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After the briefing, everyone is queued up to take discovery laps in a Porsche Cayenne driven by one of the instructors. On the first lap, the instructor will drive slowly pointing out the braking and turn-in points on the road course. The second lap, he’ll hustle it around. Really pay attention as the line and speed you can carry around the corners are higher than I anticipated by just looking at the track map. I’ll tell you what, that Cayenne handles pretty damn well and carries impressive corner speed especially considering it was loaded up with 4 adults.
Now that we had seen the track, it was time to get into the cars. The car for my 5-lap outing was a new Nissan GT-R while Martin plunked his butt down in an Audi R8 V10. The GT-R is worth as much as my entire history of vehicle ownership consisting of two motorcycles and six cars; yeah, it’s a super car to me! The Audi R8 V10 is worth my entire vehicle history plus my undergrad and graduate college education. That’s a sobering thought…. And Martin got to track it! Dreams do come true.
Martin and I have a little bit of a rivalry going on having one track day and one karting competition in the records. The GT-R and R8 V10 are very evenly matched, so this was Round 3. To keep tabs on the lap times, we opted for the optional on-board video recording. All the cars are equipped with two cameras: one looking out front and one looking at the driver. The on-board video is processed after your drive and includes position on the track map along with speed.