VetteDrmr

A couple of weeks ago I finally got a friend of mine from work to come out to our BMW autocross at the Texas Motor Speedway bus parking lot. He's from the UK, and was pretty nervous at the start.

Two things about the video: the first 30 seconds or so you hear me blabbing on to another student that had just ridden with me. Second, you'll see a lot of oversteer while on course. That's due to the fact that I was running 275 A6s up front, and 315 Kumho V700s (not 710s) in back. Grip was, um, "unbalanced."

Anyway, start listening around 30 seconds into the vid and remember what it was like your first time!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JNzzJ0P6x2g

Have a good one,
Mike

burners

Good job, mike. You have very effectively brought someone to "see the light". I like his comment at the end "That was way more fun than I thought it was going to be.". Like you said those runs looked a little squirrelly. I enjoyed the video.

Datawiz

I love taking n00b's for a ride in my Z06.

My first ride with a talented driver was an eye opener.

Solofast

At a local event a friend who has a Miata was giving rides to some noobies and he came over an asked if I could give a ride to a guy who had a 325i.... He had run him around in his CSP Miata, but I was running a good bit faster in the vette....Well, the course had about 4 slow corners and I pulled first out of them... All the guy could say was... HOLEY Sh!^!!!! every time I pulled out of a corner.... He said he couldn't believe how fast the next corner came up... He left muttering someing to the effect "I gotta get me one of these..."

dfinke23

My first on track experience was riding shotgun with Andy Pilgrim in my Z. I had no idea the car could do the things he did with it.

worldsaway

I had a similar experience last saturday when a few of us went to set-up the course for our sunday event. One of the guys has a HS lancer, and when it came time to test the course I let himd drive my '04 Z06. He'd never driven a high-hp car and it was eye-opening for him, since lancer and Z06 are just about polar opposites. He was still talking about it yesterday. Ed

VetteDrmr

I give folks rides at most of the events I go to; from newbies that are learning how to drive their own cars (the early comments you hear on the video), to folks that are curious. One time I took a high school student that was an intern at the local paper. The first sentence in her article was classic: "I thought I was going to die, but then I didn't!"

A great one is the Street Survival school. The afternoon sessions put together all of the individual exercises from the morning, making essentially a very simple autocross course. Once all the students are done then they let the instructors take their students out in the instructor cars. Those kids ALWAYS have a blast. If you ever have a chance to help out at a Street Survival event do so; it's a great way to hand down skills we've all learned.

Have a good one,
Mike

napacruzerc5

The biggest eye opener for me was riding in a C4 with Grant Byers at an autocross at Jack Murphy Stadium in San Diego. Grant was at that time a developement driver for Gulstrand. I learned in one ride something called "aggressively smooth" (my words). I was no newbie but most of my autocross experience to that point were in Fiat 4-bangers and I think I had a Fiero GT V6 then. Anyone know if Grant is still around? Or still with Gulstrand?

WBHighwind

My dad went to this autox with his 70 AMX.

VetteDrmr

Mel is your Dad? I met him at work in Ft. Worth; small world! The AMX definitely got the "cool" award of the day; everyone enjoyed watching him run. Now all it needs is a limited slip diff, suspension, .... j/k.

A friend of mine has a '00 coupe that went down a couple of years ago. So, as a replacement he brought out his stock restored VW Karmanghia. Slowest car on the track, but everyone was taking pictures.

It's all about the fun!

Have a good one,
Mike

BrianCunningham

dfinke23

It's what I think crack would be like, but you don't lose your teeth or your job.

WBHighwind

Well, this was the first time he had autox'd that car in 20 years at least. He is the original owner and competed regularly in SCCA solo back when the car was much younger. I think Ive seen some SCCA solo II tropies sitting around his house somewhere. It actually does have a swaybar package on it that some guy in Colorado developed It makes the front bar much bigger and actually adds a bar to the rear.

I found the original order slip in my dad's records he filled out when he went to the AMC dealer to order the car.