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All I have to say is that I am a converted man!!! Dear god, you just don't know how g'damn fun road racing can be until you do it. No amount of pics, videos, or testimonials will give you anywhere near the whole story even when they show how great it is! Despite that, I'm going to give you all three, for your enjoyment purposes =) **Note: lots of pics from KILLR300ZX and a sweet video (though short for you 56K people) are towards the bottom. In typical Z-event fasion, the day began early. By 6am we met Ron at a Wendy's and headed up north about 120 miles to the raceway. On the way up there, me and KILLR we're betting on when Ron would awaken those HKS ball bearing turbos of his. About half way he didn't disappoint! Within what seemed like a few seconds he was nearly a mile ahead of us! I left the PS2 out of the car so as not to get banged around at the track, so watching Ron perform feats of speed was our only entertainment =) We stopped at Jack in the Box on the way, partly because of hunger and partly because the fog was INSANE. At least *I* was glad to get out of it for a bit. With less than 50' visibility at times, it was nuts! 
Anyway, we got there just in time to sign in and have a seat in the classroom. They had 9 instructors for 60 cars (which was a record number being that the normal one is around 20-30). Most of the instructors were/are professional drivers of some sort with quite long careers. The great thing was, they were ALL really very cool and down to earth. Saying such things in the classroom as "the best thing about a RWD car is how easy it is to whip the end out simply by using the throttle mid-turn...so we encourange you to experience this...the worst that happens is you get a little dusty!". No uptight old fogeys here...just guys who love to drive and have a blast doing it! You could ask ANY question no matter how stupid and you always got a response. It was very hands on if you wanted it to be and not so much if you wanted to do it "your way". 
In the morning it was about an hour of simple driving basics and course briefings...apexes, heel/toe, proper braking, exit speeds, etc. We were to split up into a "first timers" section and a "returning drivers" section. In the beginners section we started off with the skid pad to learn what our cars would do under certain turning conditions. Then it was on to braking with various tests on a watered down track. After that, it was track time =) Here is the track: 
Pretty sweet if you ask me. Before lunch we started out on the east loop to get the hang of things. Then afterwards we had a few follow laps behind instructor cars showing us the proper lines or the course. After that, we were let loose with our newfound wisdom!! Below the Sunset area (the smaller of the two vertical straights) I was hitting just over 110mph
with a smooth exit out of the Esses...just imagine the speeds that the Drag Strip vertical straight would have yielded had it been open. Instead we used the Lost Hills cutoff which was my favorite, and scariest, part! It's a blind hill that reaches the very peak *just* as it turns...so right as your car unloads it's weight from hitting the top of the hill, you need to TURN! I attempted to give it gas (contrary to what your brain tells you) on the way through it. This should have allowed weight transfer to the rear wheels where I needed it the most not to slide. If I brake, it goes to the front and the ass end will SURELY come out. Well, I don't know if it was my sway bars, strut towers or what, but my ass slid out anyways....woooo! I was following the proper line, but too fast apparently so I 4-wheel slid HARD to the left about 15 feet and with a quick and ever-so-slight correction I had sprung it back the right way and slingshotted out of the area *RIGHT* along the curves of the track!! It was beauty in chaos ;) I was quite proud of myself for not overcorrecting as I watched most people do. The cone only lasted 2 laps before someone spun out and whacked it :) It didn't take long at ALL for me to start feeling quite confident. I think that a mix of my RC car background and years of video games have honed my hand-eye coordination. Not to mention that in the RC hobby, you learn very early on that SMOOTH is FAST on a course. As fun as it can be to slide all over the damn place, it's slow. So applying all of this prior knowledge and factoring in my beefed up suspension, it's no wonder I started kicking more and more ass ;) What I hadn't realized (or rather to this severe of a degree), is that a slower car can REALLY do some serious ass-whipping to a faster car in those turns. The straightaway gains are minimal when you figure that most of the time a slight lead and a decent exit speed for a slower car can keep a MUCH faster car with less cornering skill/ability out of the turn well behind you. I knew this before...but it was DRASTIC out in real life. Nowhere else can I spank Corvettes, Cobras, and even a few Porsches (okay, so they weren't 911TT's but still!). I'm not saying I'm a driving god here, but I definitely picked it up faster than most hehe. My only competition in 60 minutes of track time was an older modded MR2 Supercharged that was just clingy as all hell until lap 3 when I nailed the "Mazda Turn" and a Miata (ironically enough) which did what Miatas do best...eat up corners :) Luckily I wasn't around the other Z'ers much so we couldn't embarass each other lol. I could just see myself spinning out in front of Ron...that would suck! ;) Though on the last lap I tucked in behind him and had experienced the ONLY time in my life I'll be able to catch that Z of his...I think the words "You're a madman!" came out of his mouth at one point afterwards hehe. Yep, I am =) 
So as you can see, this thing was a BLAST. Compared to drag racing out here in Cali where you have to sit around and wait for sometimes 4 hours between activity, here it was 30 minutes at the most. And being able to push your car to the absolute LIMIT of adhesion...man, there's nothing like it! I encourage ALL of you that have not done something like this to give it a try. The complete cost, out the door, was only $150 which is a STEAL considering a normal track day is about $100-$125. So we got training, certificates, in-car instruction, etc for about $25 really. Can't beat that. And I gaurantee as long as you don't destroy your car, you'll have a killer time! And don't tell yourself "that stuff is too insane for me"...if chicks in F150s can run the track, so can you =) I think I've talked your ear off enough about how much fun I had and how awesome it is, so how about some pics and stuff? I'm glad you asked! First let me give a BIG shout out to KILLR300ZX who played cameraman extraordinaire that day. He carried around a camcorder and 2 digital cameras to get all this action...nearly 8 hours of standing around! Check out this quick video (<400K so it's small) of part of the course. I told them I write an article for a magazine (which I do) and that I wanted to get some close up footage. They bought it ;) So they drove KILLR out to the west hill location where the "hill lookout" was in a tower. He captured this as I went by...listen carfully to the voices at the end...talk about a great Z commercial! Z baby!
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