Comparing Race Driving Schools

[gbaker]

Originally posted by kevinR


only with what's in the sig line of the posts

Nice touch!

[Doug Axelrod]

Took the two day course two years ago. Instructors in cars on skid pad and on track. And no attitude in either of the two instructors assigned to our group. Great experience.

[Carroll DeWeese]

I went to Bourdurant to maximize seat time over 4 days and to get experience with both front and rear engine cars, closed and open wheel. "Seat time" is key. You learn by doing. The particular car is not as important as learning the feel for how a car behaves under different circumstances. I plan to go bcak to Boundurant and do some other schools as well in the coming years.

[SCOBRAC]

The most important thing you will learn in (or out) of a driving school is the limitations you and your vehicle. They will all teach you proper geometry, braking, turn-in (apex) and exit, how to set a vehicle up for a corner and control a skid. They might teach you how to dirve fast (most do not, some do) But the most important lesson you will learn is how to slow down. Not how to slow your car, but how to slow the process to a controllable rate and process each piece of information you have available to you. By doing this, with practice, you will learn to drive fast.


The one thing every good instructor should teach you is that he most important instrument you have in a car is between your ears. Alchol, ego and impatience are killers. The second most useful thing is time. Two days of instruction is not enough. It is a good start but the biggest mistake you can make is attending a school and coming away believing you are a good driver. Few schools teach you how to crash. Most tell you that in the event of a crash you must try to relax. That's the number one reason drunks are often less injured than the people thy hit.

In my opinion no driving lesson is complete without a crash course. I remember once in an ITS race at Sears Point, our car was being rented by a very talented off-road racer who wanted to learn road racing. The car was pretty unfamilliar to him and for whatever reason he ended up coming out of turn 8 and into a berm. He went over once and was able to keep the car facing the direction of traffic, and avoided all the other cars. It was a pretty cool looking flip. Long story short, he pretty much totalled the car. We asked him what he was thinking about while he was rolling, he said simply "landing it". Not crashing, he thought he could land the car and keep going. The thing is, he almost did.

It was his presence of mind and experiene that kept him from panicing hitting anyone else, as well as almost being able to drive out of the situation. It's that kind of experience that you can only get from doing.

[Cobranut]

I took an SCCA competition licensing school in 2000.
This is a RACING school, and you have to show a desire to race wheel-to-wheel in order to pass.

They normally require two school weekends, but if you have previous racing experience you can ask for a waiver. I managed to get the waiver and was licensed after only one school.

They did push me extremely hard and I had to be quite aggressive. (I even hit an instructors car when he didn't see me and turned in on me) Neither of us spun and it impressed upon the instructors that I wanted to RACE, and had the ability to handle the unexpected situation.

These schools require you to have an SCCA legal race car and equipment. You'll also need a crew to do all maintenance and prep between rounds. I didn't have time to touch the car all weekend. I went straight from track to classroom and back to track.


NASA also runs a very good HPDE (High Perf Driving Event) program. You can run a properly prepared street car and you need minimal special equipment.
Their instructors will also ride with you, as long as there is full rollover protection for both seats. (No single hoop rollbars)

Later,

[LURK]

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

[Excaliber]

I caught a TV report the other day that was about Bondurant. He is now also teaching "Drifting". He says he really likes it and that actually he's been doing it for years, but they never called it "Drifting" before.

He was talking about his Cobra racing days and how often they would "drift" the car around the corners. Some excellent footage showing the old Cobras doing exactly that too!

Ernie

[LURK]

Actually, and I'm no expert, but I was told that drifting when you're racing is actually a BAD thing... that you're scrubbing off speed.

That said, I'm going back to Summit Point to take their skid class

-JT

[Excaliber]

What Bondurant was talking about, and you could see in the films of the old Cobras, was a slight, but noticable, four wheel drift. Not unlike "trail braking" which you might use to control the rear of the car in a "drift" condition coming into the corner.

"Drifting" actually started with RALLY drivers. They quickly discovered the fast way around a dirt corner was to put the car sideways.

"Drifting" as it's done TODAY and is TAUGHT by Bondurant is NOT about "speed". It's a car ballet. I was surprised to see his son using a full size Ford sedan to drift with!

I recall a Formula 1 car passing in a corner in a full blown four wheel drift AND overtaking his opponent on the outside of the corner! He came in "hot", WAY hot, but he pulled it off nicely! Talk about breath taking!

[hound dog]

If you want to do just one day wait and catch a cobra club track day. You'll get some seat time, maybe get an instructor to ride with you, but no real race instruction. If you take the Skip Barber or Panoz school you'll get some real concentrated instructor/track time, but you'd better be in a hurry because it's all going to be over in a couple of days. But for my nickle I decided to go with the NASA high performance driving events. You can't get an instructor to ride with you in the cobra unless you have a roll bar for each of you and the "ride follow" technique is a maybe. What I did was go out and buy an '88 TRANS AM GTA (I'd rather tear up a $2,500 car than a $38,000 Unique cobra) for a track car and just let it rip. You won't become a race driver in a weekend, but over a period of time you can develop your skills to where you will be able to drive with the best of them. NASA also has a division going in Texas and runs at the Texas Motor Speedway occasionally. So, I'd recommend NASA for good instruction, run at your own pace classes, and long term value. I don't think you'll regret it and you can sell the track car when you're done. Or maybe even keep it and race it
h dog

[LURK]

You can get qualified to apply for a NASA license though the RA program as well (as long as you don't tear up one of their cars!)

-JT