Sunday, August 18

For the last few years, at least, Ferrari of Denver has held a track day for their customers. In the past I somehow never was on the mailing list and didn’t hear about them until after the fact. This year, when I had Ryan doing my alignment I made sure that was rectified. The earlier ones, as far as I know, all happened at the Colorado State Patrol track. This one was out at High Plains Raceway.

Other than seeing lots of expensive cars on the track, I didn’t really know what to expect. The schedule told me it would be a short day, with a driver’s meeting at ten and the final checkered flag at three. Allow for an hour lunch for the corner workers and we’re talking roughly three and a half hours. I was thinking we didn’t have enough cars to break into groups, so it should still be plenty of time to get four twenty five or thirty minute sessions.

Michael kindly came with me, so we loaded up his car with my slicks. I’ve been on the track with a few Ferraris on CECA days, and they were all just a little bit faster than me. So I was thinking that on the slicks I’d have a pretty good chance of passing some of these guys.

I’ve never been a huge Ferrari fan, never had any posters on my walls as a kid. I’ll never have the means to own one so I don’t pay that much attention to them. So I can’t tell you how many of which models were there. There were a bunch of red ones, a couple gray ones, and a very pretty blue one. They were all fairly new. A few of them were brought out by the dealer. I think they were giving rides, and as we were leaving somebody was using the launch control system on one of them. They’re all fast, capable cars. There were a few Porsches out there as well. Again, all fast, capable cars.

We also had a nice Lotus contingent: three Elises and three Evoras. Three of us are club members: myself, Dave and Peter. We made a half-hearted attempt at getting a Lotus group picture but couldn’t track down all the owners.

Back in my misspent youth, I spent a lot of time at a place called Malibu Grand Prix. I was originally attracted to the place because of the large arcade that had dozens of pinball machines. But their big attraction was to drive their 3/4 scale Indy cars. Most people probably compared them to go-karts, but they were much faster, capable of reaching 70mph in a straight line. The track had no straight lines longer than about twenty feet, though. A lap was half a mile long and began with a standing start, and the cars were spaced out such that you could never catch up to the car in front of you. When your lap was done, your time was displayed in large lights for everyone to see. A “Speeding Ticket” good for ten laps cost ten dollars. Most drivers could do a lap in about a minute. Good drivers were in the 54 to 55 second range.

I remember my first lap. I thought I was going really fast. I was hauling ass, and the adrenaline rush was intense! I knew I wasn’t setting any records, but I also knew I was putting in a respectable time. I broke the beam at the checkered flag and got in line for my next lap and looked up at my time, displayed in eighteen inch high lights for the world to see: 90 seconds.

In the drivers meeting today Glenn asked for a show of hands: how many drivers here today had never run a lap on a race track? About a dozen hands went up.

After a couple of sessions I couldn’t help but think of my first lap at Malibu Grand Prix. Here we have a bunch of drivers in some of the world’s fastest production cars out on a race track. I know they thought they were really going fast; I know they felt the rush of adrenaline. And I passed just about every one of them.

I know that there’s a lot to process for a driver the first time they’re on the track, and I try to keep that in mind. But very few of them ever looked in their mirrors. Slow and inattentive is a bad combination on the track. We had a second short drivers meeting at lunch and we were reminded to check our mirrors. It didn’t help much. We were operating under point-by passing: we can’t pass without the driver ahead pointing us by. But if they don’t see the faster car in their mirrors, they never point anybody by.

Even if it was open passing, I’d never have been able to get around them. You see, it’s really easy for a slow driver in a Ferrari to keep me behind him because he has three times the horsepower and on the straight he can pull ahead of me without any effort at all. A typical example today: half way around the lap I caught up to a guy. In some turns where I have the throttle wide open, he was on the brakes. He was taking fourth gear turns in second. And every straight, he’d punch it and I could never get next to him. By the time we crossed the start/finish line, I was 35 seconds slower than my previous lap. That means he was doing about a 3:20 lap.

When the day began, I was looking forward to passing a Ferrari. I knew I’d be on track with a bunch of guys with little or no track experience but I figured their cars were fast enough it would still be a challenge for me to push my little car past them. I wasn’t thinking about my first lap at Malibu Grand Prix. But it’s all good. Everybody with a Ferrari should take it to the track at least once.

The highlight of the day for me was running a few laps behind Dave. He is always a fair bit faster than me. He’s supercharged, so he has a horsepower advantage. And as I’m generally on my street tires, he also has a grip advantage. But today my slicks were the difference.

For the first session after lunch, Michael volunteered to forego a ride so I could try to set a fast lap. After a few laps I came through turn one to see Dave entering the track in front of me. I figured he’d pull away from me on the straight but I found I was keeping up with him. I had to point a Porsche by, and I thought that would get us separated, but when Dave pointed him by I was still somewhat close. I think it’s mentally easier to push when you are trying to catch somebody, and I pushed.

I closed the gap. At one point, I had a nice close-up view of his exhaust spitting flames when he downshifted. Next time around he pointed me by. If this had been a race I’d never have been able to pass him. I was only ever so slightly faster. But it was immensely satisfying. I set a new personal best at 2:07.60 (which is a few seconds slower than Dave’s best). And it was a helluva lot more fun than passing Ferraris piloted by drivers who had never turned a lap before today.

Sadly, the battery died on the camera just before this. I didn’t get video evidence of my lap, and I didn’t get Dave’s car breathing fire. So it goes.

There’s talk that Ferrari of Denver will do another track day soon, this time at the Colorado State Patrol facility. I’m game!