The DipNotes

Now that I have some time (and rest!) here’s the details of my final day at the track.

I completed the last day of training, and now feel really paranoid when driving! We started the day at 7:30AM in a gentle rain – so we knew the track would be slippery. Just what we needed!

I strapped in, and proceeded to drive down the road and was passed by a few cars that made me nervous – but they were just other normal traffic. Then I saw an ambulance on an overpass. It was just parked up there, when suddenly it flashed it’s emergency lights for a second as I approached under it. Hmmm… that’s odd!

As I turned the next corner I saw a broken down car with both the hood and the trunk open and a women near the back of the car, behind the open trunk. She then reached in and pulled out an AK-47! Since the road ahead and behind was clear, I gunned it passed her, while ducking down. I escaped that one, and continued on my way. Then a car came out from a side road and followed me for a ways before turning off. Just normal traffic, but I was now getting very cautious. A car passed me and as I looked in my rear mirror I noticed he turned into my lane and just stopped – blocking the street behind me. as I looked back up, and turned a sharp corner there was a car across the road in front. *BLEEP*! I started to slow down to reverse when I remembered that the car behind me was blocking that route. I immediately stepped on it and got ready to ram the car in front, lining up my car’s frame with the terrorist’s rear tire. Since there were instructors in the cars, I didn’t hit it but just stopped in front of the car and told my instructor what I was about to do. He agreed it was the best solution, and asked me to now drive around the obstruction and continue.

I drove for a ways, watching other traffic and then saw a parked car ahead in my breakdown lane. It was just sitting there and when I passed I saw a guy on a cell phone. Nothing unusual – normally. But I feared that this was another setup, as the caller was watching me, not just talking on the phone. As I came to the crest of a hill there were two cars blocking the road and three guys started shooting at me! I screeched to a stop and slammed the car into reverse, and started to drive fast back down the road behind me. Boom! An RPG went off and hit the road the road in front of me, causing a huge explosion and sparks 30 feet in the air! I kept driving back, over the hill, around corners and back to that parked car. I saw the guy jump out and reach for a gun, so I kept speeding passed, getting ready to ram him if he pulled out. But I got buy and heard a lot of gunfire as I sped by in reverse. My pulse was beating like crazy! I got around another corner, and quickly turned my car around and sped off!

As I got back near our classroom a women was standing along the road. I kept my eyes on her! Nothing happened so I continued into the class area. It was over! I survived!

Then my instructor asked me if I had seen a gunman on a roof near that women or the ice chest sitting along the road. “No!” I replied – I never saw them. With my eyes focused on the women I missed the roadside bomb and gunman! They never set it off, but if that was real I would have been dead. I have to learn to keep scanning around and not get fixated on one threat.

Other than that I did well, and I have a lot of praise for the professionalism and skill of those instructors. They were FIRST RATE and rank up ther with the best instructors I have ever had. What a course!

Today I spent the whole day on the race track driving a Ford Crown Victoria in a very exciting way that would have my mother tossing her cookies! What a BLAST!

We started out on skid track, a smooth paved track loop that was watered down to allow us to practice getting out of skids and slides. This was like “doing donuts in the snow’ on steroids. It took every bit of self-control to follow my instructors commands and continue to accelerate towards a slippery curve that I knew I could not maintain traction on. Growing up in New England I am used to driving in snow and ice, so I did well, and had a fun time!

Then we went on the regular dry track which was not a big circular race track, but more like a large go-kart track with hills and dozens of curves and intersections. We then practiced controlled braking and steering at high speed and on sharp curves. Again, the urge to slow down on the sharp curves, some so violent that the other occupants in the car were thrown around in the back, was intense. Instead of slowing down, the command to “step on it” was scary as hell! And then half way into the curve, with my whole body being tossed towards the outside, the instructor would yell’ STOP!” and I had to stop the car as fast as possible without sliding into the other lane. The car was going so fast that as the weight lifted off the back tires they would loose traction and lock up, but the front wheels did not. This allowed me to keep steering around the corner while creating a huge smoke plume from squealing brakes and burnt rubber. So much smoke that the blue cloud would obscure the vision in the front for a few seconds after I came to a stop!

