A Day at the Racetrack

Contributed by Jerry Bradbury

Some people wonder why I'd plunk down big bucks to spend a day on the race track with my MINI after just cruising across half the country. Let me see if I can explain this. It's not (as some think) that all MINI Cooper S drivers are speed crazed demons (although I will admit there are some). For me, it's about safety and limits. Even after putting the first 2200 miles on Sad Arthur coming across I-80 from Chicago, I still didn't know what his limits and strengths were, or what would happen should I have to go all in (clutch and brake pedals to the floor) to avoid some brainless fellow driver, or run into a patch of black ice, or suddenly come upon a nail studded board in my lane, or overcook a decreasing radius turn on a mountain road. The time to learn how to deal with these and other emergencies is before they happen so you can get them into muscle memory and not have to think about what to do in the moment. That's why all my boys got Car Control Clinics from Bob Bondurant and Skip Barber when they got their driver licenses. They learned the important things that driver training in school just can't provide. It's cheap insurance and really adds to your peace of mind when your teenager is behind the wheel. It's no secret that the highest driver mortality rate belongs to the teenagers. Good driver training at least gives them a fighting chance. I highly recommend it to all parents for their teen drivers.

One of Jake's instructors started his class like this: “If you're driving down the road and you get hit by lightning; that's an accident. Anything else can be prevented, and we're here to show you how.”

So, I figured what's good for the goslings is good for the gander and signed up for Jim Russell's High Performance Driving Course at Sears Point Raceway, about 30 minutes from my home in Berkeley. 4 Porsche 911s, a Corvette, a '74 Ferrari 308, another MINI S and a totally over the top SL55 AMG Mercedes made up the class. Tech inspection and tire pressures were first. When I pulled Sad Arthur into the service bay and popped the bonnet, all the techs crowded around to admire the John Cooper Works kit and talk about the performance of the MINI Cooper S. I said I hoped I'd be able to keep up with the rest of the class and one of the instructors said, “Oh, don't worry, you'll keep up. We like MINIs. They handle really well and they're fast. I'm thinking of getting one.” The morning was taken up with a class on driving lines, late apex points, weight transfer, braking, acceleration and safety. Then we were split into groups of three plus an instructor and off to three training stations: the skid car, the lane change exercise and the autocross exercise (also known a turn 11 training). The skid car (also known as the vomit comet) is a standard automatic tranny front drive Mitsubishi. Its front wheels sit on the pavement, but its rear wheels sit in a wide outrigger with caster wheels on the bottom. We were supposed to drive this rig through varying elevations and around some cones. Well, I have to tell you, driving that thing was like trying to do the tango on a floor covered in ball bearings. The least mistake and you'd see your butt going by in the window. The spins were so frequent and so dizzying that two of the guys had to bail out and watch from the steps. Somehow I got through it, albeit slowly. The next drill was lane changes at speed and we learned to hold the wheel at 9 o'clock and 3 o'clock, then cross arms until they hit, straighten, and cross arms the other way while navigating through two lanes marked by cones with car sized gaps between some of the cones. It's amazing how fast the MINI can do this maneuver! Next was the autocross course and it was here that Sad Arthur's limits were first reached. While circulating the small tight practice course, I noticed that every time I came around there seemed to be one more long black skid mark on the track than was there before. When I pulled into the pits, the instructor asked me if I had experienced any overrevving. I thought I had. “Well,” he said, “It was pretty obvious to us. You have to learn to feather the throttle on the exit of the turn because otherwise the MINI's inside front wheel will unload and will spin. It's very exciting for the spectators when you light up your front tire and pour smoke out of the wheel well, but you're not really going anywhere. A limited slip differential would help. Does MINI make one?” I had to admit I didn't know and, humbled, go back to work learning how to feather the throttle in corners to get the power to the pavement.

The weather was perfect: clear skies and 60 degrees. We had a nice lunch at a nearby winery (no wine) and headed back to the track for laps. The rest of the day, I was paired with Gerard in his EB MINI S. The instructor drove the lead car while the following car tried to ape his line. Then the lead swapped and he drove mine. The rest of the time he rode shotgun as we swapped the lead, yelling like a rally navigator as Gerard and I tried to learn how to turn fast laps. Now I know the limits of the S on runflats. Turn 10 was so fast it scared me, but bit by bit I got more confidence in my technique and in the car and got faster until we were four wheel drifting through right at the limit of adhesion but perfectly under control. What a rush! After that, my side of the two lane road to Somoma seemed really wide and I was looking w-a-a-a-y ahead as I'd been taught, while cruising at the speed limit which now seemed like crawling. Great day, great training and great fun playing hot laps with another S.

Photos:

• The Usual Suspects Lineup
• Coopers Rule Sears Point