mdrobc1213

Okay I am thinking of taking the next step and taking a driving school so I thought I'd ask the experts. My brother (a non p-car driver) and I are thinking of doing this together...so we can bond I guess! LOL Anyway he's a sport bike person and hasn't been in a sports car since his aunt's red e36 325i which we used to rip and run in during HS in the late eighties! LOL He's contemplating an upgrade from his Honda Pilot to a Cayenne base (I told him to go for the S..but he never listens to me until after the fact!)

Anyway choices considering are: (not in this order)
1. Skip Barber Hi Performance Driving School
2. BMW M school
3. Porsche Driving Experience
4. Any others! LOL

I am both a BMW CCA and Porsche CCA member but ahh I am not putting him on the track or autocross in my 997! I've seen him drive for the past 15+ yrs...no thanks. His question and mine I guess is HOW much good are they and for daily stuff do they really do any good? I think of myself as a pretty good driver and haven't put anything in any ditches since my 1996 Acura Integra (it was the deer's fault anyway); so thus my dilema. Is it a waste of $$? Anyway any suggestions or experiences?

Thanks
Rob

mdrums

I did the Porsche Sport Driving School at the Barber track in Birmingham, AL back in March and I learned a whole lot. I took the 2 day school and my skills improved vastly and I use what they taught me at ever DE I attend. I've heard the Skip Barber school is nice too but I do not know what cars you drive and so forth. the Panoz Racing school at Road Atlanta might be fun too.

seattle_sun

I did the PSDS and had a lot of fun. The instructors were great and a lot of good exercises. The only downside is that on the track, you go rather slow; but if you never have done a track school, its a good speed. The three day Skippy is more hardcore and its more about going faster.

My buddy has done the M school and PSDS and said that the PSDS has more driving time.

Holli82

PDE good track ...great instructors.....good food....your brother doesn't drive your car.

Cowhorn

+1

cviles

I did M School in '04 and PSDS in '05 (when it was called PDE). At the time, both cost about the same, ~$3200, but M School included your hotel, a helmet, golf shirt, and track bag. At PDE you have to pick up the costs for these items so it came out to be a bit more expensive. My experience is from a couple of years back, so it may have changed.

PDE was nice in that you get to drive almost everything Porsche makes, but I consider M School to be superior to PDE for a couple of reasons:

• You spend more time waiting to take your turn at PDE, at least at Barber. Exercises are done in the parking lot and there's just not enough room for everyone to drive at once. M School is held at the BMW Performance Center, and the facility is laid out to allow more than one car to perform a given exercise at a time -- auto-x, heel-toe exercises, skidpad, etc. Sometimes only 2 cars go at once, but more often everyone is driving at the same time. Fewer exercises at PDE allowed you to do that; sitting in a car, waiting for your turn, isn't "seat time" in my book.
• M School lets you turn the stability control off for all exercises. Start with it on, get comfortable, turn it off. At PDE only the skid pad car would let you disable PSM; the button was deactivated in all other cars. I learned a lot about car control by doing the auto-x laps without DSC on.
• You're guaranteed more time "in the wet" at M School. Wet skid pads, ovals, figure-8s, chasing another car around the skidpad. They even wet down part of the autocross course. The second day, at Michelin's Laurel Proving Grounds, you get to use their wet handling course as an autocross exercise (picture 50 sprinklers going full blast over the course). At PDE, only the skid pad is wet down and I think I got less than 5 minutes of driving time on it.
• I was driving faster on the 2nd day autocross course at M School than on the track at Barber. The back straight of the course, we were hitting 90+ in M3s; at PDE we topped around 85, but that could have been because a hurricane was coming inland while we were there
• Both schools have an auto-x challenge the end of day 2, with driver changes. The BMW course was longer and faster than the PDE course, but both were quite fun.
• At M School, they start timing you in all the exercises at the end of each day. Auto-x? Timed. Wet Auto-X? Timed. Skidpad exercises? Timed. I don't recall there being as many timed exercises at PDE.
• All the on-track exercises at Barber are lead-follow. At the masters you get some open lapping I believe, but not for "regular" PSDS.
• The instructors gave us some hot laps in Cayenne Turbos at PDE (quite fun), but we also got that in M5s on the high-speed track sections at Laurel the 2nd day of M School.

