### Track time at Watkins

[sspano01]

Hello

I took my cobra to two instructor based courses within the last week.

The first was at Pocono with Bertil-Roos.
We ran one of the bends and the little curley-q-curve-chicane thing through the center and back onto the bend.

The second was at Watkins Glenn. I signed up for two days of novice track time with Phoenix CMR, a friend of my also does it as well with a Nissan.

The Pocono track/setup/etc was quite differnet.

At Bertil-Roos, it was a Drive-Your-Own-Car performance session.
I was in a group with about 5 cars, maybe 11 overall in total.
We got up to speeds at maybe 80-90 on the bend and then working through the turns at maybe 50-60.

I had a mechanical issue with my car at Pocono which was limiting my speed to around 50-60, but I felt I learned alot about the turns and started to feel the cars response/etc. Before my mechanical issue, some of the porsches/mustang would catch up to me in the corners, but i could easily out-pace them on the straight sections between the corners and on the bend.


So....monday and tuesday today I was at Watkins with Phoenix.
Completely different experience!!!

I was almost worried I would not get to run because my instructor basically said he did not want to go out in a cobra. But we talked about it and I said I was not really here for high-speed max test. I wanted to learn about corners/response/etc. He was a nice enough guy, but he wanted to stay under about 80 at all times, even on the straights. I respected his wishes and rarely went about 80, and if I did, i let off the gas to coast it down.

It did get a little old allowing EVERYONE to pass me on the straights, but I was really there for the corners.


So I had a totally different experience at Watkins and am looking for some insight on this.

My issue is that is seemed like everyone was running MUCH faster than me. I worked up to running some of those corners with entry speeds near 70-75-80 depending on the turn.

Granted i was being speed limited to about 80 on the straights so I could not really 'catch' anyone.

It seemed like there was a very large difference between either myself, other people's skill level, or the cobra and the other cars? other cars were newer mustangs, porsche, corvettes, bmw m5 /etc.

Were these people not truely novices?
This was really my first/second time on a track in an 'instructor' event.
It seemed like everyone in the novice group was very fast.
At Bertil, it seemed like I was more well matched to the other cars (also porsche, bmw, etc).

I had 6 runs in at Pocono and then decided to sit out the last two runs.
Pretty much because my instructor had me worried and i figured i should not attempt any more runs now that i was actually nervous about the track. THey changed the track to run the short course (no boot) at watkins - so its "faster". My instructor basically said he did not want to ride in the car with me due to the speeds that other people would be at.

So i figured I had 6 good runs and i should leave it at that.

What are people's thoughts here?
Was i just plan crappy? I really didnt want to crash my car though!
Is there really such a large difference between the cobra and other cars?
Or do you think these folks had alot more 'seat' time ?

or .. other thoughts .. ?

thanks!