25% of them were primarily street legal track cars and several arrived on trailers.
So anyway...
I got 4 trips around the track with an instructor in the passenger seat, about 20 minutes at a time. My instructor drove the first two laps to show me the line, then we changed places. There are 12 turns at NHMS and it's a fairly technical track. In a Saab it is mostly a 2nd and 3rd gear course and you really appreciate the torque the turbo delivers on the front straight and the two uphills.
We'd go out for about 20 mins, then come back in for a short break, some classroom instruction, then go back out. There were 5 groups in all, 0 thru 4, the lower the number the more skilled and experienced the driver. Instructors are all in Group 0.
Ben's Viggen and my semi-Aero 9K represented our brand well. Our cars were pretty much equally matched on the track as we both had upgraded suspensions. Neither of us had much trouble keeping up with or passing BMW 540is and the various 3-series cars.
By the end of the day, I'd taken a lot of rubber off the tires and I need to bleed my brakes, but this was a great experience. You would not believe how hot the brakes are after 20 minutes of hard running on the track!
If you live in New England and want to run your Saab at NHMS, the White Mountain BMW Club is having another track day (a 3-day event, actually) in October. It would be waay cool to have a few more Saabs on hand.
Beyond that, though, and more importantly, this is a tremendous way to learn how to really drive your car in a way you can't on a public road unless you're homicidal. This absolutely makes you a better driver. There is nothing like braking really hard into a corner, maybe getting a little rotation and using that great turbo torque to power up a hill; or diving into a downhill left-hander, hitting the apex, powering up the next hill to the apex of the following turn, getting a little light over the top of the hill, diving into the next turn and working your way through the next 5 turns to the front straight and going pedal to the metal (hitting about 90 mph in my 9K) down the front straight before braking and maybe inducing a little rotation into turn one to do it all over again.
For my next time, I'm getting some Hawk pads, super blue brake fluid, and maybe a camber kit so I can run a little negative camber. (And for better or worse, I'm beginning to think about what it would take to turn my 9K into a streetable track car and get a nice used 9-5 as my daily driver.)
, Mon, 27 Jul 2009 09:06:04
, Sun, 26 Jul 2009 18:47:32, Tue, 28 Jul 2009 06:03:35, Tue, 28 Jul 2009 22:12:16
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