I'm now starting my second year of racing in Spec Miata. I look forward to this being another year of learning and shaving off a few more seconds per lap.
I do miss the track days (DEs) that I did for six years. I worked and worked and worked and became one of the "fast" guys in the advanced group. That said, I had (relatively) high-powered cars - a ~275hp Nissan Altima and a 300hp Subaru WRX STI. They helped me fly around the track, especially down the straights! That's where a lot of the fast DE guys do well.
My DE lap times were "good"....nearly meeting the Spec Miata lap record at Road Atlanta. :) As I've been finding out the past year, however, driving a Spec Miata in the low 1:40s is *much* different that driving a Subaru STI in the same fashion. Much different ball game.
That said I know that becoming a better racer will be no different than me becoming a good (or at least confident) DE driver. It's about seat time, programming, and doing all the right things over and over and over again - not unlike the advice I give my clients for running smart IT/information security programs in their businesses.
I feel like I'm nowhere near as good of a driver now as I was in my DE days. Maybe I am. Regardless, it's a hit to the ego going from the front to the back of the pack. I'm not too concerned - I won't be there long.
