Warning: incoming wall of text.
The short version - it was pouring rain most of the day, but it was still awesome and we didn't have to yell "Ricky Bobby Baby Jesus".
Here are a few videos from my youtube page, taken with my Replay XD.
http://youtu.be/NRBUIbinrgw
http://youtu.be/tm_QOBSLnfg
The long version -
My wife and I are back from our track day at Summit Point Motorsports Park. We were pretty nervous about going and even more nervous when the rain wouldn't stop Thursday night. Well, it rained the whole way up there and was coming down hard off and on all day. Leaving from Herndon, VA we got there at 8am, so it only took an hour which is pretty good considering the track is just over the border in West Virginia.
I have a 2010 Camaro SS with no power or suspension mods and my wife has a 2012 Fiat 500 Abarth with no mods. We are both running the stock Pirelli P Zero tires. After getting all of our stuff out of the cars and covering it with a tarp, we went through Tech Inspection to make sure everything was ok mechanically with our cars. The inspectors were very brief and we were done in 5 minutes. We then went to the driver's meeting where we were taught the basics of high performance driving and after that the noobie group (us) got in our cars and headed out to pit lane (aka The Grid) to wait for our instructors.
When the instructor took my Camaro out, it was pouring down rain and since it was mandatory to have our windows down on the track, water got all over the place. He had to be extremely light on the throttle because the back end had very little grip in the wet, so we went around mainly to teach me the racing line and when to brake, turn in and accelerate out of the turn. We pulled back into pit lane after about 10 minutes and then I took the wheel.
I really wasn't all that nervous driving because we started out really slowly and worked up from there. The instructors all said (and I agree) that starting off driving in the rain is better than starting off driving in dry conditions because it teaches all the basics at a much slower pace with an emphasis on throttle and steering control. I only had the Camaro wiggle a little on corner exit because I gave it too much gas but I was able to correct quickly and keep going. I'm glad I upgraded my brake pads to Hawk HP + pads. I think it really helped to slow the car down. They have an interesting burnt smell when they get hot though. On that first track session there was a black Mustang GT that spun out and ended up crashing into a small hill about 30 feet from the track, just after turn 9. There were several cars that ended up having to be towed back after spinning out. A different Mustang managed to skid 90 degrees sideways in front of my wife before going into the grass.
My wife did very well. Her Abarth is made for racing in the rain apparently because as my instructor said, if he was driving her car, he'd be faster than everything else that was there, except maybe the AWD cars. Her instructor said she did really well and was very impressed. Her "homework" assigned by her instructor is to work on heel-toe shifting. She loved the whole experience. Since the Abarth is FWD and in non sport mode (she was told to keep it off just to be safe) has 140 HP, she could pull out of corners much faster than us RWD high horsepower guys. When she did slide, it was all four wheels going in one direction so it was very controllable and easy to correct.
After each session, we got graded by our instructors 1-5 on 3 different categories. I forget what they are, but after the 3rd session I got 4's in all categories and my wife got 3's but they should have been 4's because her instructor said he never gives 4's or 5's to drivers on their first day. Did I mention we're going back one day?
Now we just have to wait for all of our gear and clothes to dry out. We both got soaked and so did most of our stuff, even covered by a tarp.
Shake n' Bake,
Michael