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Motorsports Performance Driving School Experiences
22 messages, Last post on Oct 06, 2009 at 9:25 AM
You are in the Motorsports Forum. Your Host is steve_
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| The Open Wheel Course is actually officially called the Three Day Competition Course, and gives you basic training on how to behave on a real race track and not kill yourself or anybody else. | |
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I went to the Lexus Performance driving school at California Speedway last year. I had blast but would give it a a "B". The good: - Very well run, classy (what you expect from Lexus) - Relatively low cost ($400 for a full day) - You get to use their cars (only a plus if you happen to own one of their cars - I didn't want to learn on some car I don't own) The bad: -No drive-alongs where an instructor is in the car with you giving you real time pointers. -I couldn't get an IS on every course. Trying to take a GS, LS or SC on a auto cross type course is not much fun. - They only offer it in two locations - Southern California and Texas. - It doesn't appear that they are offering it this year. |
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The link's not working, Steve.
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Steve, that link seems broken... shifty |
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Replying to: fredmcmurray (Apr 19, 2005 8:24 am) "Bottom line, anyone can drive fast in a straight line no matter what kind of car they're driving, but when you're racing, the rules of the game change dramatically." 2005 AMG Challenge — Advanced Course (Inside Line) Steve, Host |
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I've done a couple schools, one with what was Bragg-Smith Driving School in Pahrump, NV about an hour northwest of LV, but is now Spring Mountain Motorsports Park. When I did it, all they had was Corvette Z06's but they have since added Radicals, you have to see one to believe how fast they are. The 3 day school is about car control and learning to drive a Corvette at Speed, the follow-up 2 day school is the advanced class and I have yet to get back. We did exercises and some lead follow on the road course on the first day. We then did more lead follow and open tracking on the second day and the third day was mostly open track. The exercises are things you just don't either get to do in your personal car or for that matter want to do, like pulling the ABS and stability control fuse and locking the car up on the wet skid pad and then going back later and doing it again with the systems on. Visual exercises like driving a serpentine course with a sun shield blocking the full front view to let you know you can look ahead and arrive where you want to go, very telling. Over all a great value. I expect I'll get back for the Advanced class later this year and might see then if I want to try a Radical class in the future. I then did several open wheel classes at Sears Point (Infineon) Raceway with Russell Racing School. The techniques class is a blast and just for fun, some got out of control but if you follow the instruction I found it to be nothing but fun, good exercises and plenty of speed on the last day open lapping the road course. The Advanced Course in Formula Mazda's with full race slicks gets serious about the 2nd day when some start to get a little out of control. By the third day doing race starts and pushing the rev limiters close to max you find out if you really want to pursue racing or just want to enjoy driving on a track, not for the faint of heart or wallet. Also, the instructors do a great job of watching for over agressive driving, one guy was asked to leave the 3rd day after lunch so he didn't graduate and there fore wouldn't qualify for the Russell race series. He had pulled a series of bone head moves which when we were at higher speeds were just plain dumb, IMO. They are looking for people who are fast but safe and therefore are cantidates for the arrive and drive race series they run once a month, I'm still spectating on the racing. If you ever saw yourself in a race car as a kid or think you are a good driver, don't we all (?), these courses are a place to put it in perspective. Having the kid out of college really helps! Randy |
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| Getting into a real race car can be very humbling, yes. | |
| It can get just a little scary, too! I came off a rise, blind hill, and just had the car pointed a little off line and just tweaked the wheel slightly, or so I thought. It was out of the turn 8 esses at Sears Point where I exit in the Vette close to 90mph and with the Mazda I'm guessing I was something past 100mph. Do most people know that race cars don't have speedo's? The car snapped into a spin before I knew it and stayed on track, pure luck. I had been using throttle steer in fast corners but that is when you plan for it and anticipate. This was like a lightening bolt out of the blue. Sobering to say the least. But, race cars are fun, just have to respect them a lot and build up slowly and get everything you can out of the instruction. Going back again soon! | |
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My goal on the track was to just be "smooth", not fast. I figured I could gradually go from smooth to fast, but going from fast to smooth wasn't as easy. Turns out I was right--the more I drove smoothly, the faster I got. I never spun but I got out of shape on turn 6 at Laguna by just letting the engine "breathe" a little when I should have stayed on it. Mostly these schools are not only about testing your skill, but your fear level. I mean, even with the good instructors and the (relatively ) slow speeds of maybe 100-110 mph, you can't really get badly hurt in 99.9% of all mishaps, but you could break a wrist easily enough if you hit a wall. One thing I learned that I hadn't known is how violent it can get inside a race car that is traveling so fast and with such grip...on the corkscrew at Laguna (the one turn, oddly enough, at which I totally excelled), I got so good at it that I would "gray out" a bit...the blood was just sloshing around too fast in my head. Maybe this wouldn't happen to a younger man, but I heard it does sometimes. |
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