I was there and it was... Interesting. Ok, and a hell of a lot of fun too! I can't provide too much commentary on the other race groups since I was spending most of my time just trying to keep my head above water during my first race weekend, but I can at least give a beginner's impression.
Practice: First time out on track had the distinct thought, "What the heck were they thinking when they designed this track?" Got progressively more and more comfortable despite having a few spins in various (non-damaging) places. The vets and karter kids had definitely come out to play and we immediately started seeing times in the 2:10-2:14 range.
Qualifying: Decided that I should really see what I could do if I just put aside all thoughts of self-preservation. Managed to put up a flyer of 2:17, which was 6 seconds quicker than my practice time of 2:23. More importantly, I was consistently running in the 2:18s so I felt pretty solid about that. A number of people spun off, including a couple of the vets and one of the Brazilian kart kids. Ultimately the attrition put me up to 6th on the grid. This was the high point of the weekend.
Race 1: Felt fine right up to the start, but then the red mist settled in big time. In the first two laps I had managed to go four off in oak tree, as well as having a nice spin (but not four off) under braking into 14 at the end of the straight. Made my stop and pulled my head back together and got back into the rhythm on my outlap and felt really good heading into lap four as I was steadily pulling away from the guy I came out of the pits in front of. I finally got oak tree somewhat close to right on that lap and got a good launch down the back straight and pushed my braking point back to the .75 board (I know, I know go ahead and call me a pansy
) when all hell broke loose. One moment I'm blipping to snag second right before turn in, the next my head is being bounced around the cockpit like a pinball and the world is spinning around me. Turns out the guy behind me had gotten "optimistic" with his braking and ran smack dab into my gearbox hard enough that the damage to the cars had the mechanics thinking he had hit me while I was stopped. I was pretty dizzy so they made me get checked out by the med center but after a few hours they cleared me to race the next day.
Race 2: Started 14th out of 15 and managed to get up to 12th before getting to the 6, 7, 8, and 9 complex. Just as I'm turning in to 7, a couple cars make contact and one of them spins to a stop at the apex in front of me. I felt like I had two choices: either take a chance on hitting him and making a serious accident even worse by trying to squeeze by, or drop some speed and drive straight off and around him. I chose the latter. From there it was a fairly uneventful race, ending up with me in 10th thanks to some further shennanigans up the field from me.
All in all, not a bad weekend. I pretty stoked that I could drop a consistent 4 seconds off my best practice time after only one day of practice, especially now that I have a better feeling for where my weak points are, but I was disappointed that I didn't get to run a single clean race (due to no fault of my own in the second race). I will say, though, that the really quick guys could have been a bit more cognizant of the fact that some of us are still learning; I was ready to pack it up and go home after having near crashes in the esses and the downhill section from 14-17 during practice caused by people dive bombing from way back or forcing me off-line. For this combined group thing to work, the really quick guys have to realize that they can't treat everyone on track during practice the same way they would during a race for points. Its legal and there's nothing technically wrong with it, but it makes the people who are just trying to learn really bitter at the lack of consideration shown by the veterans. I'll definitely be back, but I'd love to hear some stories from guys further up the field.