Wow what a blast last week was. By far the highlight of the academy. I actually got paid to go drive around a race course and get professional driving instruction. This is only slightly more interesting than hours of push-ups. The course was located at the Washington State Patrol Academy located in Shelton, WA. We spent the whole week there learning how to make emergency lane changes, evasive stops, high speed backing, lower speed skills, and how to handle corners at top speeds.
I must say on day one as the instructors took us on laps around the track and through the different obstacles, I honestly thought there is no way I will be able to pull this off. Many of the obstacles seemed manageable as long as you could use your brakes and pick the speed that you wanted to go. However, they picked the speed and brakes were not allowed. They often referred to the cones that you hit as pedestrians, and if that was the case on day one I took out a whole village. It did not take long before I was quickly being referred to as Ricky Bobby from Talledega Nights, if you have not seen the movie check it out and you will appreciate the dubious honor. Although, once I got a few laps under my belt, and some quality instruction I started to turn it on and everything slid into place. Before long I was flying around the track, leaving all the cones right where they started. As the week went on we took on other parts of the track, where my top speed coming out of one corner was right around 97. Every time I got out of the car, I some how found my face frozen with a smile. It was quite a rush that I will soon not forget.
Next week is 10 of 19. I am officially half way done. It has flown by, but at the same time there is quite a bit of road still ahead of me. I can hardly wait until I get to hit the street and go to work for real.
until next time Shake and Bake...
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