Atlanta

All posts tagged Atlanta

With warmer weather in full swing here in the Atlanta area, June’s C&O event is the unofficial start of the summer car season. Massive turnout as usually with over 1200 cars spilling out of the Dearfield parking lot. This is a great family friendly event and we encourage everyone to attend. Great cars, great people, and quite a few pets too. We hope you enjoy some of the moments we captured during the event.

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The rest of the photos are found below, and we hope to see you all again next month.

Most of you know that I frequently instruct and coach other drivers at Road Atlanta and other tracks in the area. This weekend, I decided to volunteer my time and spent the day coaching some freshly minted Georgia State drivers at the Tire Rack Street Survival driving clinic at the Gwinett County Fairgrounds.

Classroom Instruction

Hosted by the local Peachtree Chapter of the  BMW Car Club of America, nationally recognized programs like these, undoubtedly save thousands of lives each year by teaching the basics of car control and driving near the limits while simulating real world driving situations and typical evasive maneuvers. It’s like defensive driving on steroids!

Unlike most car related driving programs, this is not a racing program or even a high performance driving program.  Instead, the teenagers learned some valuable skills that will better prepare them for the unexpected hazards of driving on public roads. With a combination of detailed classroom instruction, and plenty of time behind the wheel, they learned how to control their car in the wet, skidding front and rear tires, emergency stops, weight transfer, and how to avoid unexpected hazards. All of the instructors are experienced and approved BMWCCA performance driving instructors with many years of experience.  Students were paired up one-on-one with an instructor in order to maximize the learning and training experience.  My student, Nicole, had started her first year of college and her parents recommended the course to her. She picked up the skills in no time ant all, and towards the end of the day, she was sliding and man-handling her parent’s Lexus like a seasoned pro!

It’s weekends like this, that make me reflect and be thankful for the opportunities we have each day. All of us take things for granted, but sharing with others reinvigorates me to push even harder.

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Those sneaky instructors tossed unexpected flying objects into the student’s paths! No cones were harmed in this demonstration…OK maybe one or two.

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More images can be found below. Thank you!

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As the country’s newest race track to open it’s gates to members in beautiful Dawsonville, GA, Atlanta Motorsports Park continues to capture the interest and imagination of track day and sports car enthusiasts all over the country. Oftentimes, the best way to understand and develop an appreciation of a new racing circuit is to walk the track. Just 1 hr north of Metro Atlanta region, AMP offers an impressive array of technical corners, unprecedented elevation change, and blind corner entries and exits that will challenge the most experienced of drivers. This photo is illustrative of just how much elevation change you will experience at Atlanta Motorsports Park.

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AMP was designed by Tilke Architects , the same firm that is responsible for the design of nearly every Formula 1 circuit built in the last ten years, including the tracks in Bahrain, Sepang, and Malaysia. The track is built to extremely high levels of safety and includes FIA curbing for easy visual apex, and track out recognition.

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All of the impact zones have been buffered with sand traps, guardrails, and thousands of tires that provide energy absorption, should a driver leave the track surface unintentionally.

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Now that the track is 100% open for business, the AMP team is working on additional improvements for member, such as a club house, a timing and scoring tower, and a second round of garage construction. Every week, significant progress is being made across the board.

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This past weekend, Ryan Doi (Forged’s Sales Manager) and I spent Sunday morning enjoying a few dozen laps around AMP and finally got a good sense of what this track is all about.

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All it takes one lap around the circuit, to realize this is a very serious and challenging road course. The turns and straights come fast and furiously and quick hands and precise car control are required to master the track. With very little dwell between corners, the driver is kept very busy throughout the lap and the incredible elevation change only adds to the excitement that is Atlanta Motorsports Park.

The Forged Performance team hopes to see you all at our upcoming AMP Track Day/HPDE on July 28-29th . Spots are filling up very quickly, but it’s not too late. You can sign up by clicking on this link to our online store.

Memberships to AMP are available!