Damn, it's been a few months since I updated this thread...
Anyway, HPDE season has been going pretty well after the belt issue at VIR in April. I've done three events since then and have another one coming up at the end of this month. My next event was at NJMP - Lightning with PCA NNJR in June. Car ran great and I was a second quicker than last season at that track. I was in the Blue run group (lower intermediate) to start the weekend and got promoted to White run group on day 2.
In July, I did two events at Watkins Glen. The first one was with PCA Riesentoter. It was not the best event. I was in the White run group (upper intermediate). The run groups were far too big (WGI can support a lot of cars on track, but this was too many) and there were too many drivers that were either unaware and gave late point bys, didn't know the track or didn't belong in this run group. Lots of trains, no clean laps, but still a fun weekend overall.
The second WGI event was with PCA Metro NY. This was an awesome event, if not partly due to a checkout ride with the Chief Instructor on Friday that got me promoted to Black run group (lower advanced). This was great news for my progress, but more importantly it moved me into the same run group as some of my buddies who have been doing DE much longer than me. I had probably the most fun I've had at a DE event in the sessions in Black that weekend. I'll put a video below of one of the sessions with my buddy in the 991.1 GT3 in Gulf livery.
Only negative from that weekend was the car started misfiring at high RPMs on Sunday. She was breaking up above 4.5k or 5k RPMs and I got the flashing CEL. Put in NGK plugs, one step colder. Grabbed a spare coil pack to have on hand trackside. Hoping for the best!
Next event is August 25-27 at Watkins Glen (again!) with PCA NNJR. They honored my promotion to Black from PCA Metro NY which is great. And this is always a great event. Paul Miller Porsche sponsors a dinner one night. There's a group of guys, collectively known as Scungilli Racing, that put on Scungillifest for dinner another night (some great pizza & Italian food!). It's one of the highlights of the season.