Eiskhana

Georgetown was founded in 1859, during the silver boom. At one time, the population was near 10,000 and there was a local movement to relocate the state capital here from Denver but the bust soon followed. It is now not much more than a small tourist town, where skiers stop on their way home. Interstate 70 runs along the slope on the west side of the deep valley on the eastern approach to the Eisenhower tunnel and the old Loveland pass. Drivers there overlook the town and the reservoir just north of it. Today, many of them stopped to watch people drive their cars through a course laid out with traffic cones on the ice.

I picked Jerry up a few minutes before 6 and we headed up I-70. We got there quite early; were the first to arrive at the designated meeting point, in fact. There was some miscommunication on the schedule. After visiting with some of the other participants, getting registered and signing the usual waivers, we headed off to the lake. It looked to be a fine day, cloudless and crisp. The valley there runs north-south with high mountains on each side, so the sun doesn’t hit the lake this time of year until 9:30 or so. It was quite chilly until then, but by noon was in the mid-40’s. We neglected to bring sun screen and even the brims of our hats didn’t help as the sun reflected off what snow was on the surface of the ice. We all stood on the western shore or the ice along it, so I managed to sunburn the right side of my face.

Thick ice

Thick ice

The email I received about the event said the ice was 12-15 inches thick. It is hard to tell standing on it, but I’d venture it was more like two feet where we were. The ice is criss-crossed with cracks, most of them quite small and not even going all the way from top to bottom. There are also lots of bubbles, often stacked up in columns. Some places the ice was quite smooth and the men, being boys at heart, often ran and slid to see who could slide the farthest. Here and there fishing holes had been drilled, but today all the fishermen were congregated at the southern end of the lake. (Movies and TV show these holes being big enough to drop a body through, but these were only about six inches across.) When we arrived a pickup truck towing a small trailer was navigating the course of traffic cones and many of us found that amusing.

I quickly found out that the battery for my camera was dead. When I checked it last night, it indicated a full charge but such is my luck lately with camera batteries. I took a few with the cell phone, but I find them unsatisfying. I did strike up a conversation with a guy who brought his 600mm lens and tripod. I hope to get copies of any shots he took during my runs. When I get them, I’ll share them in a subsequent post.

We were divided into four groups – two wheel drive Porsche, four wheel drive Porsche, 2wd other, and 4wd other. Did I mention this was a Porsche club event? The first group moved onto the ice and lined up for their runs. Cars were released a bit over a minute apart, depending on how fast the car ahead was going. The faster drivers were managing the course in a bit over two minutes. The slower ones took quite a bit longer, many spinning at the north east corner where the ice was particularly smooth and there was no snow.

I asked one of the event stewards how many cars had registered. He didn’t have the number and said he thought it was about 50, but I think it was more like 75. Chatting with other folks it seems most were, like me, doing this for the first time. Only a few people had studded snow tires. Some had snow or ice tires, most had all-season. I have “ultra high performance summer tires”, meaning I’d have very little traction. A few folks pointed at my tires and laughed. Good naturedly, of course.

So most of the day was spent standing around, waiting our turn. Prestige Imports brought a trailer with propane heaters so we could get warm. I took advantage early in the morning but it wasn’t necessary once the sun climbed over Saxon Mtn. Also in the trailer were free t-shirts, granola bars, and glove warmers.

Other 2WD staged up

Other 2WD staged up

At 11:30 the “other 2wd” group staged on the ice. This group was further split and we were in the second half, so more waiting around. The photo shows most of my group, including all three Lotuses. I didn’t know any of the Porsche folks but was acquainted with quite a few of my group, so while the first half was making their runs I was chatting with those in line and milling around with the rest of my group.The Porsche folks had made their runs in a fairly serious fashion, perhaps actually trying to get good times. Our group was a bit more free spirited. John managed to put his Miata though one gate sideways and the next gate backwards to hearty applause.

Finally, at 1:30, we got to make our first run. I was joking with Jerry, asking what he thought the chances were I’d be able to get through the course on the first run without spinning. He said “Zero!” I surprised everyone by putting together a perfect run, no spins, finishing in 2:30 according to Jerry’s stopwatch. Now, of course, I had to see how much time I could carve off that. I should be able to do better, now that I had some experience, right? On the second run I tried a hand-brake turn where we had all seen everybody have the most difficulty. I learned not to attempt hand-brake turns. I spun twice on that run and once on the third run.

It was a lot of fun, even though we were there something like seven hours and were only actually driving on the ice eight minutes. I’ll gladly try it again next year.

Video from Sunday

I just posted the video from Sunday’s track day. Rather than posting my fastest lap of the day, this time I made a montage of all the times I passed somebody or was passed. Well, almost every pass – I left out a couple of duplicates and one or two where you didn’t get much of a view of the other car. I’m guessing this is about two thirds of the cars that were there that day. I didn’t run in the fast group until the last session and a number of the faster cars left before then. And it’s a long track, so if somebody is running lap times comparable to mine, we may not encounter each other.

HPR Free Day

Happy New Year.

High Plains Raceway held their annual Customer Appreciation Day for 2012 yesterday. It was originally scheduled for last week, but was postponed due to the weather.

Scott and I met at the park and ride and drove out together. I think we first met at last year’s free day. The video I posted from that day has him waving me by at the end of the lap. He was quicker on the straights, but I had him in the turns. Since then he’s replaced worn brake parts and is now turning lap times a couple of seconds faster than me when I’m on my street tires.

Yesterday was a later start than usual – track opened at nine with a drivers meeting at 9:40 and hot track at ten. Two sessions were run each hour with the “slow” group for the first half hour and the “fast” group for the second half hour. I always run in the slow group on these open lapping days as there are quite a few race prepared cars. Yesterday I ran in four sessions, with the last session in the fast group. There were quite a few more cars in the slow group than the fast group, so I switched groups hoping to get a little more open space. I haven’t put a video together yet. Perhaps I’ll do a montage of all the times I got passed in that last session.

The weather was fairly nice for the first week of January. Sunny and in the low 40’s, but with a bit of a breeze that made things uncomfortable. Most folks were sitting in their cars to stay warm when they weren’t on the track. In the noon hour I took my picnic to the lunch area but retreated back to the car after a few bites of my sandwich. Too blustery for me.

There was quite a good turnout. I didn’t even try to count the cars. There might have been as many as 80. A fairly good variety with only a few familiar cars and faces. I was the only Elise but two Exiges showed up after a while so I wasn’t the only Lotus. There were several BMW’s, Porsches, and Corvettes. I don’t normally see any Honda S-2000’s but there were two yesterday – a black one with a giant wing on the back and one with a matte purple paint job and red wheels. A Ferrari showed up, but I don’t think he ever went on the track.

There was snow on the ground but the track was clear. There were quite a few places where the snow was right next to the track and occasionally somebody would cut a corner a bit and pull snow onto the racing surface. I had to modify my line all day through turn 1 as some snow kept melting on the inside of the turn. Hitting that little bit of water at speed in the turn was a real thrill; got a big wiggle there once, so I steered clear of it after that. Snow or water was in a few other places as well, so each time out started with a slow lap to make sure I knew where the danger spots were.

Everybody I talked to seemed to have a good time. But I guess that’s to be expected – every track rat will smile if you give him free lapping.

I hope to put a short video together in the next day or three and will post it here.