Chris Hammond · Chris Hammond
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My Driver's School Experience....
Join me as I share my thrilling experience at the St. Louis Region Club Racing Double Driver’s school at Gateway International Raceway. Full recap on the blog! #StLouisRegion #GatewayRaceway #RacingSchool
I attended the St. Louis Region Club Racing Double Driver’s school this past weekend at Gateway International Raceway in Madison Illinois, just across the Mississippi river from
I went home Thursday evening and had dinner with my fiancé Natalie and my mother who flew into
After the classroom session we went out for a stint with instructors on the course, looking at various parts of the track and learning some of their suggested lines for the course. The majority of the rest of Friday consisted of multiple track sessions with the car, progressing from 55mph in the first session up to 90 mph for the last session. What did I learn during these sessions? Quite a few things, the largest one being I’ve been spoiled by ABS in the 350Z I autocross and drive every day. The first time I really hit the brakes in the 240SX I got both fronts locked up and a skating sensation in the car, until of course I realized that I had both wheels locked and released the brake, lucky for me the flatspotting wasn’t too bad (yet). After all of our sessions on Friday we had another quick classroom discussion and overview of the day.
Saturday began at 7am with a quick meeting with all of the students and instructors, followed by our first open passing session; each track session was scheduled for 25 minutes. I went lined up outside the grid waiting for the rest of the group to fill in so I wouldn’t have to go out first. Though I was one of the first ones ready in the group and noticed that those who had already lined up were gone from the grid and were on course. I figured it was as good a time as any to head out there so I threw on my helmet and headed into the grid.
My first session was interesting, I had made myself pretty comfortable on Friday, pushing the car a bit, but not too much as we were always under yellow. This first session on Saturday we were given the green so we could take the track full on and practice our passing. I ended up catching up to a black C5 Corvette on the track. I was able to keep close with him in the turns, but on the front stretch coming out of Nascar 4 he would pull away. I usually caught up to him going into turn 1 but couldn’t work up the nerve to try to pass him anywhere on the course. After a few laps of playing catch with the vette we caught up to a pair of white Porsches. The pair was going at a much slower pace than we were, the C5 took the first Porsche with, and quickly overtook the second with the same ease. Now it was time for me to take my first pass, once I had made it, I was much more comfortable, and passed the next one without a second thought.
Now it was time for the Corvette! I caught back up to him without much issue even though he had put a lead on me while I was playing with the 944s. The rest of that session I spent chasing him down, but he must have been getting more comfortable on the track as well because I couldn’t seem to get close enough to make a pass before he would pull away from me. Just prior to the end of the session two ITS cars caught up to us, an Acura Integra, and a blue RX-7, they were both flying around the track that session.
There was a slight classroom break between the first and second session, covering the reactions from the first session. All appeared to be well from the reviews from the instructors, they were all pleased with the driving they were seeing. Second session wasn’t all that interesting.
After the first session we were notified that the exhaust on the 240SX was reaching 106db, the limit per the rules was 103db. Jude called Kurt over at AFI and he was able to fabricate a new smaller glasspack and helped install it during the break between the second and third sessions. I went out for my third session and noticed the sound difference right away. The car was much quieter inside than it had been, though it did feel like it was down on power a bit, but we were happy to have the car legal for the sound rules.
The real excitement came in the fourth session of Saturday, the session which would be used to place our qualifying times for our practice starts in the fifth session later in the day. I was out on the track keeping up with the ITS Integra that had run so fast in the first few sessions. The integra motor definitely let him pull me in most of the power places, but I was able to hold more speed through turn one to make up that lost time where he would pull away from me. Ten minutes or so into the session the yellow C4 vette that was flying around the track came up in my mirror. I slowed a bit going into a turn, I believe it was turn five, to let him go inside. By the time I got onto the front stretch both him and the Integra were quite a ways ahead of me.
I had been pushing it into turn one all session, and this time was no exception, I was however running a little too low into one most of the session. This particular lap was no exception. As I went to slow down to enter turn one I shifted from fifth to fourth, but failed to bring the motor’s RPMs up to match the speed of the rear end, as I let the clutch out the mismatch caused the rear tires to slightly lock up and the rear of the car shot to the right. At this point I was doing roughly 109mph, and there wasn’t much that I could do but hold on for the ride.
I looked out the passenger side of the windshield, and then out the passenger side window towards the wall on the outside of turn one as the car began to rotate, my thoughts drifted to something along the lines of I know I’m going to hit that and I can’t do anything about it. The car spun 180 degrees and continued to careen backwards toward what I assumed would be the outside wall. I had both feet on the floor, one on the clutch and one on the brake, bracing myself for impact, my body went tense, every muscle in my body tightened by instinct to try to protect me from whatever I had gotten myself into. I slid for what seemed like an eternity, and when I finally did impact the wall I had managed to slide into the inside of the outside wall, somehow hitting it from the side of the car, just barely clipping the rear bumper on the tires, and taking 98% of the impact on the driver’s side. Based on the data from my G2X (www.g2extreme.com/) data recorder I was doing about 24mph when I hit the tires, the car only sustained about 2g's upon impact.
I didn’t really feel much of the impact beyond the thud, my body was braced enough, the only thing that was noticeable was my head tapping the roll cage, but I honestly didn’t hit it any harder than I had hit the roll cage any other time throughout the weekend. I was immediately pissed off at what I had just done, I thought I had just wrecked Jude’s car and he wouldn’t be able to drive it at the regional race on Sunday. I tried to wave to the corner workers, to let them know I was okay. The car was actually still running, I however sat there waiting for the corner workers to come to me and let me know what to do. One of the first things I heard after they found out I was okay was “Hold on, we’re doing the red flag drill”, glad I could provide an opportune time! J
With the guidance of one of the corner workers I backed the car up a few feet so they could get around to the driver’s side. After a short time the paramedics arrived and began asking me questions. I assure them I was okay but would do whatever they wanted me to do. They began asking me the concussion questions, “What day is it” - Saturday, “What’s the date” March 25, 2006, “Where are you?” Gateway International Raceway, “What happened” I f’d up. They wanted me to get out of the car, but wouldn’t let me drive it back further so I could open the door. So the corner workers pushed it back a few feet, opened the door and I stepped out.
The medics looked me in the eyes, to see if I was all there, and then told me I needed to ride with them over to the hospitality area so that I could begin filling out the SCCA insurance paperwork. In the ambulance I had to fill out forms saying I declined their help and wouldn’t hold it against them, though I actually never declined their help, I just said I was alright.
After filling out the medic forms, the SCCA insurance forms, I was free to go. I headed back to the paddock space to see how the car was doing. Jude and the guys were hard at work on it. Matt was beating the inside of the fenders with a hammer trying to make sure to clear the area around the tires. We ended up having to swap the two front tires out, I brought both of them down to the cords. The car was reteched, tested up and down the paddock to make sure it didn’t have any noticeable problems. I was back out on track for session five.
Session five consisted of some practice starts, I was pretty timid about getting back out on track at this point. I started in third position based on our qualifying times from the fourth session, and finished in dead last for the session. I was more than happy to sit back and watch the guys in front of me battle it out for positions, I just wanted to finish without hassle. I was also missing the driver’s side mirror, which made for some interesting moments when people would come up out of nowhere and be inside me on a turn. Saturday evening we fixed the mirror problem, we tried to get a mirror from the junk yard, but ended up taking a mirror off of Jude’s daily driver.
More to come on Sunday’s events!
