I just spent 4 days at
NHMS instructing with 2 clubs I've never taught with before. Sunday & Monday were with the Boston BMW club. I had 2 students--a beginner and intermediate. The beginner had never been on a track before, and she did great. I thought her father looked familiar, and he was: he rolled his M3 at Watkins Glen 3 years ago.
My intermediate student was sharing a Porsche 996 Turbo with someone else. He was 15 minutes late for his first run session because he was in the wrong classroom session. He never showed for his 2nd run session and at the end of the day I finally heard what happened. The person he was sharing the car with forgot to put the oil filler cap back on, so the car came back into the pits with smoke pouring out of the rear. The safety people put the fire out, and then someone had the grand idea that perhaps they should jack the car up and see if anything needed cleaning up. They got a jack and promptly put it thru the middle of the oil pan, dumping 11+ quarts of oil on the pits, thus ending what should have been 2 days at the track for 2 people.
Tuesday & Wednesday were with COM Sports Car Club. They're unique in that they let members compete via time trials. During a time trial, they put 3 or 4 cars out on the track at 15 second intervals and time them. It's pretty safe since it's unlikely you'll be near another car.
Diesel cars used to be rarely seen at the track, but this time there were 3. One of them was a VW engine transplanted into a
Spec Racer chassis. There was also an Audi that was running E85 ethanol, with a custom engine program that took advantage of the extra power you can get out of E85.
Wednesday was school day, and I had 2 students with Miatas. My first student just recently had a turbo kit installed and on our first lap, the car lost all power coming out of turn 10. He was able to get it restarted, we pitted and then tried going out again only to have it die in the same place. This pattern continued throughout the day, with him thinking it was fixed, and it not being. The wonderful end to both of our day involved us stalling on the turn 3 hill and barely making it into the escape road. We then sat there, baking in the sun with helmets on for 15+ minutes. I was done after that.
My other student had his water pump fail after his first session.
In better news, despite the heat I managed to lay down 3 decent laps (1:28.63, 1:28.67 and 1:28.47). Not fast enough to place higher than 4th, though.
On the way home, I was so looking forward to turning on the A/C when I came home, but that wasn't meant to be either. My furnace, which seems to be eternally cursed, is dead again. The repair guy said he'd maybe be able to come Friday. Grr.
