I had a great time at Seat Time on Summit Point's main track yesterday. As those of you who live in the area know, it rained almost all day yesterday. Although I (and many of us, no doubt) have stayed away from the track on rainy days before, it had been almost three months since I was on track, so I decided that I would go, no matter what.

I have always said that you should never cancel a day at the track because of the threat of bad weather because 1) you never really know what the weather will do till it happens, 2) even if it does rain, you'll learn something about driving in the rain (just take it easy, so you don't hurt the car), and 3) because no one else takes this advice, there won't be many other cars there.

This last part was confirmed yesterday. If you haven't been to Seat Time, they run two groups, street cars and race prepped cars, with 30 or 40 cars in each group. Each group gets five or six 20-minute sessions.

Yesterday, a total of eight (8) cars showed up for both groups! So they declared it would be open track all day, with an hour off for lunch. Six hours total track time! I put in more than two and a half hours, over 80 laps. It was great!

Yes, the track was wet all day. After lunch the rain stopped, and we began to get some dry patches here and there, but then it started drizzling, and then raining, and everything got wet again. Otherwise it ranged from wet to standing or running water all day.

When it was really wet, I tried lots of different "wet lines." It was neat driving on parts of the track you usually never touch. Going to the outsides of the faster turns, squaring them off so I could exit in a straighter line seemed to work pretty well on Turns Three, Nine, and Ten. (I was on stock RE040s.)

One time I was trying a different line into Turn Five, but carried a little too much speed, and slid straight off at the end of the chute. No problem, I was going pretty slow, and just turned around and came back onto track through the grass. It was my four-wheel off in this car, and only the second time in any car (except during the Skip Barber school). The first was in my second FATT in the Miata, almost six years ago.

When it was a little dryer, I could move closer to the standard line in most turns, but there was still a lot of wiggling around. It was really cool to do skidpad work in my own car instead of SP's Crown Vics. I really got good at drifting by the end of the day, and instead of making quick tank-slappers was able to steer and power out of them smoothly.

Another great thing was that I was able to meet and talk to almost every other driver there. There were only six or seven of them. Interesting mix: a Formula SCCA car (open-wheel, open cockpit, single seater), closed-cockpit racer (of a type I didn't recognize) who left early after some mechanical problems, a Spec Miata, two street Miatas, a Neon, an Alpha Romeo, a WRX.

All in all a great time, and one of my most fun track days. So don't forget: go to the track even when it's raining!

 

This picture was taken at VIR in July, not yesterday, but it's one of my favorite track pictures.

 

Glad you had fun James. I was out at Slummit today, and I didn't feel comfortable in the rain at all, then again, only one of my tires (rear left running opposite of intended direction) has tread, so the sliding wasn't as predictable to me. Perhaps it was b/c of my crumby tire setup, but T4 was slick as hell today. As you mentioned, squaring off T3 and T9 worked well, and most of my students have done well with that line.

I don't mind the rain, but I don't like Summit in the rain. The surface is really finicky, and the challenge isn't rewarding to me. I much prefer VIR or Mid-Ohio in the wet... :shrug: we all have our own preferences. Looking forward to tomorrow being dry!