[What'saCobra?]

Best wishes for your initiation! It is a disease, so be welcome to it.

When i asked an old chap at the aerodrome near my boyhood home what i ought to learn to become an accomplished aircraft pilot, he warned me that my first goal was to learn how to make money if i wanted to be an accompllished sportsman. And, learn how to conquer my fears and tolerate poverty, if i wanted to win. You are warned.
---------------------
Jamo nailed it. Here is a little personal preference/reinforcement/subtlety:

1. Swing your helmet/head towards the next turn, BEFORE you get there, so your eyes can switch into the turn very much quicker than you can swing your head. It should be noticeable to an observer and it is not an easy habit to learn. Looking as far as possible down the racing line and keeping global awareness are dual skills necessary.

2. Wet track? Disengage one side of rear anti-roll bar. Reduces oversteer (important in wet) and avoids re-setting brake proportioning valve for less rear over-steer (some vehicles, some Cobras, if very stiff racers).

3. Study Mark Donohue's traction-circle concept in his book (Unfair Advantage) and experiment for your style, comfort and preference, while you have already set-up cone practice; to test your turn-in and weight transfer from loaded springs. You can brake while turning, with practice.

4. Practice watching the tach for your max rpm, just before you lift/brake for turn. This should increase as you increase your exit speed from the last turn, get a more stable curve and higher/earlier power out of the last turn and drive deeper into the current turn at the end of the "straight". This max rpm is a clear indicator of your better lap speed, "easy" to learn to notice and REMEMBER for each turn as you practice today's conditions.

5. Absolutely observe and practice long-range reading of the turn flag stations. They just might save your life and we need your attendence. Some turns are certainly not easy to see (ex: over the crest of the hill at Elkhart Lake's turn six Toyota bridge, or at the top of the hill after Spa's challenging Eau Rouge) and the flag folks are there to save our insignificant buttinski's. If you do not recall what the last turn's flag station was relaying, your are living dangerously.

6. On very hot days, keep the last lap for brake cool-down, very light on both the throttle and brake. If the disc arrives in the paddock red-hot, it will pump excessive heat into both your pads, pucks, cylinders and wheel bearings. The wheel grease can drip onto the hot disc and you are lucky if it only smokes and "fries". Use high-temp wheel grease, always. (Do not use in the Urals on your tanks if you are invading Russian winter, as they will congeal at those temps and stop the wheels from turning. In a Russian winter, use non-parafin oils, like bear grease or synthetics.)

7. Quick, get to Minnesota to get in some ice racing! THE best practice, next to a wet traction circle (hard to find), to learn how to manage drift, low traction (particularly if you have cooked it into the corner too much!) and turn-in response as a function of your car's braking weight-shift onto the fronts and the necessary steering angle(s) and throttle position(s) to maintain control or re-gain control.

8. Be very careful re-entering the track after an off. Many sanctioning bodies prefer no re-entry, but if you do, learn how to enter carefully and be cautious of dirty rubbers with gritty, un-predictable or low traction. As a new driver (or an expert with red misty eyes!), there is a very high degree of probability that you will also go off at the next corner for the same reason as the first... or even easier with the un-clean traction.

9. Since down-shifting can upset the cars line, traction and stability, avoid it. First gear is for starting. Period. Second gear is for very slow turns only and even many of those can be taken in third gear as you learn how fast you can really go in that corner and just how many max rpm's you got on the last entry. You will learn how fast you can actually go in a turn if you use third gear more, rather than all the fussiness of downshifting into second.
Engines and cars have broken when the driver down-shifted into second at a far higher speed than sensible and got mechanical over-rev, which also caused extreme additional braking action on the rear brakes (not a good idea while cooking into a corner, yes?).

10. Apres race, thank a corner worker (this means get him/her a beer, in case you are not from the South). As the track rescue-diver at Palm Beach (Moroso) for a few years, it is always welcome. Do you know how freaking hot it gets here in the summer sitting in a wet-suit for 5 or 6 hours? It brings a whole new meaning to the desire for a cold one.

Ps: Freebie! Driving on an extremely-banked course will require that you also learn to look UP! to see "down" the course! Try Daytona's turns at 175+ in the turn. Easy at 130, hard at nearer 180.