TXE36

I wouldn't call that red mist, perhaps highly motivated. Red mist is when judgement goes out the window, listening stops, and mistakes are made - possibly serious ones.

Since you heeded the instructions, I wouldn't call that red mist. One of the discipline lessons in this sport is to catch the car in front of you, you don't drive faster, you drive the same as you were before. Before that car came in sight, you were catching them. The important thing to do when closing is hit your marks and keep up your situational awareness including flags and perhaps that other car closing on you.

-Mike

PJorgen

My worst was at Thunderhill a number of years ago when I was a newly minted instructor with an organization that will remain nameless. Guy drives up in an all-black Viper. Gets out and I had an oh **** moment. He’s probably late 20s early 30s, about 5’6”, shaved head, huge biceps covered in tattoos, dressed all in black, looking very gang-banger. Friendly enough, tells me he’s never driven on track but knows what the car can do because he drives “hella fast” on the street. Great, can this get any better?

So we go out for the first session. He’s modified the exhaust such that the car is so loud that we can barely hear each other even with the Chatterbox at max volume. We take our first lap at a pretty slow pace since he doesn’t know the track. Second lap as we enter the front straight he hammers the throttle out of T15 in second gear – damn that car could accelerate - and I’m telling him to take it easy, envisioning us arriving at T1 at about 150mph at this rate. He says “what? I can’t hear you”.
Its then I learn that he can’t shift the car to save his life. We’re at the mid-point of the straight in second gear at about 90mph. He pushes in the clutch and then takes about 10 seconds wrestling with the shift lever to get it into third. Of course we’d slowed to about 60 by this time and arrived at T1. I also learned he’s terrified of corners and he slows even more to about 25mph for the turn. I figure with his combination of bad habits keeping the speed down I’ll live to see another day.

After another lap like this I bring him into the hot pit and have him shut down the car so that we can talk. I tell him that that when go back out and I want him to get the car into third gear and just leave it there. The car has monster torque anyway so no need for any other gear. He agrees that this sounds like a good idea and goes on to explain that the car has always been difficult to shift and it has a bad transmission. We go back on track, he eventually wrestles the car into third gear and we have a couple of uneventful laps before the checker comes out although he tip-toes through every corner at about 25-30. Could be worse, right?

Next session I remind him about only using third gear and the first couple of laps are OK. Then he seems to forget and tries to downshift approaching T14. We almost coasted to a stop while he was trying to get it down into second and I’m yelling NO, NO LEAVE IT IN THIRD! Cars are stacking up behind us because he’s too focused on trying to shift to give point-bys.

We made it through that session and I took him out in my car in the instructor run group. At that time I was during a C4S with a manual. Admittedly, Porsche transmissions are some of the smoothest shifting in the world, but he was absolutely amazed and how quick and smooth my shifts were. He asked if I would drive his car on track to see if I could make it shift any better. Normally this isn’t allowed but he’s insistent so we go speak to the Chief Instructor who OKs it since we’re in the novice group.

We go out in the next novice run group in his car with me driving. Clearly a Viper is a very different experience than a 911, but we’re doing about 4/10s so it’s not a challenge. First thing I notice is that although it’s no Porsche transmission, I’m having no trouble shifting. He’s absolutely speechless. After two laps we go into the hot pit to talk. I tell him the transmission is fine and we discuss his technique. He tells me he has no problem shifting on the street at normal speeds but can’t shift when he’s pushing the car. After more discussion and driving around in the paddock I figure out that at speed he gets stressed and tries to muscle it into gear, and he’s got a lot of muscle.

Before his last session of the day we have a long talk about relaxing and being smooth. I even talk to him about using breathing techniques to remain calm. The final session was better and he made a few shifts. We never did get to working on cornering speed, but that was probably a good thing.

Before he left for the day he thanked me profusely for helping him understand that there was nothing wrong with his car. I’ve not seen him back at the track again, but that’s probably a good thing too.

mrbill_fl

Alright,

My toughest student was an instructors wife... -Because he was a friend, I really wanted her to like this, and do well. But the car was his caged 911 race car, one she'd never driven, 915 gearbox, loud as heck... and she was totally intimidated... she finished the day ok, but never saw her drive again. still bummed about it.

Then there was the hipster from Miami Beach in the modded Turbo that kept shifting in turns and telling me he drives like this all the time. Then watched him hit the wall 3 weekends later, and leave in a limo before the wrecker arrived.

or the the kid in a Supra turbo that ran hot so we ran with the heater on to finish the sessions, in September at Sebring.... He had a good attitude, so I sucked it up. but man that was brutal.. lol.

Valkuri

Great line. Useful for flight instructors, one suspects. One I've thankfully never had directed at me.
Never took my Porsche (any one of them) to a track instruction day. Now that the testosterone is down to 50ish WM levels, it might be valuable for me, and tolerable for the instructor.

wanna911

Ive had a 50 first dates student too. Elderly guy.

Worst however was an actual instructor new to Road Atlanta, parked in turn 1 in first Red session. I had them put in Blue with the caveat that I ride with them, was shaking when I got out of the car. ZERO anticipation, just wait till missed apex, stomp brake and yank wheel and wait for TC to kick in. EVERY corner.

dizzyj

worst and best at the same time.

when she drove she would freeze up, go into a high speed corner at ~35mph and then lock the brakes, not know if the next turn is a left or right, slam on the brakes when someone came up behind her to pass. I have to admit I ended up a loss for words and ended up with a lot of "ahh! dont do that!"

then I took her for a ride in my car and she was quite excited at the experience..and was VERY appreciative. We had to borrow the club office for a bit.

shes also my wife, so its ok

kk2

Reading through that makes me never want to do a Bmw cca event. No desire to share the track with any of the individuals posting in that thread.

Plus, from what I'm familiar with, their instructor training is either a joke or non existent so I'm not quite sure they have any room to talk.

Manifold

Red mist is when your emotions are of a character and reach an intensity such that your risk level goes up substantially without a commensurate gain in pace. In other words, you're past the point of diminishing returns. Pace may even go down, despite being perceived as having gone up, and that itself can be a symptom of red mist.

Manifold

Forum banter isn't always representative of the real world. I've run with multiple BMW CCA and PCA chapters/regions, and on average I'd say that BMW CCA is right up there with PCA as far as how they run their events, instructor training, etc. Kind of a shame that BMW has gotten away from focusing on producing driver's cars, may not bode well long-term for BMW CCA.

Coochas

Worst thing a student ever did: not tip me.

DTMiller

I made that mistake once. Felt like an ***. Now it's 20%. Everytime.

AudiOn19s

It's pretty tough to scare me in the right seat but I have one stand out experience where I almost excused myself from a car because I felt I wasn't getting through to the driver.

Middle aged gent in a stock boxster, no rollover protection and this particular group let him run with the top down. The issue was he had no feel for corner entry speed. We were WAY to hot on entry for every corner the first two sessions despite me in the passenger seat giving brake commands and talking about getting braking done in a straight line before turn-in. None the less we'd get turned in way too hot and stab the brakes with the car loaded up just before apex everywhere. We had a long talk on lunch and the first session after lunch there was zero improvement including a spin resulting from being on the brakes mid turn.

The ah-ha moment for him was when I have him a ride and exaggerated braking zones and where I was coming off the brakes. He finally got it at that point and did much better after that.

Ritter v4.0

Not sure about the worst, but the best did not show up the next day.

Gofishracing

bpu699

Wait. What? Are you kidding or serious?

I have done two pca hpde and several scca... I have never seen anyone tip...

In most cases the instructors are driving $150,000 cars...

Or are you talking about hiring a private coach? I can see tipping there...