Unfortunately, I have had to withdraw from the COTA event and cancel my triple event trip to Texas!



Good to know they plan on having more events there as I can't wait to run there with NARRA (unless that was all lip service).

 

Agree with Nugget and 4forme on the esses.

 

I was also in today's track event with Driver's Edge and agree - the track is fantastic. It was wet most of the day, with a dry line starting to show up part of the track in the last session. The track is smooooth, consistent, and pretty grippy in the wet. Some of the corners are more blind than I expected, even having played a lot of laps on F1 2012. The entry to the esses is somewhat blind; same for the entry to T10.

The corner stations are hard to spot because they're behind the fencing. On the 1st out lap today, each corner station put up a yellow flag, so I was trying to memorize where they are.

ALL of the track staff - each and every one of them - that I interacted with was very nice and courteous.

What kind of lap times were y'all running or hearing about? I can't help but be curious. Most of the times I heard in my group were in the 2:55-3:00 range, although I know there were guys going a lot faster than that.

 

nooooo, i was hoping there still was a chance

 

Yeah, not happy at all! The only consolation is that I wasn't looking forward to 15 hr drive. Hate to miss the group and that NARRA event at TWS more than COTA itself. We'll see if they really do allow more amateur events there in the future.

Going to make it up to myself with a trip to NASA nationals at Miller (if I can find a car hauler) in Sept, followed by a double header at Sebring in Oct/Nov with NASA/NARRA respectively.

 

I bet they would.

Hopefully things will turn around wrt COTA's attitude towards amateur racing and DE events. I actually think this will eventually happen. But until they start booking events regularly, and show us all that they are serious about being part of our community, friendly words from the handful of people who have been lucky enough to get on the track are meaningless to many people.

 

Thanks for the posts everyone. Now starting to get excited a little about COTA. Was hard after the debacle in December. Have a fast safe day today.

 

Sounds like things are going well. Let's hope for warm, clear weather in 3weeks for MVP.

Mike, When are you leaving for COTA? I'm planning on Tuesday the 29th - easy 1 1/2 day trip and rest before the big event. Allan

 

29th sounds like a plan. What time do you plan on leaving

 

I am thinking about leaving 10AM, miss morning rush, drive till about 8PM (7central) 10 hours or about 600miles with stops. Wednesday, final 350 miles. Easy trip.

 

Sounds good. I will give you a call when I get back to atlanta. I wanna get a day or so at AMP to shake some of the rust off before I leave

 

Thanks for the notes, David.

I thought they weren't allowing passengers other than official instructors? Has this been relaxed?

 

No, that rule was in effect the entire weekend. I am an instructor for Driver's Edge, so I got to ride with a lot of other drivers. Weirdly, we weren't allowed to take students out with us in the instructor sessions either, which was disappointing. The only right-seat passengers allowed were instructors, no matter who was driving.

Greentree saved the day, though, and let me take his car out in the afternoon session on Sunday so I was able to get a good, dry session in a proper car.

 

Is there a comprehensive COTA event schedule? The calendar listed on the organization's website only lists events such as F1, V8 supercars, MotoGP, etc.

 

Dez looks like you would've be running sub 2:20's