Both are good schools, and a lot of fun. I'd do either again. I think I got more from M School though; and not just because I did that one first.

ELUSIVE

I did Skip Barber at Laguna Seca. 3 day racing school.
Had an awesome experience and would highly recommend it to anyone. In fact, I'm trying to talk my wife into going.
I also was able to get my SCCA regional license by taking the course.

MJones

Do PDE (PSDS)
It is GREAT and you will not regret doing so....

ziege

I would highly recommend the Grand Prix Road Racing course at Bondrant www.bondurant.com. Take the 4 day class and you will get more track time than you can imagine. You can get an SCCA license after the training.

The best part of the class is driving the formula cars, but the overall class is fantastic and the instruction ratio is 3 students per instructor.

This is NOT a waste of money by any means. This will make you a faster track driver and a better street driver and humble you in the process. After you come out of the course you will have a new appreciation for performance driving and driving safety, and you will have a serious edge on anyone at a driving event you attend in the future.

Good luck and have fun.

tocho1

I've done both Skip Barber Racing and SB High Performance Driving and had a great experience on both. do think that the racing school is better, more focused but you only get to drive the open wheel cars which are much different than sports cars. The nice feature of the high perfromance school is that you get to drive very different cars (fron engine, mid engine, rear engine) both on and off track and undertand their dynamics better. Skippy instructors are first class and really fun to work with, they provide excellent feedback. I'm planning to do the Miata Racing School next year and Lime Rock and get my SCCA license as well.

In any case, going to a racing/driving school is an excellent decision and money well spent.

adfsouth

+1

AndreCT

I opted for the SB school at Laguna Seca too. I did the 2 day Hi performance course. The 3 day racing course is likely better but I wanted to drive "road cars" and I had done the 2 day open wheel course at Lime Rock before.

I loved it! Drove 330i BMW's, Porshce 993 and 997 Carrera (one reason why I eneded up buying my car) and boxsters. Lapping with an instructor leading was a phenominal experience.

Either way, you really cannot go wrong. I have done 2 BMW schools too. I think my next course will have to be a Porsche dedicated course sine the handling dynamic of our cars is very different from the front engined cars I am used to.

spar10

i did the porsche driving experience last october and it's excellent. they do a great job, instructors are top notch as they're all professional drivers.

Pugnacious

PDE’s beginner class offers a fun program but their lead/follow style always has an instructor in front of you impeding your speed on the track and even the Master’s doesn’t time track laps and only allows for limited passing. Even after complaining about their reneging on their opening day promise of being allowed to drive as fast as you wanted by the afternoon of the second day I was never allowed to drive as fast as I wanted on the track; you always have an instructor in front holding you back.

Another problem I have with lead/follow style of instruction is that by about the third driver behind the instructor, the driving line no longer has any resemblance to what the instructor is driving. Furthermore, the lead/follow style doesn’t adequacy teach that there can be more than one way around a track.

If you want the best bang for the buck, (and don’t mind skipping the catered lunches and a 4 star dinner), where you are allowed to drive as fast as you want, where passing is allowed by the second day and your track lap times are timed to the 1/1,000th of a second, go to a racing school. There you will drive a 1,100 pound single seat open wheel formula car with mid-engine producing 100/150hp mated to a 4 speed non-synchromesh gearbox equipped with a roll bar, 5 point safety harness and timing transponder.

PDE times only 5 laps on the autocross course (not track) to the 1/100th of a second with a stop watch; a racing school will time hours of laps on the track to the 1/1,000th of a second using a transponder and have instructors stationed at the corners who will then critique each session and make suggestions on how to go even faster. At PDE you spend a lot of time watching other people drive (waiting your turn behind the wheel), at a racing school you are either in the car or going over your last session finding ways for improvement.

MJones

Every couple of laps you rotate out and get to be behind the "leader"
Barber is a pretty daunting track where the majority of corners are blind, fall away.
I believe that the process works well for the majority of attendees, most of whom have never been on a track.
Even with lead follow a big "OFF" can happen and a car can be totaled...all it takes is a momentary lapse...been there, and have see it happen.