Page 34 - KCRPCA May 2017

MEMBER ADVENTURE
Dan Barks
For me, Heartland Park Topeka (HPT) was my rst Driver’s Education (DE) event. You see, your rst DE is like your rst romance; you never, ever for- get it. It lives in your mind forever, and it improves over time. Alpha zero, the carousel, the back straight with the kink - the Nurburgring simply has nothing on HPT, I don’t care what anyone says.
This great news was however met with doubt and many questions. When will they open? Can we still have our KCRP- CA DE’s out there? Will the track be the same? Did they change anything? If a ‘drag strip’ company buys the track, will they have interest in the road course?
Over the holiday break, Bob Wayman nally announced the real news; an of- cial, no kidding, no fooling around DE has been scheduled for the KCRPCA at HPT. I sign up immediately. As a
bonus, it also included Friday for even more track time. The track would retain its original layout, and by all accounts, the repaving was an absolute success and covered every square inch of the track. “We considered a partial repair, but in the end decided a brand new state of the art surface was what we really needed.” said Jeff Lacina, Road Course Direc- tor. They ground away a full 3 inches of pavement. This was to be replaced by two separate 1.5 inch deep applications of a very special mix speci c to our cli- mate and track use. They did it right.
Since that rst DE, I have been to other regional tracks and have steadily been building experience and making small changes to my “racing” equipment. The rst “small” change I made was chang- ing cars. I now drive a 2003 996. I have added track wheels and tires, a sport sus- pension, removed what I could to reduce
Photos by Jim Rand and video by David Lessmann
Revisiting a Lost Love
DRIVER’S EDUCATION
34
May / June 2017