LUCKY DAVE

Well, I just finished my first driving school as Chief Driving Instructor.
It involved all the drama and hassles you would expect herding 120+ students and instructors, but in the end turned out really well.
Our format (San Diego region) is a three day school that we put on each spring and fall. The first day is a classroom setting, a lesson/lecture (that I deliver) with a power point for some visuals, and stage props for others. That was a long time to be "on stage" in front of the crowd.
The second day starts out on the skid pads, then after lunch we go to exercises which include accident avoidance/threshold braking, early-mid-late apex, trail braking, and "dynamic", which has all these elements combined with a fast off camber sweeper to practice the throttle steering we taught them on the skid pads, and a fast slalom. Most Saturday exercises are taught on a wet track to make everything happen in slooow motion. It makes it easier for beginners to sense what's happening, especially with the power and grip the Turbos, 991's and GT-3s have.
Sunday is a full scale, full speed San Diego region AX - but we don't set up the timing gear.
It takes a toll on street cars, even new ones. Three cars rode out on hooks from outright mechanical failure. One Cayman melted PS hoses (common failure with these), one 991 became a steam geyser, and one Carrera was injured.

refresh951

Sounds like a very cool event. We have a one day training, test, and tune event in a couple weeks. This will be my sons first AX event.

Droops83

Cool, thanks for sharing, Dave. That is a LOT of work! I hear great things about the SDR clinic.

I regularly instruct at the POC driving clinics and we run into some of the same issues (usually a couple of stock 9x6 and newer Porsches with cords on the outer edges of the front tires from the skidpad, though that is often the insructor's fault!). It is very fun and rewarding, however, and most of the students have a blast and learn a lot; the format is very similar to what you described.

I am the closest thing to chief driving instructor for the Santa Barbara region PCA, but it is mostly a wine-and-cheese crowd with no interest in driving events; we are lucky to have 1 or 2 auto X events a year!

A couple of years ago I tried to organize a similar but much smaller driving school for SBR. I felt like I did all of the right things; I wrote a draft proposal, formed a sub-committee, reached out to Grand Prix region for help with insurance (they were more than happy to help), etc. The board completely shot me down! They are simply not interested up here.

I hope to make a SDR AutoX some day!

LUCKY DAVE

There are a couple of guys from your region that regularly run our AX series, along with a few from GPX and several from OCR.
Come on down. I can give you a quicky check ride and you're good to go. Hell, if you're a pca instructor I'll give you a student
I know what you mean about the whine 'n cheeser crowd, we have them too, but with 2600 members San Diego region has hundreds of serious drivers. San Diego is the biggest region of the world's biggest car club. We have something like 30 track events per year if you include AX, DE, time trials and club racing. An then there's the huge Festival of Speed at Fontucky that we put on. We have a timed rally series too.
And of course the concours and whine 'n cheese "look at me!" events, but I never attend those.

Techno Duck

I will be a transplant from the MetroNY PCA to SD region in a few weeks . Probably wont have my p-car out until later in the year though . Looking forward to being able to do events year round!

LUCKY DAVE

Cool, I look forward to meeting you. I'm one of three chief driving instructors - we're a team, there's WAY too much for one guy to do.
If you change your region to SDR you'll get our magazine (The Windblown Witness) and all the SDR spam so you'll know what's going on.
Also, you can go to our region forum, find it at pcasdr.org
Or find our facebook page. We have a social media chair that slams facebook, twitter, instagram, etc all the time.

Droops83

I will do my best to make it down there sometime.

I do have a question about your driving school: was it difficult/expensive to obtain a water truck to wet down the course given our current drought situation? This was a major sticking point of the stillborn event that I was planning, and this was almost 2 years ago.

I also instruct for the Tire Rack Street Survival teen driving school (this is an AWESOME event; any 16-21 year old should attend this event if it is in your area, see http://streetsurvival.org/ for details), and we were able to procure a water truck for the last few events, but it was no sweat because it can rightfully be construed as a charitable donation. I think people are OK with using up a bunch of water to teach teenagers vital defensive driving skills that could save lives, but much less so for a bunch of rich guys in Porsches (that could be the public's perception, anyway).

Modern Porsches generate so much grip that the course needs to be wet for students to be able to safely develop any sort of slip angle; otherwise they will destroy their front tires trying. Sadly this may not be possible in our part of the country in the near future, which is a shame.

LUCKY DAVE

Usually we hire two water trucks for the event and the stadium places a meter on the hydrant of our choice (close by).
This time was different. One of our members who is a fireman has a monstrous surplus calfire water truck that he partially restored and is just looking for an excuse to drive it. He volunteered to be our water truck for free.
We didn't feel right about that and paid him $500 for the two days (a $2000 savings for our budget) and as usual, though the stadium has a fee schedule for the water and meter, they can't be bothered to actually charge us.

