not on your list, but I went to the Bondurant school for the 4 day Grand Prix course. Excellent course and Arizona is nice in the winter. Mike McGovern, the lead instructor is excellent as well.

 

Yep.

Skip Barber
Bondurant
Bertil Roos
LevelUp
Lucas Oil School
PDX
Corsa Pilota

A number of good pro schools about.

 

This could be considered "contributing to the delinquency of a minor" (based solely on the avocado....)

 

You can get Porsche OEM Swedish Fish with European delivery.

 

Did this exact class back in 2006. C5 vettes, formula fords, and shifter carts. Good times!

 

I guess Bondurant is now Radford? Still as good? Thinking their 'GrandPrix' might be for me.

 

As good, if not better!

 

Signed Up! September 23-26 - Just sharing to promote continuing education programs

 

I had a friend that did the three (3) classes at the Porsche Driving School at Barber...He loved it and came home with a SCCA Competition License. His wallet was considerably thinner...

For those in SoCal, the Porsche Owners Club has two Racer's Clinics annually, 2 days. I did them and they were fantastic. At the end of the day, Sunday, you actually have a 25 minute race. It's cheaper as you provide the car, tires, etc.

 

If getting the comp license is your goal, I would recommend Bondurant/Radford. I did the bondurant years ago and it was definitely worthwhile coming from HPDE. I wouldn't hesitate to recommend them to someone wanting to get into wheel to wheel competition. I have friends that have done the Porsche barber track packages. I hear they are top notch, but for that price you can do bondurant 4d and buy a spec Miata! Another option, in the midwest anyway, is many of the NASA regions have their own comp school and will run parallel with an HPDE weekend. They combine classroom and track exercises. Something to consider as you may be able to cut costs considerably by using your car and have a couple sessions to play with HPDE time. NASA has been all about getting someone on the track with as few obstacles as possible. This is a good and bad thing. My opinion, is prioritize the line, flags, managing traffic in rear view mirror, passing and getting passed in the corners, and learn the flags again and again. If you have the option, start out small scale with boxsters, Miatas, SRF, etc. Most racing sanctioning bodies will mark your car as a rookie so others around you know that you are drinking from the fire hydrant and taking in as much as you can. Ive been competitively racing for about 5 years now and I literally can't get enough of it. I have no desire whatsoever to HPDEs anymore. Except to get some driver development.

Another thing I would strongly encourage regardless of your level. Get a pro coach at some point. Its expensive, but you can cut down on some of this by finding one in the area of the track you will be at. Hands down the best money I have spent learning the sport. Not just driving techniques, race craft, but they are wealth of information for car setup, equipment needs, etc. This will accelerate your learning exponentially. Coaches have made a decent weekend racing a mind blowing weekend. And, in the long run will save you far more than what they cost. Don't need one every single race, but get one once a year. It will be the best money you spend. And, you will spend a lot. Especially on Swedish fish

 

Some folks advise, assuming you can see a course as you drive through a "sea of cones", tune up your reflexes with autocross. I did thee (3) day Bondurant (RIP), about 20 years ago. It was a good experience. I went from being a poss poor driver, to about average in the three day course. At that time the last half of the third day was in Formula Ford Spec racer, open wheel cars. Now THAT was fun.

As has ben mentioned, get a coach as you start back. This way you'll get the basic physics down, the best line, the braking zones, the apex and the run out. Next step, in order to make significant improvements, you'll need data to look at post session and to share with your coach, actual or virtual. Actual? Self explanatory, Virtual, I retained Dave Scott, a Rennlister and Pro-Coach out of San Antonio TX. However, to make a "virtual" coach work, you'll need video. If you want to cut to the chase and get a huge bang for your buck, consider the AiM SOLO 2 DL (Data Logger) coupled with the AiM Smarty Cam. With this set yp, you can send Dave your video and data collected for the best session of the weekend, or the whole weekend. Here is a little sample of how it works, "I submitted the video below, of me in to Dave Scott, a Pro-Coach from Austin, TX (dave@racecoach.net). He got his info from this video off my AiM SOLO 2 DL and SmartyCam:

Vimeo

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Vimeo

He makes some good points as to where the quickest route is around the track…..My best there is a 1:44.6 I believe, on DOT 200 tires. If I can successfully incorporate some, hopefully all, Dave’s recommendations (In Blue), I should be able to shave off some seconds. There may be a few tips in here for you…..

OK, Martin, I watched the video of you on beautiful Laguna Seca!! I can’t tell from your brake indicator—it looks as if every time you go to the brakes, you go 100%? If that’s the case, that’s something to definitely work on, because LS isn’t that heavy a braking track. If it’s not true, I can’t offer guidance on braking because it all looks the same. Here are a few other observations for your consideration. I am using Lap 4, which was your fastest one. -one of the reasons this was your fastest lap was how well you executed T11 to begin this lap @ 05:01. You have a tendency to early apex this one every time, and go wide with a lot of front tire scrub. On this lap, however, you really rolled the car around to the back side of the apex much better, and look how tidy and on the mark your exit was! So please do more of that—it really matters for lap times. -T2 you also did what looked like a much better job trail braking there than most of the other laps. This made the rotation much easier and set the car’s attitude better on exit for going to 100% throttle early

He absolutely nailed it, what I did right (Basically only 2 corners, Turn 4 and Turn 10, and once I did Turn 11 right) and where I could improve (9 other turns). I sent him a 1:44.6 lap at Laguna Seca, a track where my goal is a 1:41. At the conclusion of his commentary below, he tells me that if I incorporate his recommendations into my driving, I could see a 1:39…..a 1:39 at Laguna Seca would be a track record with most Clubs for my car. But you will need a data logger and be able to complete the data on a SD from the Smarty cam card to send to Dave.

Another approach, used by many on this Forum, is to get a Garmin Catalyst Garmin Catalyst™ Driving Performance Optimizer from Peter Krause, another Pro-Coach who just happens to be a dealer from Garmin as well as AiM and other brands as well (www.peterktause.net). Peter. is a huge supporter of Rennlist, and can dig down into the tiniest detail to answer a question. Fortunate for most of us, using the Catalyst is intuitive, not only does it generate data, it also can provide "real time" audio coaching. Speed Secrets has an article that can be accessed on-line, just join Speed Secrets. (I confess I wrote in while in the heights of ecstasy over the Catalyst ' performance.) In addition to a real time lap time display and audio coaching, you also get visual data for post session self-coaching, know as, the "Three Opportunities/" But note, it can only coach you on what you have actually driven. In order to mine the most rewards from the Catalyst, you need to be driving an optimized line, ergo, you'll need a coach, virtual or otherwise.

In my case, I started with the AiM SOLO 2 DL wired into my car's CAN bus electronics, and AiM Smarty Cam, wired into the SOLO 2 DL. This worked great....but when the Catalyst was first announced, the bells and whistles, and the fact that it was made by Garmin, sucked me into its vortex. Subsequently, I sold off my AiM stuff and went exclusively with the Catalyst. I do miss the AiM, but being that the Catalyst was easily mounted and dismounted from the car (A street car) pushed me over the edge. Because I had wired the SOLO 2 DL into the CAN bus to get the most carb performance data, it was not removable.

Lastly, if you want an easy entry into data logging, and video recording, consider the APEX Pro II. The cost is minimal, maybe $550, and it is very easy to learn to use. It is used in conjunction with a late model Apple iPhone, which will also serve as a camera for you. Data can be pulled off this and presented to your coach(s). Peter Krause also sells this unit...he was their first dealer.