[dradernh]

Originally Posted by AmuroRay

Last question (and thank you for sharing so far) did you feel a drop off in your abilities as you aged, especially in driving?

And I want to do more - more seat time, more events, etc etc - but the way the world is moving, who knows what will happen.

The principal drop-off was due to the lack of seat time. While I instructed from 2014-2017, it was in students' cars and never at any significant speeds.

When I got back on the track in 2018 in my own car, two things were immediately apparent: 1) in the sense that it's a sport, I was very rusty from four years off; and, 2) the soft 3,432# M240i was so different from the very stiff / everything-happens-right-now 2,708# race car that I was afraid to push the newer car fast right out of the box.

I got past those initial reactions but never developed the confidence in the M240i that I'd had in the E36. Once I ran a fast lap at Mid-Ohio that I didn't think I'd improve upon without running faster rubber or taking more risk than I wanted to, I decided to stop. There was nothing left that I wanted to do.

As far as seat time goes, I always could have used more karting time and more autocross time, but I was living in a rural area and generally found those events too far away to be convenient. Except for a four-day rally school I attended, they were where I developed the car control skills that made my track driving both safer and faster.

Good luck to you!