21 becomes 12
Day two of the clinic. First session was a repeat of the last session from yesterday: practice starts and open passing through turn 5. But if there is no yellow in turn 5, you keep racing. And racing we did. Damn, this is fun.
The next session had a twist. We had 32 cars for the clinic, and I was gridded 21 (based on lap time). Basically the fastest cars are up front, the slow ones in the back. Well, session two inverted that. So the slowest car was on the grid and the fastest one started at the back. My 21st became 12th. Good you say? Well, I suppose, but the problem is once the green flag drops, the fast cars from the back launch along with me...but they are way faster than me. The result? 5 or 6 wide going into turn 1. Holy crap? On multiple occasions I decided that discretion was the better part of valor and did force the issue, either letter the faster car by me or not pushing the issue on passing a slower car. Egad.
Next session was almost the same, except this time it was a chase...the slow car got a head start, then the next slowest took off, then the next. This was a lot more sane, but you had the same issues...you were trying to catch the slower cars to pass but faster cars were coming after you. Hoot! This is great stuff...you are often off-line and out of position. You can't just drive your favorite line through the track, but instead have to calculate and recalculate where you are and what you should do. Perfect for an ADD guy like me....you have to have total focus, but the point changes every couple miliseconds.
After lunch we met and talked about the final session...which would be an actual 20 lap race. But before that I had a time trial to run. I thought about not doing it, but decided to run the 3 laps, in part because I wanted to get some point, and also I thought that it would be good for my nerves...run a few quick laps before starting the race. So I did my laps, then came in and started to prepare for the race.