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| Tracy Stout approaches the tricky Turn 15 |
by Bren Hirschberg
It looked bad – dark, thunder, constant rain as we gathered in the Starbuck’s lot on August 1st for the tour up to Oregon Raceway Park for the ACCO track day – was this going to be a “rain out”? Our hardy HDR track rats appeared undaunted and spirits were high. Chuck Warren, Jared Isaacs, Mike Simmons, David Vadman, Kevin Neary, Lisa Sarmiento, Steve Beer, John Wiley, Tim Hagner, Tracy Stout, Randy Smith and Bren Hirschberg headed north up the 97 for the 2 hour drive to ORP confident of a great day ahead.
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| Tim and Mike instruct at the Driver's meeting |
Sure enough, by the time we got to Grass Valley, the weather was perfect with a dry track and temps in the low 80’s. The Drivers meeting featured our own Tim and Mike as instructors giving the rules of the day and setting the “newbies” at ease.
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| Lunch and "Bench Racing" was enjoyed by all |
The relaxed half-day schedule proved to be ideal with two 30 minute track sessions for each group ( experienced and novice), an hour break for lunch with fare provided by the HDR and shade provided by Jim Lewis and Hutch’s Bicycles, followed by two more sessions for each group. Two hours of driving the loops and curves of ORP at speed is plenty and by the end of the day, everyone was ready to head home. The instruction offered by Mike, Tim and Kevin gave all of our drivers a good foundation on which to build their car control skills and a taste of what it is that keeps us coming back for more. As Lisa said at lunch, “Wow – this sure is NOT like driving on the street!” Congratulations to all our participants for an incident-free and fun-filled day.
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| Lisa Sarmiento leads David Vadman and Mike Simmons through turn 14 |
