Well, the off-season is officially over. After over five months on the sidelines, I dusted off the cobwebs (literally and figuratively) at Carolina Motorsports Park a couple weeks ago.

Here are a few thoughts and lessons on my test day.

The Rust Is Real

This was the most extended break I've taken from track driving, even counting an out-of-state move followed by breaking the cam in my E30.

Even though I did a lot of iRacing over the winter, my first session back was very slow and shaky. I took it easy and worked on fundamentals: finding all the flag stations, being smooth with my shifts and steering inputs, and feeling out the new tires and brakes.

I was a good 10 seconds off my usual pace in this session. And, as it turns out, I was too gentle on the new brakes, as we'll talk about soon.

...But Easy to Shake Off

I wasn't surprised to be rusty, but I was surprised by the rate at which I shook off the rust. By the second session, I had already matched my best time from CMP in 2024.

As I started to push harder in the third session, I experienced a significant "shudder" from the brakes. As evidenced by a later check of my catalogs, I had done poorly bedding them, using less than half of my normal braking pressures in the early sessions. This was distracting, and I was slower that session.

A little ambitious heading into turn 1. Might have been a little close to the track limit on the right side, too.

Things Were Clicking

After speaking to my contact about the brake issue, I shook off the shudder (no pun intended) and focused on pushing harder.

To my surprise, I clicked off a couple of personal bests in the fourth session. First, I went sub-1:46 for the first time in this car, and then I followed it with a sub-1:45, beating my previous best by more than a second with a 1:44.7.

I didn't mess with the car setup all day. It felt excellent—the best since I've owned it. That is not to say it wouldn't have benefitted from some changes. Still, I wanted to focus slowly on getting comfortable behind the wheel again.

This Is Why We Test

Happy with my progress and results throughout the day, I went out for the last session simply wanting to "put in reps." However, something was wrong on the second lap as I set the car in for turn 4. I drove straight off into the dirt in bewilderment. I slowed the car down and rejoined the track safely, only to realize something had broken. The steering was very heavy, I could smell power steering fluid, and there was a trail of dust and some white smoke behind the car, so I pulled it far off the track to wait for a tow to avoid dropping a bunch of fluid on the track.

The power steering fluid that ended up on the front tires meant I didn't end up going where I was aiming the car, so I bailed it off into the dirt.

As it turned out, one of the high-pressure power steering lines had failed at the compression fitting, dumping all the fluid into the engine bay, under the car, and some on the front left tire (which explained why I went almost straight off when I tried turning in).

My clean car was now wet and dusty, but besides the line, all was well. It was better to have happened in testing than during a race surrounded by other cars!

Onwards and Upwards

The car has already been cleaned up and repaired. Next week I'll be testing again ahead of our first Gridlife Touring Cup race of the season, April 11-13th at Carolina Motorsports Park.

You can join the live streams of qualifying and four GLTC races on Gridlife's YouTube channel.