Dmitry Kalashnikov

Today was so much fun! My friend Kevin and I drove to Bremerton Motorsports Park for a full track day with Porsche Club to practice slalom, skidpad, accident avoidance, figure 8, autocross and open events.

Getting ready for autocross event.

Safety first

Kevin’s white Carrera 4, and my Evolution MR.

It started to rain! AWD is so much fun on a slippery road.

They brought a water truck and sprayed the course for the “skidpad”. The right side of the circle was very slick. This exercise teaches you that you can turn and control your car just by adjusting acceleration. When you let off the gas, the weight of the car transfers forward, AWD catches on and the rear end gets whipped around. Sometimes you get into an understear (car keeps going forward even though the wheel is cranked to the side). If you smoothly turn the wheel get straight to get the tires rolling again and bring it back to the side, it will catch on immediately.

It’s amazing just how much everything I’ve learned from Aikido applicable to racing. It is the purest application of “Stillness in movement”. You’re keeping your mind calm and fluid while things around you are moving incredibly fast and chaotic.

The instructors also kept talking about “looking ahead” and being smooth, the same way in Budo you do not let your mind get fixated on opponents blade (or any particular thing).

This is where we attended ground school in the morning with driving instructors.

We saw a Mercedes-Benz SLR McClaren supercar at the track. What a beautiful car!

Kevin made a video of the entire event. Check it out: http://www.facebook.com/video/video.php?v=606632132181&ref=nf