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Faith and Commitment at Summit Point |
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Intro
Summit Point is a real driver's track. A blend of technical, fast and ballsy - it provides grins and rewards for doing things right and really lets you know when you didn't. I'll describe it in sections because you really have to drive it that way to appreciate it. It is a very flow-oriented experience and a corner-by-corner description without the bigger picture does it no justice. So, from the exit of the pits onto the front straight and off we go:
1, 2, 3, 4, 5
Turn 1 thru turn 5 make a very fast section that requires a lot of faith to maintain momentum - more on that in a bit... lets get thru turn 1 first. At the end of the front
straight, positioned to the far left we get on the binders and just as the front left touches
the edge of concrete patch in front of our car - we turn in tight to the curbing and roll back into the
throttle a bit before the apex. Getting in early and tight allows us
to be on the throttle all the way thru turn 2 which has an expanding radius like the the famous Parabolica at Monza. Open the wheel gradually all the way thru and track out over the pothole on the left edge of the
track. The goal here is to try to use enough arc so that the car does not to scrub speed with understeer but not drive further than necessary around the rim just to stay in the throttle. We want all the
exit speed we can muster as this leads onto the second longest straight, followed by two very fast corners.
Now we should be approaching
turn 3 at an alarming rate of speed. This is where that faith I was
talking about earlier is going to come in. This is a blind, uphill left
and entry is early and very fast. On the right edge of track near the
second access road there are "scratches" in the blacktop that look like
a very heavy rollerskate dug them. Turn in there.... get back to
full throttle on the way TO the apex. The car will drift and we must have faith that the uphill on-camber part of this curve will compress the suspension and gather up the slide. We
exit turn 3 with the wheel straight and the right tires just touching the
gravel. The car should be aimed dircetly at the turn-in for turn 4 so
we don't need to do anything special to set up for it. This is my favorite turn... it
can make or break a fast lap. Work up to speed slowly and if things don't go as planned - drive
straight across the gravel. Do NOT TURN THE WHEEL. If
you enter the gravel sideways you will roll (and roll, and roll).
Turn
4 is also early. It is a *balls* turn that in good conditions be taken
flat out provided you have enough tire to slow the car afterward. We brush the brake only to set enough weight on the front tires to keep from understeering off the apex. This is a good place to use your left foot - but not to practice with it. We enter it from the far left of
the track; the left two wheels pass over a little dirt patch just before a
paint mark at the edge of the blacktop. We turn in just before the paint mark and keep the throttle wide
open, just kissing the curb at the apex. Don't HIT the curbing -
it upsets the car when the outside wheels are already fully loaded and
drifting and this is no place for that kind of drama. Get the wheel straight, lift and get on the binders (in that order!). Do not worry
about setting up for turn 5 just yet - its a throw-away. It is far more
important to carry speed in 4 than to set up well for 5. Just get the car slowed
on the left and *make* turn 5... I like to touch the curb on the inside
and scrub some speed sideways on the concrete patch as I enter. I
trail-brake a lot here to get back in shape.
If you brought more speed than
you could slow go off straight. Its a bumpy ride but better to do it
straight than initiate 5 and spin.
5, 6, 7 8, 9
After
turn four we slowed the car dramatically to make turn 5, a tight left that we toss
away as a sacrifice for carrying tremendous speed all the way from the exit of turn 2. Now, we only want to exit it such that the
attitude of the car is *right* for the entrance to our next section of
connected turns. The Carousel.
In this series the goal is to
build up momentum... since we had to throw it all away in
5. We want to take each turn successively faster without ever losing
anything until we brake for 10. We enter turn 6 from the
left with the left front tire on the concrete patch and with a little
bit of rotation initiated. We want to balance as much throttle as we can to
avoid scrubbing the fronts or kicking the tail out... holding the wheel still and steering with
the throttle. We follow the trail of rubber around near the outside curbing while looking thru
turn 7. Use a little trailing throttle steer to tip the nose into
7 and get back on it, unwinding the wheel as you just kiss the
curbing at the apex (do not mash the curb here... it will ruin
your run into 8. ) and allow the car to end up about 2/3rds of the way
right as we approach turn 8. We don't need to be all the way over to the
right - driving the car over there won't gain us anything except more
distance.
The key here is that the when we unwind the wheel from 6 we
keep it moving thru 7 and into 8 as one smooth transition while feeding
in as much throttle as the car will take - building momentum. So now we
should be going pretty fast and turning into 8...... but we don't
really care much about turn 8. Its a piece of road that is in the way of
what we really want... a full throttle entrance into 9. We don't try to
make turn 8 - we try to use it to set the attitude of the car so we don't need to lift. Turn 9 is an early, fast, uphill right
hander that is on-camber inside and off-camber outside... if we screw
this up we will kill our drive up the hill, our lap time will suffer terribly and our friends in the grandstands behind us will snigger. We exit turn 8 such that we
do not lift AT ALL, point the nose into turn 9 early and look up the
hill. When correct the car will suck itself to the apex and catapault out to the last bit of painted curbing with a beautiful, lurid drift. Drive the car under the bridge in the middle of the road toward 10.
When successful in this section, we will have gradually accelerated thru the series beginning at
the entrance to the Carousel and ending up at full throttle just after 7 and
all the way to the brake zone for 10. So far, so good. Only one more to go!
Turn 10
This one is
all about commitment... the kind of turn that makes the anus pucker up watertight. It is, by far, the
most important turn on the track and leads onto the longest straight
east of the Mississippi. One that is canted downhill for 2/3rds its length.
After our perfect run up the hill under the bridge
we are grinning like fools and bringing a lot of triple digit speed... down a hill. Into a turn. An EARLY and very FAST turn. We are going to brake in a straight
line enought to get the front weighted, turn and get back to full throttle waaay before the apex.
It will feel like we need a lot of brake because it is downhill. There is a blacktop repair that looks like a tire width on the left as
we approach it - as soon as the inside of the front
left tire touches it we turn the car. Now, here is the tricky part - we are going to drift TO the apex... past it and out onto the straight. You must commit
to this turn to be fast here and commitment means a fully loaded,
unalterable trajectory after turn-in. We will pass the apex under full
throttle and the car will drift out to the paint as we unwind wheel until we are pointed straight at a fantastic velocity, hurtling toward Start/Finish. We are gods. We congratulate
ourselves.
If this sequence does not go exactly as planned... DO NOT
LIFT. I will say that again. DO NOT
LIFT. Unwind that wheel. There is plenty of pavement on the other side of the
curbing to get things sorted and bumpy grass going straight is better than a tire wall backwards. If you lift you WILL spin to the inside,
hit and bounce across the track into the tire wall - just take a look at it...
its been a popular destination for those who get wishy-washy about their commitment about halfway to glory.
Thats all I got... enjoy.
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