Regenmeister edition Ouback or how to track day your station wagon.

Yesterday I was at a PCA track day and one of the sessions was a national level instructor training. I was asked to help train, since my Datsun was down I'd just gone out to the track in the Subaru and so I figured I would learn a bit as well as helping out.

Well the person I was paired with didn't have a street car there so as it was bucketing rain I figured the Outback would be fine.

Well me being me, I decided that hustling the car in low grip conditions couldn't hurt and even if I did skate it off the road it would be the first time I'd had it sideways in the dirt.

The  first session was at a fairly reduced rate but during the second session we stepped it up a bit. As expected the front end would push but cadence throttle got it sticking enough to get the back rotating enough that I could get long lazy 4 wheel drifts. Sadly if I got a bit to exuberent or on opposite lock the nanny would shut down the fun.

During the third session we did more experimenting with lines as part of the role playing. My role was the overdriving ex-motorcycle racer dude (this isn't much of an act for me as I am that guy). We played with wet lines and found some good grip as well as and turned the big  long 4 wheel drifts into ever so slight 4 wheel drifts. More importantly we were have some good laughs.

So the instructor candidate  had tons of instructor experience but was just attending to get his PCA national license. He had me talk about what I was doing as I was doing it. While I know I'm capable of doing this I was quite surprised at how comfortable it was to have a causal conversation while skating the car though corners........loads of fun.

A bone stock Outback is the last car I'd track. My car is a 6 speed manual and the pedals are actually close enough to heel and toe. The car is pretty underpowered but has solid enough mid-range to pull decently off most corners. Now if it were dry I seriously doubt the brakes and tires would have faired as well as the did.  It was pretty much rallycross and pavement, read some things are so wrong they're just to much fun.

My 07 Legacy wagon is my winter track car and rallycross/daily driver year round. Our local track runs open lapping if the track is dry and clearish or completely snow covered on the weekends. Cheap all-seasons are cheap and work surprisingly well on freezing asphalt once you get a bit of heat in them and it's a lot of fun to pick on the faster cars that are too afraid to push hard enough to get their tires working. My car doesn't have any nanny's other than ABS and a decent set of brake pads match their ability to the (lack of) power.

Adam

In reply to Tom1200 :

Every time I get manual Subaru’s out of my head...