LUCKY DAVE

Modern Porsches don't do anything on the skid pad. Generating meaningful slip angle is impossible due to the electronic nannys that turn themselves on at the slightest hint of slip angle, rapid rotation, or ABS activation. For my instructors, trying to make them STAY turned off is like playing "Whack-a-Mole"
I'm currently wracking my brain to come up with a decent replacement for the "new cars" skid pad. I'm talking about any 991, recent GT-3s, recent turbos, and anything with 4 wheel drive and/or PASM. A large wet oval would work, but I don't have the runout room to set one up that is really safe for greenhorns in 500 hp cars. It's a dilemma.

Van

Congrats on the promotion to CDI! It's a lot of work and the club is lucky to have volunteers like you!

User 52121

Sounds like a great event! 3 days... wow.

We do a "Autocross School" here in the Chicago Region which sounds similar, just shorter. It's largely a safe driving clinic, though since I'm also the AX Coordinator, I throw in a few tidbits about "what to expect at an autocross". It's morning classroom (which I deliver), then we send the students out to the parking lot where they get 3-4 passes through each set of exercises we've set up set up (accel/braking, skidpad, and slalom) - my co-chair runs the outside section. Then we bring them back in for more "advanced" classroom (now that they've had a chance to "do" they'll understand more of what I'm talking about), then back out into the lot for a longer session doing exercises. 45 minute Q&A after that, and then about 2 hours of a full (but untimed) autocross.

I encourage the students to push, to get the car out of shape (or try to...) to see what it feels like (especially the skidpad). I tell them to get into the ABS in the stopping zone. I generally advise them trying each of the exercises both ways: PSM on, and PSM off... (a) so they can see just how much work that PSM is doing and (b) to see what it feels like to really get the car out of shape.

I always get 4-5 students that back to me in the Q&A at the end, wide-eyed, with a "I had NO idea my car could DO that!" Some students have never gotten into ABS on the dry pavement before. Some have so much fun with the PSM off and spinning out... they do it every time (sometimes to the irritation of the instructors out on the course chasing cones LOL!)

Our region's demographics are a little different from yours though. We may get 1-2 996 Turbos. Last year we had a 991 Turbo S. The year before that we had one 997 GT3. All the rest (~70 students) were in a pretty equal mix of Caymans, early Boxsters, 996's, and ~80's Carreras.

Chris - funny thing about the Teen Clinic. We wanted to put one on here, specifically focused on young drivers and safety skills. Local Audi Club does one (and in addition to a water truck, they actually dump buckets of dish soap so it's *soapy* water - extra slippery!). Our board shot it down.

Between AX and DE, we usually have ~15 driving events a year (Late April - Early October). Our region is pretty active... if there isn't an AX or DE, there's something else (social, rallye, concours). On those weekends I usually go play with other clubs.

LUCKY DAVE

It was that or prison LOL

That's the way I did it when I taught motorcycle road racing schools.
I'll think about trying to incorporate it into our school schedule.

We do that too.

User 52121

It seemed to make a pretty big difference when we started doing it. The morning classroom is super short - under an hour. Everybody is itching to go drive, so I cover off on some basics and cut them loose. Gets it out of their system. Then they come back into class more focused and actually seem a lot more engaged. Better questions come up, etc.

Difference in abilities from everyone between the morning and afternoon session is HUGE.

LUCKY DAVE

We have been putting on this bi-annual school on since 1978, when Margie Smith-Haas and her husband Paul started it (I managed to drag them into instructing this time ).
So...that means we have done it close to 75 times.
The slide and video presentation has numerous illustrations of weight transfer. The problem with them is that they are all formula cars, and the weight transfer is extremely subtle. The beginners don't get it.
To "fix" this, I came up with a cartoonishly obvious prop to use during the section of the lecture about weight transfer, throttle steering, pitch 'n catch, etc.
To accomplish this, I went to Toy 'R us, bought a kiddie electric car, and sawzalled out the guts/floor. I adapted a set of construction worker suspenders from Ace Hardware so I could "wear" it while teaching, and that lets me illustrate weight transfer in a grossly exaggerated way.
When it's time to bring out this prop I dart out a nearby door where my helpers drop it over me, and then re-enter the stage skipping like a kid. Laughs are a good thing to keep the students entertained during what can be a dry lecture.

Arominus

edit: misunderstood the dilemma. Your going to struggle with this one, you need a huge pad for this and the cars are far to powerful for their own good for this sort of thing.