A little guidance needed from the pond...
 

I will try to make a long story short(er). My wife was looking for something special to surprise me for my upcoming 50th birthday (not until next April) and she has heard me on several occasions go on about wanting to see an F1 race in Monaco.

She was trying to make it happen without my knowledge but just could not pull it off. She called me at work to tell me about it and to ask for help to make it happen. I thanked her very much for even thinking about doing something so special for me but I told her that if we were going to spend that much money on something to do with racing that I would much rather be doing than watching.

So my suggestion instead was to go to a racing school like Skippy or the like.
She went along with that and told me to all the research and pick what I want staying within a certain budget.

Having a daughter in college out of state and a son going in 2 years my racing budget is pretty low. I can probably spend around 3k give or take so it looks like a 2 day school is about all I can swing since most 3 day programs run closer to 4k.

I don't presently own a race car but have a good friend that owns one that will share it so it won't be for nothing. I am just looking to get as much for that amount as I can.

$3K will buy some tickets to Vegas and a long weekend of strippers and booze for you and some buddies.

Now that sounds like a plan.

Jerry, look int a karting school. Your $ will go a LOT farther there, and I would wager you will have more ful (albeit with bruised ribs).

I have thought about the karting thing but how well does that translate to road racing cars? I have never tried it.

Here is a real plan. Sign up for a droving school/pro instruction at Las Vegas Speedway.........:jumper:

Well, put it this way: ALL of the current F1 drovers, and most past F1 drovers and champions, started out karting.

Dave, I understand about F1 and karting but since I don't plan to race a formula type car I wonder if it will be worthwhile. I have some decent time on track but I have no misconceptions of being the next racing phenom. I plan to be able to W2W a lot more in the future but I just can't afford to do that now so the plan in the near future is just to improve my driving as much as I can for when that time comes.

I have looked at various schools. Is the American racing academy the one in Las Vegas the one your speaking of Bob?

I wish I could have done so at a much younger age.

A couple of year ago I had a student assigned to me at Summit Point who had just joined PCA (from Germany) and was attending his first DE. I met him and went through my usual discussion and questioning on day one. When I asked if he had ever driven his 993 C2S on a track, he said "no"...any car on any track, "no". So, I showed him the way around the track, explaining the line, flag stations, what I expected for lunch, etc. Then he got behind the wheel.....about two laps later I asked again about his track experience, using a more open ended question (being wide awake at that point). He said, "oh, I raced shifter karts for 8 years in Germany". He now runs a race prepped 911SC with a 3.6 ltr. in it in the Black group, and is a prize pain in the ass when we run Black and Red together!

Do the kart thing!!!!!!!

I was speaking more of Cindy at the MGM Grand, but I'm sure that would be a fine school.......

A little background. I completed SCCA drivers school in 2006 in a friends race car and got a novice permit.
Plans were at the time to share that car with him in a few double race weekends and enduros but that did not work out since he moved to Colorado. I was not able to complete 2 regional races in the 2 years(expires Feb 08) so I lose my license.
Now I have a close friend that has bought a race car and is willing to share it with me but that will not happen at least until spring 08.
The idea I have is to attend a racing school that will allow me to be eligible to get my SCCA racing license to make that possible.

One school I am looking strongly at is Bertil Roos. There are a few reasons I like this one. First they have a school at VIR and that is a track I have never driven but probably will at some point. They also run around $3300 for the 3 days so that is doable. They also seem to be a little cheaper in the liability issue. You can get your license after this program.

Anyway that is sort of the way I am leaning. I have several months to plan it but I want to try to narrow it down.

Friends who have attended the Bertil Roos School speak pretty highly of it. They have a school at Pocono, about 90 mins from us.

That is good to know Bob. Thanks.

Of course it depends on what you plan on racing in the future, but I think the Mazda MX-5 cup school at Skippy sounds really appealing. It's closest to the kind of car I race or would race. A lot of the schools with the open wheel cars just don't have the kind of carry over to PCA club racing. If you go the SCCA route, then it's a different story. But, I would think with the MX-5 you could focus a lot more on racing and a lot less on how to drive that particular car (especially a formula car or viper, vette, etc.)

The car my friend owns and I will be more than likely driving is in SCCA GTlite. It is a mostly tubed frame car that is pretty light weight. I think around 1900 lbs and has 130 hp. I would think driving a formula car may not that far away from this. The car I drove originally at drivers school was a spec Miata. Fun car to drive but man you had to keep your foot in it to be fast at all.

The gtlite car is supposed to outperform the Miata all the way around. We will see how things work out. I have been doing DE's in my car to fill the void and have gotten some good instruction and track time.

I am now at a crossroads with my street car as it has become more and more a track car. I need to upgrade the suspension this winter to be able to advance at all driving it. So it goes.