Driving Fast...and Safe

[markk]

- keep your distance to other cars
- when others cars don't keep distance to you, let them overtake you
- don't run lap, after lap, after lap. Start with sessions of three laps or so. Start slowly and built up gradually. After three laps or when you collect sweaty hands and get more and more "moments" of "hmmm, that went just about right". STOP. Take a break, drink some water and start a new session 15/30 minutes later, SLOWY.
- don't race others. Don't compare results to others. Just be there for your own pleasure, get to know the car, its limits and more importantly YOUR LIMITS.
- look carefully at each part of the track. Where are the high curbs to trash your suspension, where are the rails near the track to trash your car, where is enough room for error / spins. i.e. push the car on the right curve / peace of track and not the wrong one where error means new car.

Basically very simple. But try to remember when the adreline start pumping. That's the difficult part !

Mark.

[markk]

- Warm the car / oil up (and when you are a bit more experienced, warm up the brakes, and tires too) before hitting the rev limiter / limit.

Basically see it all the time. Cold engine. Pit lane. Driver gets in and pulls away at maximum revs. Brrrrrrr


Mark.

[Brucelee]

It is amazing to me how often I see this. The car is barely down the block and the pedal is to the metal. What don't these guys understand about the physics of engines?

[savoir-faire]

Thanks for the tips. I am not afraid to say that the prospect of getting on a track is exciting, but at the same time, quite intimidating. I will check in with the San Diego folks.