I just finished 2 days with
Racing Adventures running their Factory Five Spec Racers around the Jefferson Circuit at the
Summit Point Raceway in West Virginia. RA has classes all over: LA, Vegas, Phoenix, Dallas, Pittsburgh, Toronto, Calgary.
BSR runs other classes at Summit Point which I might go back for as well. We could hear their counter-terrorist driving class off in the distance... (loud screetches followed by burts of automatic weopon fire- it's where the FBI and secret service boys get their chops down).
While I haven't been to other schools, I would definitely have to give a big thumbs up to the crew... here was what greeted us every morning:
We started out with some classroom time for some chalk-talk and then they got us into the cars and right away we were doing threshold braking drills, followed by a drill where we would run at 2200 rpm straight at an instructor who would, at the very last minute, either flag you off to the right, the left, or to stop. Thankfully none of us ran over anybody
Then it was off for a mother duck run on the race line, with and without a lead car. After we got comfortable running the line (conveniently laid out with cones at entry, apex and exits), the cones were taken away and we had to run the line at speed. Then the "surprise drill:" we had to run the the track in the opposite direction and find the line by ourselves (and you don't just run the same line backwards!)
Day 2 was all about running at speed, and then we worked on passing with a variety of drills. The "surprise drill" on day 2 was to run the track without using the brakes.
All in all a great couple of days...PLENTY of seat time... a good mix of talking and just plain driving. Also a good bunch of guys in the class, a couple of guys finishing up their builds, a semi-pro racer, a NJ state trooper... even had a woman with us on Day 1, which brightened things up a little.
I left feeling like a much more competent driver... had hoped to be running my own car (which you can do)- but the FF racers were plenty of fun and plenty fast.
-JT