Next, we moved to driving very fast down the straight highway, only to have an obstacle in the way that we had to avoid at the very last minute. This was simulated by a cone in the road that I had to accelerate towards until my instructor would say “Right” or “Left” indicating which way I was to avoid it. At first it was easy, because he gave me enough time to avoid the cone without too much trouble. Soon he wouldn’t say anything until I was sure I would hit it – and then the commend would come out and I would swerve so hard you could hear the helmet of my rear-seat passenger smashing into the window. All the while, I learned to maintain just enough pressure on the brakes to slow the car down but not lock it up.

Then we practiced driving off the road and recovering back onto pavement without loosing control. That was easy for me, as I have done it many times in my life and learned to simply drive straight and slowly ease the car back onto the highway. Indeed, this is one of the leading causes of death on highways as drivers instinctively turn hard back towards the road and end up rolling their vehicles.

The we learned how to drive backwards – over hills and curves, and through a cone obstacle course! Weaving around tight cones is one thing, it’s something else to do it in reverse! The set up was quite realistic. I would drive around (forward) and then without warning the instructor would yell “attack – reverse” at which point I would stop the car quickly, throw it in reverse and speed backwards (at a terrifying speed) until we were clear of the threat and then turn the car around and quickly speed off.

Next we practiced a dead driver. My instructor would drive, very fast, and then steer off the road (literally) and slump over. I had to quickly grab the wheel and maintain control while moving my left leg over to his side and continue to drive. We pretended that we where being shot at, and that I must not stop. So there I am.. driving around the track at a high speed, from the passenger side of the car! Since I am so short, I had to release my seat belt with my right hand, and sit with my face in the windshield. The body of the “dead” driver prevented me from getting in his seat.

Then we tried again, only this time we simulated a frontal attack. I had to take control, stop the car, reverse and drive backwards – around cones, and tight curves – all from the passenger seat! Man that was TOUGH!

Finally, we ended the day with driving a car into other cars! We had a car set up across the road, virtually blocking it. We learned how to drive into the rear end at just the right spot to plow through with almost no damage to our vehicle. We did this both forward and – yes, you guessed it, in reverse! My class totaled 6 cars in about 30 minutes. To drive backwards into another car, watching the spray of broken glass explode across my rear window was exhilarating!

So tomorrow we put all these skills to test in a simulated combat environment. I asked another Diplomatic Security Agent who has been through the course before and he explained: There will be “terrorists” along the race track, armed with explosives, guns and RPG launchers that actually shoot things at our cars! Our car is wired with small explosives to simulate it being hit and damaged too.

I am beat right now – so I’m going to bed early. While it was a lot of work, today was one of those days that I step back and say “I can’t believe I am getting paid to have this much fun!”

Today I started my FACT (Foreign Affairs Counter Terrorism) course. This is a week-long course we take before being assigned to a war-zone. In the class today, we learned how to detect when someone is surveilling us. Then all afternoon we drove back and forth along a 3 mile route in town while agents were assigned to discreetly watch us, tail us, and plan an attack on us at a vulnerable point along our route.

We had to try and spot them, and document that we were being followed and monitored. We also had to document where along our route we were most vulnerable and show how we could change our routes and driving times to make us harder to hit. This was to simulate driving from our home to the Embassy and then back.

In the end we got attacked at the main spot that we knew we would, and had correctly spotted 3 of the 4 agents targeting us. We also incorrectly marked 5 others who we thought were watching us, but in fact were just regular people that were not doing anything.

- Tomorrow will be emergency medical care and disaster training. – Wednesday, we head down to Winchester, VA to learn how to use an assortment of automatic weapons. Megan enjoyed this part when she went to Baghdad! – Thursday we do evasive – counter terrorism driving training at Bill Scott raceway, also in Winchester. – Friday we learn about IED’s and go blow some cars up! Cool!