Videos:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ggX01LRvFMU
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E5wlzLwMJPI

Here's the verbose report:
Another NHIS day is in the books, but this one had a fair number of firsts. There were a dozen MINIs at this event, and about half of them were track newbies. The BMWCCA's effort to bring in new people to HPDE events seems to be working.

This was my first event running in run group 1 (the advanced student group). I didn't notice a huge difference between group 1 and group 2, but group 1 does have an addition passing zone available - the short chute between turns 10 and 11. That makes all the "straight" portions of NHIS passing zones except for the stretch between turn 6 (the bowl) and turn 9.

I started the day by catching a ride in an instructor's e30 325. This was nice, because it gave me a chance to see the track again before I had to drive it. It also showed me just how smoothly you can get around the track while still being fast.

I ran the first session in the morning with my instructor as a standard student / instructor session. I felt comfortable out there on the track using RA-1s for the first time. Replacing the worn out front control arm bushings made this trip to NHIS much better than the previous one where I spun in turn 2 early in the day.

For the second session, I did some instructor role playing. I pretended to be an instructor introducing a new student to the track. Of course, this slowed my laps down a little. And, I was already one of the slower cars in my run group. So, along with driving my car and trying to explain what I was doing as I was driving, I also had to keep track of the faster traffic around me. It was a lot to keep track of. I often had to ignore the talking / teaching part of the exercise when faster traffic needed to be let past. And I don't think I ever mentioned gear shifts during the entire session. But, it did give me a glimpse of what an instructor needs to be able to do.

The third session, I rode as a passenger in my instructor's Porsche 911 turbo and pretended to teach him around the track. He ran his laps well below full speed for his car. Again, I don't think I mentioned a single gear shift. And I guided him on the line I know best for the track - the line I take in the MINI. Of course, the line a Porsche 911 turbo takes and the line a MINI Cooper takes are very different. For the last quarter of the session, my instructor took over showing my the line he takes and explaining the differences between the Porsche line and the MINI line.

Since there was one of my sessions where I wasn't driving, I asked to go out with run group 3 for a session so I could get some more track time. The people in charge had no problem with this, and it felt great to get out there and just drive. Of course, it meant that I wound up doing 2 session back to back. Well, I headed in 5 minutes early at the end of the first of the back to back sessions, but I still drove close to 45 minutes straight. Again, the MINI handled great and I put in my fastest laps at NHIS yet, and was fairly consistent at the same time.

So, I'm looking forward to spending more time doing instructor training. I definitely need more time riding with experienced instructors and riding in different cars. There's a long way to go, but at least I have gotten started in the process.