Track Day

“Nice, I like that!” says my instructor, as the inside front wheel of my car just barely kisses the apex of the off-camber left-hand turn. Then it's hard on the brakes, a quick down-shift into second and through the “throwaway” turn 5, not carrying maximum speed, just concentrating on maintaining a proper line, and looking ahead through the corner. I line the car up to hit the concrete transition at the entry of turn 6 and roll onto full throttle, blasting down the rear straight…where I'm promptly held up by a gaggle of M3s.

“Looks like we caught all the slow fast cars,” chuckles Mark, my instructor from Driving Unlimited, and I can't help a smug grin from crossing my face. Not bad for a novice in a station wagon.

It's the tail-end of what's been probably the most fun day I've ever had behind the wheel, and the air is full of the smell of glazing brakes, unburnt fuel and smouldering clutches. It's a potpourri of speed, even taking into account what the inside of my loaner helmet smells like.

The location of all this lead-footed lunacy is Mission Raceway Park, and the occasion is the last Vancouver Subaru Impreza Club track day for the season, put together by Specialty Subaru's Geremy Testar. WRXs and STis dominate the field, but there's also the aforementioned M3s, a pair of tuned-up NSXs (one of which has got a body-kit rivalling the Batmobile), and, lest you think speed is exclusively the province of young men with a wanton disregard for personal safety, a bright red Mini Cooper S piloted by a woman who has a passing resemblance to my mother. Annoyingly, she turns out to be a far better driver than me.

Track days provide a chance for those of us with an addiction to acceleration to test the limits of our cars and abilities in a safe environment. Well, mostly safe anyway.

The day started with quite a downpour, although there were only a few intermittent showers by the time we actually headed out for track orientation and warm-up exercises. However, this was worse than steady rain, potentially resulting in patchy areas of unpredictable grip, as our instructors reminded us at the driver's meeting. “We want everybody to have a good day out there, but more importantly, we want everybody to be able to drive their car home at the end of the day.”

The first one to discover that the instructors aren't fooling around is a black Honda S2000 that spins off into the grass in turn 2. He's lucky.

Fall weather has left slippery leaves lining the pavement either side of the perfect line, and there are lots of concrete walls out there, their sides scarred and covered with flecks of paint left there by previous victims of lift-throttle oversteer.

We split up into groups and run through the slalom, emergency braking and trail-braking exercises, getting a feel for the slick surface of the track. The higher-horsepower rear-wheel-drive cars are at a particular disadvantage, especially those with summer tires unsuited to the cold, wet conditions. Still, confidence in our abilities slowly began to build under the careful tutelage of our instructors.

Over a lunch of hot soup, we all chatter about our cars, proper gear choices for the corners, and that troublesome hairpin at turn 3. Most of us are novices, but there are a few more seasoned drivers, including the Mini driver and her husband. Regardless of experience though, there's a sense of community among the drivers, all here to fulfill our need for speed.

Despite the forecast, the rain holds off past lunch, and as the track dries out and grip gets better, we start going faster. Much, much faster.

The instructors pull us all in and give us the 3:20 braking lecture, reminding us that a tight, technical course like Mission can eat through brake pads and glaze rotors in two or three hot laps. “Brake management is among the most important things in race,” they hammer into us, “Brake early, and brake consistently.”

Despite their advice, more than a few cars have smoking binders after a couple of fast laps, and we need to pull into the paddock to cool off slowly and prevent warping, both of the brakes and of the driver's nerves. Then it's my turn to lead the last few hot laps, and Team Wagon pours through the turns, hot on the heels of those cocky Ultimate Driving Machine pilots. The signal for the final lap comes far, far too soon for anyone's likings.

After saying goodbye to my fellow drivers, I drive home in the sunshine and rush hour traffic. As things slow to a crawl just before the Pitt River bridge, I begin thinking of how I would explain how much fun today was to my decidedly non-auto-enthusiast wife.

Maybe I should get her a Mini.