Can one ever be "done" in this hobby?

The Allegory of the Track

For some years I was a Porsche Club track Driving Instructor. All kinds of cars and drivers come to the track. At first they know only what every Driver’s License holder knows: nothing. Absolutely nothing. Less than nothing even. A combination of BS and lies.

First thing they all do is head over to the fastest, lowest, wingiest looking car they can find to gape and gaw while trying not to drool all over their brand new Pilotti’s.

Then they all go out and, confronted with the reality of just how much total concentration and just how freaking hard it is to drive well, not to mention how expensive it is, they quit. Usually before they get very good at what should have been the reason for coming in the first place, driving.

Which is a shame.

A persistent few, the wise ones anyway, they notice a few things. Like there are some guys who day after day seem to really be having fun and even manage to steadily and regularly pass in spite of driving much older, cheaper, less crazy looking cars. Cars that don’t even need a trailer to get to the track. Cars they actually enjoy driving on everyday public roads.

Some even come to understand what the Instructor said about smoother being faster. The Zen-, or Yoda- if you prefer, like saying that to go fast don’t drive fast, drive well.

Other guys eventually notice how fast they are. Start asking questions. Which are always, How much horsepower? Or something like that. Never, Why’d you take that line? How do you look so smooth? Or anything like that.

And the skilled driver, because that’s what he is now, to his credit he does try to explain. But they have no patience. Off they run to gape and gaw at the Next Big Thing being rolled off a trailer.

Miller
So glad I do not fall into your category there, but I do fear that millions of drivers do.

Spent my formative years piloting motorcycles around some of the twistiest tracks in England, nothing quite like them anywhere here in the USA.
Google, Olivers Mount, Cadwell Park, Three Sisters etc.
You are absolutely correct, used to have a ball running around the inside or outside of uber expensive and new race replica bikes on a couple of different steeds I had just for the track, stripped down to the core to gain as much power to weight ratio as possible, one even ran total loss ignition, battery power only no generator.

Both looked like crap but were rock solid and as safe as any bike on a track could be, all money and time spent on brakes and tires.

Smooth was ALWAYS the key to going fast and trying to keep your cool, once you get excited and angry then you get ragged and lose time around the track

Or crash.... ouch!

The Allegory of the Track

Think about it.

I got that part right away......

But as you decided to embellish the lesson so did I.......

Once I retired at the end of 2011, giving me more time to actually play the full sized system instead of listening mostly through my Grados, I got restless and upgraded my cd player and speakers a year later to an Oppo 93 and a pair of Maggies. My wife was critical of the expense (which really wasn’t much considering I bought both used and got excellent deals from two kind folks) until she heard the results. We played music non stop for 15 hours the first day everything was hooked up and my only negative was thinking about how I should have done it sooner.

Would anything short of equipment failure bring me back to the marketplace as a potential buyer? Not yet... but never is a long time...