I needed an escape. There was no doubt about it…between work, the ongoing project that is BangShift Mid-West HQ (coming attraction: garage!), and weather that I wouldn’t wish on my worst enemy, I’d about had my fill of a lot of things. Seriously…you step into my backyard right now and you will find liquefied soil, it’s that saturated. But the breaking point might have been when I came home from a show and saw the piles of grass around a certain silver paperweight. I knew the grass was getting tall around the Project Raven Imperial, but between that and the near-nonexistant work on the car, I was done. And my wife, bless her, could tell as well. She could see the frustration I was harboring, so the other day she decided to go ahead and give me an early birthday present: a paid day at the National Corvette Museum’s Motorsports Complex. I would get all day to play as part of NCM’s Michelin Track-X program. As many laps as the car count could dictate, as much as I wanted between 10 a.m. and four in the afternoon. All I had to do was to keep the rubber on the road and not mow the very few autocross-like gates down while doing it. I couldn’t clean out all of the junk in the car fast enough.

We’ve run Angry Grandpa at NCM’s Track-X before….but the last time we were there, it was February, cloudy with a chance of frostbite, and some water and ice was still on the track. We were also on the West circuit (red), but that wouldn’t be the case this time. Xtreme Xperience, a supercar driving experience group, had the West circuit reserved, presumably for that beauty of a straightaway. To be fair, if I had the cash that they require for their driving packages, you wouldn’t be reading so much about our gold-brick Chrysler and instead would have video of me hooning the hell out of a McLaren 570S before I got arrested. But I was assured that the supercar drives were more like parade laps than anything, so while I did admire the pretty cars, that’s all I did. At least they were cool with the lesser folk looking them over at close range.

Right at ten in the morning, when the track-walk was done and the first cars were lining up in the queue, waiting to hit the asphalt…I arrived. Whoops. If you’re going to do one of these events, go early enough to walk the track. Especially if they are going to be using a different part of the course. After getting my car tech’d in and approved (thanks again, Matt!) I lined up to the flagman’s amusement. He gave me a gentle reminder to take it easy and learn the course before I put my foot into it. I nodded…and only took half of his advice. I did take it easy on my first lap, but as for learning the course…nope. The main point of the East Circuit is the system of corners known as “the Sinkhole”, a technically challenging right to left-sweeper with enough elevation change to make you sick. Prior to Sinkhole there was a gate that made an immediate right, almost a perfect 90-degree turn. Guess who drove straight on, missed the gate and track entirely, and ended up slinking back to the paddock like an idiot? Yup, you guessed it. I’ve been on the East Circuit before, but it was when the track opened in August 2014, I was a passenger as a pro driver in a C7 Corvette was trying to set a new lap record, and by the time it was all said and done I had to see a chiropractor for a strained neck. Ten minutes with Google later to remind myself to turn right, and I went back out. I pushed the Chrysler a little bit harder, found the turn, found the rest of the course. Now I’m feeling good…I know where I need to go. I hot-lapped and once I was at the line I unleashed hell. I was moving at a good clip, the tires were just warming up, the brakes had not yet learned what heat was, and coming out of the uphill left section of Sinkhole, I blew so far wide that I had no other choice but to maul a line of poor, innocent cones. It wasn’t just that I ran wide…the front end washed out worse than the 2006 Monte Carlo SS I used to autocross in Washington. I slinked off of the track again, this time with one strike against me (three strikes and you’re out for the day).

Among the neat things that NCM has, this Michelin tire pressure station has to be the coolest. I want one of these in my garage like right freaking now. Punch up the desired PSI, hook fitting onto valve stem, and the machine does the rest. And it’s good…even the TPMS system on the 300C, which is rather picky, agreed wholeheartedly and without question. At this time I also broke out a new toy, a $40 dash cam system…you know, the type that is used to record Russians turning cars into crumpled-up cans with. After the last set of track videos I had from NCM, anything had to be an improvement.

For five and a half hours, I ran Grandpa ragged. The pattern: run at least two laps, or until the EVIC screen showed a temperature at or above 260 degrees Fahrenheit. Exit the track, drive around the open asphalt area to cool the brakes for a couple of minutes, then park with the hood up and engine running to get the temperature back down, and repeat. And I’m not kidding on the time any…I ran all day long. Once the sun started to warm the track up, Grandpa started to get a little bit froggy. Last time I bitched about terminal understeer and the car’s absolute refusal to rotate for anyone. Not this time…we still haven’t gotten around to fixing the ESP/TCM’s little red wagon, but unlike the last time, the Chrysler was actively trying to dance. From the launch, which went straight into a sharp left, the car would try to drift. Coming into a corner, a bit of steering and a quick tap of the brakes would set the car up to rotate, and with a little bit of rough-handling, the 300C would even try to drift, sometimes a little bit, sometimes enough to piss off the ESP computer, forcing it to step in. The looser the Chrysler got, the ballsier I drove. By early afternoon, I’d figured out how to slide the car through a couple of gates and get it to drift into the Sinkhole without triggering the nanny-state electronics. Was I fast? Hell no! But I was having a ball and the Chrysler was working it’s heavy ass like a champ, complying with every input. So long as I gave it a rest break every couple of laps, it was willing to run.

Now here’s the strange part of today: Track-X days cost $85, and as long as your car is safe and passes tech, you can run to your heart’s content…or until the security guy tells you to leave. But today was surprisingly quiet: only 22 drivers registered, I don’t think that many cars showed up, and many left early. Only one car went for broke, a fourth-gen Trans Am that popped a transmission line and brought out the only break of the day. But there were some hard-cores that stuck around and had their fun. The father-and-son team behind this 2015 Corvette Z06 (on Instagram: @615ZO6) were having a ball…they did the Xtreme Xperience, got to ride in the Robinson R22 helicopter that was doing aerial tours of the track, and were racing their car with everyone else. By the time 2:30 rolled around, there were just a couple of cars left: myself, a Miata, and a brand-new Camaro SS. I could tell that the flagman was about roasted, and the Camaro’s drivers were going to put in five more laps and call it a day, so after letting the car cool, I went out and ran one more flat-footed lap before calling it a day.

What was the total cost of the day? In addition to the $85 for the event itself, there was a tank of fuel (I burned through an entire tank!), the eight-dollar on-site lunch, the Gatorade I had left in the car from NMCA, and a sweet tea I bought from the control desk. For the fun I had, that’s bargain-basement. Unfortunately, the rumor mill is saying that Track-X might not continue if the car counts continue to remain low. That’s a shame…Grandpa really seems to like it when we let him cut loose!