LuigiVampa

I think it would be good form to move the discussions regarding instructor issues, ideas, recommendations, and just all things instructor related, to a dedicated thread.

dgrobs

Finally. Thank you,

Carry on....

DTMiller

I wished incidents that involved instructors would have more information sharing available as to the circumstances.

ProCoach

Not possible in today’s legal climate, I don’t think.

ProCoach

The folks that gave the most complete information are the insurance companies for the tracks and for the organizations.

Gofishracing

dgrobs made it to BLACK this week with NNJR. Now he is hanging with the coaches. I like the idea... 1st subject? Coaching vs Instructing. Very different.

dgrobs

For the record, it was well before this week.
As for hanging with the coaches, the only real hanging I do is when they’re in my right seat, which is as often as possible.

DTMiller

I agree with this and have a sense of why but I wish it wasn't so.

The recent death is a perfect example. If you tell me that the brake lines were dangling from the caliper that doesn't change anything in my personal risk calculations. I already know that happens at some rate I deem acceptable, implicitly, as evidenced by my having done this in the past and my intentions to do so in the future.

If airplanes were like hpde instruction.... Or more accurately, if pilots were taught the way hpde instructors are....

mglobe

My instructor threads are nomex.

Matt Romanowski

It's not (only?) an insurance problem with sharing the info regarding incidents. The sharing of info happens in other areas after an accident, like the previously mentioned airplanes and mountain climbing. I think overall, instructors and organizations are pretty slow to embrace change. As cars and technology have changed, we need to change how we instruct, the tools we use, and our methods. It's not acceptable IMHO that an organization does things because it's how they always did it. Best practices are constantly changing and we need to change with them.

Akunob

Timely thread. Are other PCA regions seeing/feeling a moderate shortage of instructors at their DE events? At our Limerock events a week and a half ago with NNJR, most instructors were doubled up (i.e., two students per instructor) due to low number of instructor signing up for the event. One-off or increasing trend in your PCA region?

@dgrobs, welcome to Black!!

Manifold

Agreed.

I think that part of problem is that, at the DE and amateur level, there isn't much involvement of professionals in most aspects of the sport: driving, instructing, car tech, safety risk management, track and track safety design, etc. There are a lot of people in leadership positions who don't know best practices, and they don't know what they don't know.

Another factor is that the sport is unregulated and decentralized, so there's a lack of efficient mechanisms for sharing information and identifying and disseminating best practices. Organizations tend to do what they want, and have limited interest in what other organizations are doing.

Matt Romanowski

I completely agree and would add when there is an outside force like the MSF, it is quickly and immediately discounted/discredited,and seen as a threat to themselves rather than evaluated for it's merits.

I think their are some great resources and professionals in the clubs (PCA specifically) and many regions have professionals involved in things like tech and car safety. Things like track safey need to be left to groups like the FIA that have standards and the organizers have to create pressure on the tracks to be as safety conscious as possible.

Some regions end up with people who are professional educators being involved in their instructing programs,, but it needs to happen more across all groups and areas.

NaroEscape

When I was our PCA region's DE registrar, I did the instructor/student pairings (which then got reviewed/approved/adjusted by our CI). EVER instructor had two students except only one for our tech guys, classroom instructor and CI (yes, the Chief instructor was assigned a student). the number of instructors was the limiting factor as to how many Green and Blue students we could accept.
Having only 1 student was a luxury...

T&T Racing

The original business model for DE events was an instructor
drove at the DE for free. The cost of track rental has increased much faster than the inflation rate that an instructor now pays for track time at a discounted rate but no longer free. I would say 60 to 80 % of the instructors come from the original model and having free track time for many years and paying now, dollar averaging comes up with a bag of peanuts.

The new classes of instructors, I am assuming, are smaller, so replacement rate is less than retirement rate plus more newbies is putting higher demands for instructors that are not in the pipe line. It takes a lot of commitment time to become an instructor which is not available to the latest group of DE participants plus the financial benefit is shrinking while the risk is increasing because newbies are purchasing cars that have 25 % faster speed at the end of a straight than 15 years ago.

Basically, the automobile manufacturers, Porsche, BMW with all the HP and technology are slowing constricting the DE business model and in the next 5 years the constriction is increasing exponential.

What options does the DE organizations have? What can they change or influence? Without instructors or insufficient instructors, the DE is doing a slow to faster death spiral.

The organizations must address the outside forces that can cause their eventually folding before it cannot recover. The track venues also have $$$$$ to lose so the DE event organization should have partnering discussions now before it is too latw

If DE dies, then the option is SCCA just like it was 30 years, ago, PCA racing or private clubs like Monticello Race Club.
Only 20% of the DE-ers could make it to the racing scene.

Matt Romanowski can chime in on these observations