My New Year's Resolution; Driving (1)
My New Year's resolution this year was to put more time and effort into my activities related to cars. One night at the end of last year, I was thinking of what to do in the coming New Year, 2016. I had liked cars since I was a teenager, and my major at Waseda University was mechanical engineering, specializing in internal combustion. This was an indication of how much I loved cars.
I realized that since then, I hadn't put much effort into improving my driving skills other than driving a lot on normal roads. So I searched through some websites and found two interesting activities. One was to obtain a licence from Fuji Speedway which would allow me to drive in the circuits there. The other was a driving on ice experience in northern Finland organized by Audi.
On January 3rd, after preparing a helmet, gloves, and shoes for circuit driving, I went to Fuji Speedway to obtain a racing licence. It required me to attend a lecture and pay a fee. After the lecture, I purchased a 30-minute time slot to sport-drive in the circuit. It was awfully scary since the others were driving very fast so I couldn't enjoy driving there. I wasn't sure if I would come back to the circuit and drive again.
Later in January, I got a call from Audi telling me that I was accepted to attend the Audi Ice Experience event in Lapland Finland that would take place in February. Fortunately I was able to adjust my schedule so that I could attend the event. I flew to Helsinki, met the other members there, and then flew up to the Arctic area of Finland to drive on a frozen lake with snowplowed paths. The experience on ice was very different from ordinary driving and I enjoyed it very much. This made me want to challenge the Fuji Speedway again.
In March, after coming to back Japan from Finland, I went to Fuji Speedway again to get an instructed driving lesson by a professional driver. I was able to control my car so much better than before that the instructor even complimented my driving! As a result, I was a little bit more encouraged to continue sports-driving.
Continued to My New Year's Resolution; Driving (2)