After frantically getting the car together last week, I made it out to the Shenandoah Circuit at <a href=”http://www.summitpoint-raceway.com/” target=”_blank”>Summit Point</a> with a poor alignment, but my hopes set high. The entire issue with the car was that I decided to change the lower ball joints and wheel bearings on the front of the car since the chassis now has close to 200k miles and as far I know, they have never been replaced. Taking everything apart was cake, but I soon realized that I had uncovered a serious can of worms. The ball joints in the upper control arms and tie rod ends were also toast. After some minor debacles, I managed to get it all together Friday night.<br/><br/>Upon arriving at the track, I was greeted to a view of a plethora of <a href=”http://cars.about.com/od/sportssedans/fr/vwr32_tst.htm” target=”_blank”>Volkswagen R32s</a> since this was, after all, a  <a href=”http://capital.noreastr32.org/” target=”_blank”>Capital Area Chapter of the R32 Club</a> event. I didn’t know much about these cars other than they were VWs, which I have always stayed away from, they make a seriously awesome exhaust note, they are AWD, they are quick, and they are hatchbacks. To summarize, my dream car if they weren’t made by Volkswagen.<br/><br/>I settled down in the paddock with a few friends, took it easy my first session since my alignment was way off, met my students and took them out for their first sessions, which turned out to be a great time. I generally think of myself as easily frustrated when teaching so I wasn’t sure how I’d do as a car insrtuctor, but this was different; I really enjoyed showing people what I know and seeing them progress throughout the weekend.<br/><br/>Back on track, I took my friend Andy for a ride. Again, a pretty slow session since I was having some serious tire rubbing (later fixed with a large hammer and no car for my car’s paint), and the alignment was still bad. We took one corner pretty hard and I heard two pops. It sounded a lot like the car before I replaced all the ball joints so I cursed thinking that I hadn’t fixed that problem that had always existed since I bought the car. Amazingly, the car now drove straight. My “eyed up” alignment had worked! My eyed up camber on the other hand… well, I’ll be needing a full front end job at <a href=”http://www.currysauto.com/” target=”_blank”>Curry’s</a> before my next event.<br/><br/>My final session of the day, the steering felt a bit loose. The session was good, but the car still wasn’t right.<br/><br/>After grabbing a bite to eat at George’s in Winchester and filling the car up from the absolute slowest pump ever (not exaggerating, it took 15 minutes to pump 8 gallons), I head back to the track and my cozy <a href=”http://www.rei.com/product/728308″ target=”_blank”>new tent</a>. Despite it being in the 50s, windy, and raining, I was warm through the night. Woke up, took a quick shower, and smiled inside as I realized I was already at the track and ready to go.<br/><br/>Since the steering was a bit loose and something popped the day before, I decided to tighten everything on the front end. Sure enough, the ball joint had settled in to whatever they were bolted to a bit more and there was a little play. I tightened them all, head out on track for the last few laps of my session, and was amazed! The car felt great aside from the camber!<br/><br/>The rest of the day saw me solo’ing both of my students, having some great sessions myself, and getting “home” in time to celebrate Mom’s belated birthday and see Dad before his little operation the following morning.<br/><br/>All in all, the R32 really impressed me. According to one of my students, they don’t suffer from the typical VW crap since they’re built in Czechoslovakia instead of Mexico, but I’ll have to verify that still. Amazing engine, very good handling for their weight, solid brakes, nice interior, good aftermarket… If they weren’t a bit overpriced (IMO), I’d probably start looking in to them.<br/><br/>The people putting on the event did a great job. My weekend was free, but from a student’s standpoint, it was a steal. Cheaper than most other groups, more track time, lunches are free, and you get a t-shirt. to the event organizers; I’ll surely be running with them in the near future.<br/><br/><div align=”center”><a class=”highslide” href=”http://www.iammike.org/cutenews/data/upimages/79265899.ubZtbLwB.34_1.jpg” id=”thumb1″ onclick=”return hs.expand(this, {captionId: ‘caption1′})”> <img alt=”Highslide JS” src=”http://iammike.org/pictures/my_rides/civic/.thumbs/thumb_79265899.ubZtbLwB.34_1.jpg” title=”Click to enlarge”/></a><!– 5 (optional). This is how you mark up the caption. The id contains is referenced to in the second argument of hs.expand above.–><div class=”highslide-caption” id=”caption1″>Rollin’ in my 5.0<br/></div></div>