Shortly after taking delivery of the car in the late summer, I received an invitation from Acura (which I should have kept!) inviting me to the '
Jim Russell Racing Drivers School'. This was an all-expenses paid, 3 day event at their facility at Circuit Mont Tremblant, Quebec. This was in the pre-historic days when very few businesses had websites and
Google maps certainly didn't exist so my imagination went wild with anticipation!
Finally, the date arrived and I headed out for Mont Tremblant via Ottawa. I crossed the Quebec border and turned left at Montebello. This is where my actual lessons began! Highway 323 north out of Montebello is a driving school in itself! I see from a recent
Street View that the province is taking all of the fun out of this road!. The posted speed limit for the entire stretch was 80 km/h (50 mph) including corners
like this one.
I arrived at the hotel to a large reception where everyone got to know each other. It was awkward at first but a common passion for the car brought everyone together pretty fast. The next day we headed out for the track and were greeted by a pit crew of uniformed Acura mechanics who went over the cars to make sure our tire pressures and lug nuts were to spec and that all cars had proper oil and coolant levels before heading to the track. I'm sure this was just as big an event for the Acura techs as it was for us.
If I recall there were 31 of us and about 10 professional racing instructors and these instructors drove the first lap of every 'session' to make sure the tires were hot and that the car remained safe to drive. They also showed us the proper line through the course and more importantly they showed us what was possible with these cars! They scared the crap out of me! Remember that I had never really put my car through it's paces so I really didn't know what performance to expect. Driving on a good track is vastly different than on the street. You don't have to worry about gravel or other incompetent drivers and the racing line is designed for maximum speed which is very different than the street. Catch the proper line just once and you will never forget the feeling of an NSX coming out of a turn under full power and in full control.
Anyway.. we alternated between theory clinics and driving sessions for 3 solid days and probably shaved 50% off my Yokohamas. To my knowledge, there were no breakdowns at all amongst the 31 cars which is remarkable considering this was the first version ever produced.
The weekend remains a vivid memory and certainly the highlight of my life (so far).
I constantly get everyone checking it out, whether I'm parked at Tim Hortons getting a coffee or at Canadian Tire picking up a weekly sale, and usually have a group of people waiting wanting to know about the car. Most of us Nova Scotians are pretty relaxed:smile: Cheers
