Well, I didn’t manage to prepare myself the way I had planned for the Road Atlanta event.  Out of the month of time in between these events, I hoped to pick up the cobra and get some street time with it each weekend.  Instead, I only managed to drive it for a few hours on one night- not exactly the great practice I was hoping for.  It wasn’t even enough time to really tell how I felt about the new Sullivan Racing pedals my father had put on the car. 

We drove up on Friday just in time to see the Enduro race.  Unlike CMP, the Road Atlanta course has multiple long roads leading to the various portions of the course.  Luckily, it didn’t take too long to figure out the roads and the track.  It was drizzling off and on, so the track was rather wet.  We were able to go to the back hill that overlooks “Esses”, Turns 6 & 7, and then down the back straight.  It was the perfect spot to post up to catch the action of the race and get some good photos.  It was also the perfect spot to see exactly how much the wet track was affecting the racers as they entered Turn 7 and you could notice many of them push their cars to the point where the back end would begin to slip out before they would (hopefully) recover.

After watching the race for a bit, we decided to head over to the Racer’s Paddock area, but stopped along the way over the Mitsubishi Bridge where there is a view of the cars coming over the hill and down into Turn 12 into the straightaway.  Just as we pulled up to the bridge, Rob’s #05 Steeda appeared at the top of the hill.  As the car reached the bottom of the hill and was preparing to turn in, the car must have touched either the paint strip on the left of the track or perhaps a bit of the dirt off to the left, but it wasn’t able to recover through the turn and we watched as it skidded toward the paddock wall.  I couldn’t help but grit my teeth as I heard the crunch and watched the car come to rest.  Watching that scene definitely added to my apprehension of the track with its elevation changes and blind curves.

Saturday was another wet day, although it wasn’t actively drizzling when my run came.  Surprisingly, the rainy day was a perfect way to get familiar with the track since everyone was taking it easy on the slick pavement.  I was able to drive the course and experience the curve that dives over the hill without the pressure of carrying significant speed through there.  I was running with Nitto Extreme R autocross tires, which don’t have as much tread as the street tires for the slippery track, but the track was drying out as the cars continued running.  The one area that stayed extremely slippery was headed out of Turn 8 onto the back straight.  I had to get all the way over to the left gator strips on the outside of the turn before I was able to give it any speed or the back end would start to slip out.

After the first run on Saturday, my uneasiness with the track had mostly dissipated and I realized that although there were more challenges offered by Road Atlanta, it certainly isn’t anything to be terrified over.  After the second run of the day, there were reports on the radio of hail headed directly towards the track.  When the report came that the chance of hail in the area was 100% and would be there within 10 minutes, we decided it would be best to leave immediately.  The goal was to make it back to the carwash near the hotel in order to seek some refuge from the impending 4” hail.  About 7 minutes down the road, the rain became so intense and the hail was obviously so close that we managed to find an abandoned house with a carport that would fit both the cobra and bronco underneath.  We pulled under just as the hail pounded down – averaging about the size of a quarter, with some as large as golf balls.  The hail only lasted about 15 minutes, but with the continuing warning of tornadoes and hail, we decided to call it a day rather than chancing car damage at the track if we had been stuck there without shelter.

Sunday was absolutely beautiful.  It was clear, cool, and sunny.  I was able to use Sunday to gain speed and really the brakes to use.  For some reason,  as I was driving the course, my instinct was to brake going into the Esses- which was completely unnecessary.  My instructor, James, had to remind me for a few laps just before that I not only should avoid braking, but I really should be accelerating through those turns.  Just like at CMP, it took those few laps of coaching of when to accelerate and when to brake before I was able to hold my speed through the Esses.  Of course, once that speed was there, this area became my favorite area of the course!  Quite the opposite of my issue at the Esses, was my problem of carrying a bit too much speed going into Turn 7.  Perhaps I felt the need to make up for the lack of speed through the Esses, but I was much too hot entering Turn 7 quite a few times on Sunday.  And even though I had overcome my trepidation of the track, coming over the hill I still felt uncomfortable nearing the left edge of track where Rob’s car had gone off track on Friday.  Even with James’ coaxing, I wasn’t able to bring myself to actually touch the gators on the left of the track before turning in.

The other issue that arose, was shaving off the speed from each of the straight-aways as I tried to downshift before the turn.  The speed change with the downshift was causing the car to chirp and become unsettled directly before entering the turn.  I worked on braking harder and shaving off even more speed, but to completely eliminate the chirping would have required me to slow down more than was necessary to make the turn.  After discussion with James over what I need to accomplish in order to avoid unsettling the car, the basic gist is that I just need to learn how to heel-toe downshift, which is certainly not something to test out for the first time while on track during the weekend.  When attempting to heel-toe off of the track a few times, I realized that I was nowhere close to getting the hang of the technique.  The new pedals on the car should help with the heel-toe technique, but the brake pedal was elevated much higher than the gas pedal, which did not allow my foot to reach both of them comfortably.

The weekend was amazing, and I was sorry when it was over so quickly.  Excluding the hail on Saturday afternoon, the rain allowed me to learn the course and the lines so I could pick up speed on Sunday and push myself on a more familiar course.  The main goals that came out of this weekend were to, once again, get more seat time in the cobra while off the track, to adjust the pedals, and attempt to learn how to heel-toe.  The time between Road Atlanta and the next event is shorter than usual however, so it will be difficult to accomplish these goals.