First race weekend - Skippy School - Day 1

I missed the actual first two race weekends because of work. But on May 24, I got my first taste of FnC.

First off, let me explain what Skippy School is. Actually, it's Skip Barber Racing School, and if you've got the money to pay for a weekend, you get classroom instruction and a whole lot of seat time. The cars are all identical. They're very basic, open-wheeled, winged cars. Top speed around a buck-thirty, I believe. Runs a fairly stock Mazda 2 liter 4-banger, and rolls on treaded street tires. Click here for a photo I did not take (and here for three whole pages of photos I didn't take). And here for the official Skippy page on the Formula 2000. It's a good step up from your daily driver, and looks like some incredible fun. But at roughly $3 grand+ for a 2-day adventure (plus damages if you wad it up), this weekend camp is well out of my income bracket.

Right. so what did I do? Well, I started out on Station 13.

Wait. Lemme put on the brakes here for a second.

In FnC, we don't say a double-digit number like you civilians do. We don't say "13" as "Thirteen." We call it "One three." There's a very good reason for this. But I'll be damned if I remember. I think I was doing extra credit in numb-ass endurance. Regardless, that's how we say it. And you should too. It's much cooler.

Ok. Station 13 is at turn 8, the Heel of the Boot.

It's a very sharp, downhill right-hander, at the end of a quick uphill-downhill straight. A lot of drivers will attempt to overtake here, as this is a prime out-braking zone.

It's also a trap.


A lot of cars get squeezed off the track into the gravel, or worse, punted when an overtaking driver gets too greedy and can't make the turn smoothly. Other drivers will simply spin out all on their own as they exit. Sometimes they get straightened out again, but with all their traction digging in again, they end up spearing across the track and into the rail.

It's a pretty tricky spot. Deceptive too. I've driven this track in my street car (legally I should mention) and and in my computer racing sim (I'll post another time with the in-car video of my real lap, and an explanation of sim racing). I was caught off guard with how you really need to be smooth and precise. Not a lot of room for sloppy driving, as my day working 13 would prove.

I was teamed up with Ted, a veteran flagger. I learned a lot from him as I started out in the morning doing the flagging work.

I stood in the little 'balcony' that projected out a little extra from the station (a covered one, mind you. These were the stations to get!). From there I stared intently at and through the corner as the traffic proceeded past our station.

We had a few solo spins, and one or two small impacts with the inside rail. Nothing to get terribly excited about. A good way to be introduced to the job.

After the lunch break, Ted had me on the radio. All was quiet for me until the end of the day when I had a pretty decent whollop in the same inside rail. I called it in as I'd learned from Ted, and got no reply. Ted looked over his shoulder with a look of, "Get with the program, rookie!" and told me to call it in.

Turns out, my radio never transmitted (I'd later come to learn that our radios and/or headsets pick the most inopportune time to flake out. Replacement equipment is often called for at several stations late in the day). Anyway, Ted took over the call on his radio and everything sorted itself out.

*sigh*

And that was my first day.