#fiestast

As much as I am a novelist for cheating on NaNoWriMo, and had a college ban de because of MDF and the bass I bought 14 years ago, I am pretty much right there with Niki Lauda and Jackie Stewart as a master of the racetrack.

Why? Because I bought a Ford Fiesta. An ST, not my usual boring SE. Ford., in its wisdom thought, "let's send these people to a real track to learn a couple of things and not embarrass the brand." Six months later, I found myself at the Tooele, Utah home of the Ford Performance Racing School.

My invitation got me access to the ST Octane Academy. This meant a bit of oversteer/understeer/apex/safety stuff in the classroom and then off to the tracks. Track on e was an actual functioning racetrack. We know it is real because its annual losses are in the low 7-figures. The #FPRacingSchool may also lose money. I don't know, but between the class being free and the set of Michelins I killed (or at least flat-spotted) and the broken axle on a non-#12 Fiesta and the dead wipers on a Focus, there are a lot of sunk and ongoing costs to indulge a bounch of hooners like me every couple of days with someone else's car to thrash.

Anyway, part one was on the track: follow the leader, drive with and without a coach, and then hold on for dear life while anb instructor shows you first hand what the car can REALLY do (basically, 109% faster and smoother than the students at their best).

In the afternoon , it was a nitro pill under the tongue (just in case) and then off to the autocross course.

This is again not me, because my parking box powerslides were much faster, louder, smellier for tire smoke and stylishly asymmetric. Same with the Front 180. I was bored with the figure 8s. Two of these maneuvers were tied together with three different slaloms, with the parking box as a 0-4 second time reduction, depending on how many wheels were not not on fire and successfully stopped within the box. I didn't win with an adjusted 52.xxx time, but I was closer to the front than the back.