Ohhhh yeeeeeaaaaahhhhh....
Wow, that was fun! I just did the two-day Maverick Region PCA Driver's Education out at Eagles Canyon Raceway, and it was fantastic! Great track, great instructors, and for someone who hasn't been on a track in probably 4 years, I think the Cayman and I did pretty well.
I really enjoyed ECR - the long straights leading up to hard breaking points. How long do you leave that breaking? Just when do you turn in? How quickly can you roll back onto the throttle? All good fun. I loved corner 7 (blind cresting left-hander after the longest straight on the course), and the corner 1/2 "chicane". It took me a while to get corners 9 (downhill left-hander) and 10 (uphill right-hander) right, but I've pretty much got it now. Well, at least I know when I've screwed it up ;).
I never felt comfortable in corner 3. It's not that the corner is particularly hard or "scary", but the exit got very dusty/dirty from so many people going off there. I inevitably "cheated" the track out a little, trying to stay out of the dicey area. Of course, the area wasn't really as dicey as I imagined as my instructor showed me when he took me around for a session in his car!
::Drive1::
I really appreciate all the good information that ya'll provided in this thread, and watching the videos a number of times helped shorten the time it took for me to understand the course. I agree that the track facilities are not as good as MSR -- boy do I hate parking in the lower lot -- but they are still pretty good, and the PCA folks put on a first rate event.
Lastly, there were a couple of Miata's out there, but I don't think any of them (1) autocross or (2) hang out on this board. I told them about this group and encouraged them to check out a local AX sometime soon. I even lied and told them ya'll were a nice group of people... :D