I’d been told that Barber Motorsports Park feels more like a country club than a track, but I don’t think I really knew what to picture. The drive into the park consisted of rolling hills lined with trees and perfectly manicured grass being watered for the evening. Due to a number of small events that slowed my drive to the track down, I made it in time to register on Friday evening but not with enough time to get the car to tech.

Roebling Road is definitely a different type of track than Road Atlanta, Sebring, or CMP. Rather than multiple straightaways and tight turns, Roebling is a series of rather high speed gradual sweeps and carousel turns with only one significant straight to speak of. I was able to drive up on Thursday night after work, managed to catch a few hours of sleep, and be at the track Friday morning for an event called Seat-Time run by Jon Krolewicz. My instructor at Seat-Time turned out to be the son of the instructor I had at my very first track event down in Sebring two years ago. The Seat-Time event runs approximately the same as the NASA HPDE events, but since there are a total of 4 run groups everyone gets a lot more track time during the day. The run groups are also much smaller which helps reduce traffic jams on the course. And Roebling is a course that is more susceptible to traffic jams since there are very few passing zones.

Editor's note: Alison Goodwin is attempting to earn her NASA competition license. She will be blogging about the experience as she works her way up the HPDE ladder toward her chance to race.

When I first heard of the opportunity to run through the HPDE courses in 2008, I was a ball of pure excitement and anticipation followed by excessive day dreaming! However, that discussion took place in April, and as months drew closer to the new year, it occurred to me that the very first events of 2008 would be held in rather cold winter climates.