The Most Fun Ever!!!

Lou ready to drive fast!

Last Christmas Dom enrolled me in the one day High Performance Driving Course at Proformance Driving School. They run their programs at Pacific Raceway in Kent, WA. On March 30 we got up really early and made our way 2 1/2 hours south to the track for an 8 am start. I was so excited the night before I could hardly sleep!

The day started out with about an hour or so of classroom instruction and then we spent the morning doing a number of defensive driving drills. After lunch we got to the really exciting part of the day--driving fast on the track. Beforehand we had another classroom session where we learned about the correct line to take on the track, the track layout and the rules under which we would be driving. Then our twelve person class was split into two sections. I was in the first group.

Most of the students had their own cars but, since none of ours our suitable for track driving, I used a school car--a Chevy Cobalt with race seats, race belts, roll bars, etc. It was pretty zippy and, I thought, handled quite well at high speed. An instructor rode in each car during our track sessions. Each of the three sessions was about twenty minutes long.

It is hard to describe the experience except to say that it was the most fun I have EVER had bar none. The thrill of driving on the track at high speed (to me!) was just incredible. Even more fun was actually being good at it. Not only did my instructor tell me that I was pretty good but a total stranger (not affiliated with the school) told me "my" car looked pretty good on the track!

Of course the grin on my face was about a mile wide the entire afternoon. I spent a couple of days trying to figure out how soon I could get back to the track. Of course first we need to buy a sports car. I told Dom that next Christmas I want to do a three day open wheel car race driving course. We'll see if I get it.

In the meantime, I am really excited to get back to driving in Italy. It will be fun to once more be in a zippy little car taking the curves as fast as possible.


"My" car on the track. In the distance you can see how curvy the course is. It is over two miles long.


I did not get passed much but this Audi was REALLY fast and a great looking car as well.



My car is the first in the row. They had us line up every time we came back. Unfortunately being first in line meant I was always doing the exercises first. It would have been easier if I could have seen someone else do them first.