I was really looking forward to EVOC week. I thought to myself, "how hard could it be to drive a car?" Let me tell you, it's hard when you are taking turns at unbelievable speeds, have other cars coming at you and the big scary word "test" is on your mind. Also, cones are everywhere, all you see are cones, it's difficult to figure out what is and isn't the course. If you hit a cone, it's a fail. Fear, fear, fear lingered on all week and you only get two shots to pass a test. If you don't pass you're packing up your bags. Driving the car fast was a whole lot of fun. But passing the test were a bit challenging.
The first day was the most stressful. There were four different courses. The first one was driving foward and backwards with small sharp angles I had to maneuver in and out of. The second course was a small narrow course with drive-ways I had to drive in, out and around in. Both the courses had a certain amount of time I had to complete it in. The third test was parallel parking. I couldn't believe this was the test I had to remediate! I'm good at parallel parking, during practice I nailed it every time. When it was time to test I ended up being to f
ar from the curb or "cones." It was embarrassing because I'm an experienced parallel parker. My remediation went well, but it caused nerves for the rest of the week. The last test was the skid-car test. We had a skid car, which is a vehicle with training wheels. It took me awhile to figure out the skid-car. It was fun because you get to skid all around an empty parking lot. The way it skids is the instructor in the car is able to control the front and back tire positioning. He is able to get the car to fishtail and I have to be able to gain control of the car.
The hard part of the week were remediation. Remediation is not fun and they're difficult to watch. It's hard on all the cadets when someone has to remediate and unfortunately there were quite a few. I can't watch people remediating because the moment someone fails I would just start crying. We have all come so far and to lose someone this far in the game would be awful.
The next two days weren't as difficult as I thought. Stressful for sure but not as difficult. There was a large course set up for us to maneuver around in. One of the test was code three driving and the other high pursuit. It was fun driving fast and I am relieved I passed all my test and the week is over.
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This is me backing up. I got up to 51mph in reverse...
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I wish I took more video during EVOC. There were a lot of stuff I would had liked to share but I was just too busy. I had a lot to take care of being C.I.C and trying to stay focus on passing.
The EVOC training was at the Marina Airport. At the airport there is a skydiving school. On Friday the pilot and some other guy from the school came down to watch all the cadets race and speed around. They both started placing bets on the cadets. It was so much fun racing! I spun out once right at the end of one of the races I was winning. When we were done racing the pilot mentioned we should skydive sometime. I thought that would be fun so, one of the other cadets and I spontaneously went skydiving today. It was my second time diving and my buddies first. It was so much fun. My instructor and I did a couple back flips when we jumped out of the plane. Seeing all of Monterey and all across the valley was awesome. Scary thing while we were there was one guy broke his leg and another person made it to the ground with the reserve parachute. It was crazy, a few of us saw in the far distance a loose parachute slowly floating down from the sky, scary thing to see when know bodies are connected. As a beginner diver you tandem with someone else. The girl that came down with a reserve chute said she had know idea that her chute didn't open. Luckily she got filmed during her jump. It'll be a great video. The video will be her instructor pulling the cord to release the chute and nothing coming out and she'll be there happy as a clam.
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