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Message: <blockquote data-quote="RichV" data-source="post: 1067169" data-attributes="member: 17007">Was that Buttonwillow? (sp?) I'd love to run that track some day.I wish my 1st time was as solid, but I was very wet behind the ears as they say....Crisp mid-March 2006 day in Pueblo, CO. First event NASA Rocky Mountain ever put on. A lot of HPDE1 and HPDE2 cars out, the beginners were the majority. Had a few HPDE3 and 4, plus some TT cars. Very few race cars, most were SCCA guys running with the event. Me, experience was all straight line. Nitto drag radials on the back, nitrous bottle brackets and line flopping around in my trunk, stock 86 brakes, stock 86 suspension, and around 250HP on tap in my 86 Saleen.The night before I bled the brakes for the 1st time, probably since the car was new. The brake fluid reminded me of Guiness beer. Autozone pads, cheapest front tires I could afford at Discount Tire, ultra-super-cool strut tower brace powder coated in white with the Saleen logo, I was gonna be a rockstar!! Imean, It's a friggin Saleen! It's built for this shiz-nit!! Tech passed without problems since the 86 passed it regularly at the strip.I payed for a day of driving just to give it a shot. If I didn't like it, at least I could say I did it. Got to the track early, racin' down I-25 to Pueblo early Saturday morning. The driver's meeting must have had like 200 people, it was a zoo. I was very nervous, not sure of what to expect. I've never been with other cars on the track. What if I mess up and crash my car, or crash into someone else. What if I suck at driving? What if I forget the track? What if... What if... What if... The class was all about the track, the turns, what corner workers do, flags, and what to pay attention to before actualy driving. After filling up my head with abunch of stuff I was even more nervous about not knowing we had a half hour to get to grid. I met my assigned instructor, Bruce, and was to meet him on grid at 9:30am. I saw the sea of cars I was driving with sitting at grid with more arriving as the time gets near, what do I do, I have NO clue what I'm doing. Bruce gets in my Saleen and hooks up the radio between our helmets. "So you ready?" he says. "Heck yea!!", but I really meant, I'm scared as shit, take it easy on me. We went out single file out of grid and on the track. Double yellow flag at corner station #1, WTF is that, "that's no passing whole track, wave to the corner stations".After 2 laps of warmup the track went green and we were off. Braking zones, shifting, turn in, track out, the line, flags, a car coming up behind you, give a point-by, stay on the line, listen to Bruce as he tells me what I'm doing wrong, watch gauges, holy crap there's a wall I just got close to.<img src="http://www.coloradostangs.com/up/files/6/1.jpg" alt="" class="fr-fic fr-dii fr-draggable " style="" />So to sum up, 3 more sessions like the 1st one, each a little more confident. And 1 session where I got to be the passenger with Bruce in his E30 M3 BMW, that was AWSOME!!! I was hooked, on the crack-pipe for good. Did 1 more event tha year with my SVO at La Junta Raceway. Following year I HPDE'd in a caged BMW with r-comp tires winning all my HPDE2 races (just kidding, no racing in HPDE2), got booted out to HPDE3, ran in the #3 group for the rest of the year until a Comp School became available at the last 2007 event, passed the School and got my provisional race license. My 1st race was that event in 2007, my SpecE30 BMW which I sold, 2008 race season I built my 89 Notch and learned to race in it. 2011 I started building my 94.<img src="http://www.coloradostangs.com/up/files/6/2.JPG" alt="" class="fr-fic fr-dii fr-draggable " style="" /></blockquote>