Hey guys,
Below is an exerpt from my track day experience last Sunday. I wish i'd read something like this before i went there. Hope you enjoy 
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Six months have passed. Living in NorCal now, i had access to (at least) 3 race tracks within 150 mile radius. Being somewhat of a car enthusiast by now and having watched years of Top Gear and a couple of seasons of Formula 1, i decided to experience a track day for myself. I joined NASA (National Auto Sport Association) and signed up for HPDE (High Performance Driving Event) at Thunderhill Raceway. HPDE has four groups, the first being for people that never drove on a race track before and has an instructor riding with you at all times. There is supposed to be little overtaking and only on straights. Group 2 is the same except you drive without an instructor. I naturally chose group 1. Cost is $250 per day.
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10:50am. I'm in my car sitting on pre-grid. There's about 25 cars waiting to get on the track. I'm nervous. The instructor joins me. 5 minutes remaining. 3 minutes. 1. Helmets on, windows down. We go in behind the pace car flashing its roof mounted blue lights for the first two laps. These laps are for you to familiarize yourself with the track, the corners, the racing line and to make eye contact with and wave at the flag stations. The instructor has to tell me 3 times to wave to the first flag station before i actually do it. He has his left hand in front of him mimicking what he's saying. Left, right, hard brake, hard throttle. He keeps talking for the duration of the entire two laps telling me a lot of things including what's coming up, corner number, correct speed and track position for it, if i need to break, which direction to turn and how hard, the next correct gear, passing rules, and just general tips and tricks. I pay attention to none of this as I'm overwhelmed by the number of things happening around me. It's the same overwhelming feeling you get when you first start learning to drive except now you're going really fast. I'm also surprised and a bit scared by the sheer strain this track driving business is putting on my car. It's trying to rip it apart, my poor little car. My two new friends - "tunnel vision" and "death grip" were going to accompany me for the entire duration of this session. When the pace car goes in (or is it out?) the teacher starts speaking less, probably so i can focus more, only telling me what's coming ahead, just like a co-pilot in those rally cars. "Ahead you will break hard, turn left, keep it wide". When it's time to actually do it, he mimics it with his hand as well as speaking it out loud. "Ahead, corner 2, track out, hard break, switch to 3rd, keep wide, constant throttle, slowly bring it in, reach the apex, accelerate, track out". I do exactly as he tells me but found myself struggling with being in the correct gear. Stupidly i had put my car in S, which is still automatic mode, so after selecting a gear with the paddle shifters, if the next corner was far enough, it would go back into automatic and hide the gear number so i did not know which way to shift next - up or down. I felt very out of place thinking "i don't belong on a track with this automatic gearbox". I also remember thinking to myself that this track is way too crowded because a few times some 4 or 5 cars kept passing me all at once. How could that be if i was going a million miles an hour?! As it turns out later from watching a video of myself - i wasn't. I was in fact going embarrassingly slow, even on the straits. In all this frustration, the checkered flag could not come soon enough. After i see it, i do one more lap - the cool off lap when, my instructor tells me, you let your engine and breaks do just that - cool off. Again waving to all the flag stations as we go around then out to the pit lane and into the paddock. First session is over, no incidents! Both me and my car are in one piece.
I'm glad i had my helmet on to mask the look of terror on my face.
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5:30pm. Pre-grid. There's significantly less cars this time around, i guess everybody went home after their long 2 or even 3 days here. There's maybe a dozen of us. We go out for one final time. After the first few laps i lost them all both in front and behind. It was almost as if my complaints from the first sessions have been addressed. The sun was much milder now, the wind - breezier and the track i had almost all to myself. I was driving relatively confident, doing almost all the things i was supposed to be doing. The first big mistake i did was when i forgot to break for corner 3. This messed up my line for corner 4 and needlessly increased the lateral forces on me, the car and the tires while as i was struggling to keep it all together. Right away the teacher told me in a firm voice "you break before corner 3". I guess that was a bad enough screw up that he felt he needed to mention it right away. After that I really enjoyed a few clean laps before an even bigger mistake came. I went carrying way too much speed through the last right hand corners 14 and 15 (both of them forming a hairpin turn) and almost flew off the track because of it, struggling with under-steer than over-steer that resulted in a pretty cool (in retrospect) drift in the end. My left wheels reached the outer edge of the rumble strip with the barrier only a few meters away. When i finally hit the finish strait, the teacher, given that we didn't crash, exclaimed "oh i liked that!" with a big grin on his face that you could see even through his helmet. I was i no mood to celebrate however as "death grip" payed me a visit throughout the duration of this whole shenanigans plus a few more corners after that. The only thing that saved me from going into the barriers, i reckon, was constant acceleration throughout that corner. Well that and a little thing called ESP. The car stayed stable and manageable for this entire ordeal. Next time i entered the same corner i was way too slow. Still, i was racing on the track by myself now, making my own decisions, choosing the racing line, doing my breaking and everything in between. What a long way i had come since that morning. It was amazing! On the final racing lap, i passed a new Mustang GT (the one with a 5 litre V8), the driver of which politely waved me by. And even tho I'd overtaken a few other cars toward the end, this one was the cherry on my cake. And as the sun was hanging a few feet above the horizon, i entered the pit-lane and after a right turn into the paddocks, i was done.
As soon as the helmets came off, the instructor asked me if i had the ESP on. I nodded. "Yeah, i thought so" he said smiling.
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At the end of the day, i felt humbled of my skills and my car. I was glad i put my car in stock mode as that most certainly prevented my leaving of the track unintentionally on more that a few occasions. On the other hand i did see where the extra boost could have come in handy, mainly after tricky corners before straight lines and when trying to overtake. My brakes were probably not good enough to handle the extra horses anyway so i still stand by my decision. I also understood that a road car does not even compare to a track car and that horsepower is by far not the most important thing here. Your suspension, breaks and tires are. The cars we drive on the road are jacks of all trades. In the case of my GTI, it's too hard for the road and too soft for the track. You simply cannot have the best of both worlds. Period.
My day ended with no incidents, a lot less width on my break pads and a few less millimetres of thread on my tires. But the most important thing i left with was the understanding of what racing is all about. A road car does not belong on the track but I'm still very proud of how mine did. I still enjoy tremendously my tuned GTI on the road. And it's still a car you can take occasionally to the track w/o basically doing anything to it. That's something in my book. All in all, this track day felt like i was just dropped in the middle of it all with not much intro or hand-holding. That only added to the satisfaction i felt at the end of the day. I was basically able to drive the whole track correctly at speeds of 65mph in some corners and 100mph on straights.
The end.
If anyone is interested in the full story you can find it here:
http://k2ba.blogspot.com/2012/08/my-fir ... ience.html