When you click on links to various merchants on this site and make a purchase, this can result in this site earning a commission. Affiliate programs and affiliations include, but are not limited to, the eBay Partner Network.
Mass increase in available opportunities for instructors is my read.
Definitely. 10+ years ago it was almost impossible to become an instructor in my area. Huge barriers to entry. I only got my license after I won my class road racing and the president of the road racing club vouched for me to the sanctioning body. They didn't even look at people who didn't road race. Now it seems like if you run the same line for 2 laps in a row you're likely on a potential instructor list.
I know 10 years ago there was very little demand for instructors too; maybe once every 3 weeks type of thing with some events not even having one first timer. I remember being able to show up at a track on a weekday and getting the whole thing to myself for $100 as long as a manager/owner was there doing paperwork. Now there are events every monday and friday for scheduled reoccuring open events, private/open private events in the middle of the week, plus weekends. The amount of green group people at all these events is crazy too. It's what we dreamed about 10-15 years ago as road racers so the tracks and events didn't lose money and hopefully someday attendance could support new tracks. I'm not sure if other regions are the same but I've noticed people do not stick around as long to get really good either. It seems like a bucket list thing now, so tons of newbies and intermediate but absolutely no one is fast or sticks around a long time.
So I think if you were young and in school and knew how to race, screw mcdonalds for a part time job, you could probably do better than that instructing in some regions. I have a friend in Ontario that they are paying him $180 to show up and take 3 students. If I was in university I'd do that over mcdonalds for sure. I don't think anyone is paying around me but I started getting useful swag. Like I was going to buy a new communicator and they gave me a new trac-com with a couple student booms (love it, crystal clear even in a race car). Last year we had a free use race car to drive if we wanted to use it. Plus the free track time which with track time being pretty expensive now is a pretty good perk by itself. 10 years ago they didn't even give free track time where I am unless it was a multiday school.
Always been a huge demand for instructors in the Northeast/Mid-Atlantic/Southeast for as long as I’ve been doing this. Thirty-five years.
Yes, some groups take warm bodies, but most of the good organizations have great instructors training programs. Some are very strict, but this results in always getting a good instructor at their events.
The quality of instructor makes a huge difference to peoples experience and in building a solid foundation of knowledge, for sure.
__________________ -Peter Krause www.peterkrause.net www.gofasternow.com
"Combining the Art and Science of Driving Fast!"
Specializing in Professional, Private Driver Performance Evaluation and Optimization
Consultation Available Remotely and at VIRginia International Raceway
Yes, some groups take warm bodies, but most of the good organizations have great instructors training programs. Some are very strict, but this results in always getting a good instructor at their events.
The quality of instructor makes a huge difference to peoples experience and in building a solid foundation of knowledge, for sure.
I wouldn't want to instruct at an event where the bar for being an instructor is set low (I tried a few of them), because that would usually mean that there are also a lot of other problems with how the event is run.
In a decade of instructing, I don't think I ever advised a student to get all their braking done in a straight line, and that never resulted in a problem. I did once advise someone in this thread to trailbrake more, and that apparently resulted in a partial spin in a slow corner, but that person went on to become a fine driver and have an illustrious career as an instructor himself.
Always been a huge demand for instructors in the Northeast/Mid-Atlantic/Southeast for as long as I’ve been doing this. Thirty-five years.
Yes, some groups take warm bodies, but most of the good organizations have great instructors training programs. Some are very strict, but this results in always getting a good instructor at their events.
The quality of instructor makes a huge difference to peoples experience and in building a solid foundation of knowledge, for sure.
The eye opener was even PCA was about warm bodies and traditionally that's probably one of the most strict groups for allowing people to instruct (road racing is the only group that would trump them around here). PCA DE reps were here from Texas and the East coast on the weekend and their statement on the exodus was down to cars are faster yes, but also because instructors are watching the aids going off constantly in the car and the student not believing they're doing anything wrong in said fast cars.
I think it might be from burnout too. I know I don’t like getting the fast car all the time. Last year I remember the last 10ish cars I instructed at the end of the year: 4 door 850i, Telsa 3, c7 vette, telsa 3, million hp Chevelle 1970ish (FML), 2 door 850i, new Viper in the rain, new genesis sedan, c63 merc . I remember getting the merc and going oh good a nice slow car lol. I can see people who 10 years ago would get a nice 997 C2S as the fast car, mix in a boxster, a miata, a civic, and it's nice and safe and the fast car isn't really that fast, but now are getting back to back GT2 RS’s and then a mclaren and going, F this, I’m done.
The HPDE I am with is more aligned with the PCA model where they want newbies to have instructors much longer than the norm before getting signed off (same group runs the time attack series this year so they want people to be somewhat competitive in that), but that means way more instructors needed and the quality of instructors goes down. Or you sign off on people earlier with better instruction, but they get less of it (they dont like that model, tried it last year). Hard problem to solve. I know limiting green group works for some areas but it's hard to make an event financially viable when you're turning away 1/3rd of your capacity.
I'll also say my area might be unique. We had about 50 licensed instructors 10 years ago (we get FIA licenses here) and that was pretty much who instructed at all the events except for the real gong shows. Now we probably need that licensed core + another 150 or more (unlicensed recognized by the various events) I bet. Hard to increase numbers like that in a < decade and keeping the quality up. Maybe 30 of the active licensed ones want to do it still too for the premier events, and only a handful of those want to do it for the rest of the events.
As someone said above, it's important not to teach something that becomes an error and a bad habit later. For me, the worst barriers to progress were things I learned to do incorrectly or suboptimally - we are just not wired to fix something that does not feel broken, especially when it seems dangerous. So learning the "safe" but incorrect approach that kind of works makes it very difficult to not stall at this level. So I'm in the camp of "learn correct techniques from the outset but in a scaled-down safe way to start with".
I was lucky that my first track car understeered so dramatically that my instructor relented and started teaching me trail-braking right away, even though some of the following instructors yelled at me for doing that. But what I learned was more brake-turning a pig of a car rather than complete trail braking, so I still had to re-learn quite a bit. A big lightbulb moment was when a bunch of racers that organized unofficial track days and tolerated some of the better newbs joining in, got frustrated with us and set up the autocross field with just one big corner. They made us trailbrake to minimize the time through the corner and maximize exit speed, everyone doing one corner over and over. The next track day (with BMW club) several of our group almost got kicked out for scaring our instructors by braking way too late (in their view). It got to the point that one frustrated student literally stopped the car before the apex to demonstrate to the instructor he did not need to start braking that early because he could slow the car effectively all the way to the apex. Besides learning to trailbrake, that experience also showed me that driving is more complex than it seems - if something that was almost a consensus among instructors was proven to be slower, how do I find the truth? That's how I bought my first "Speed Secrets" book and started my multi-decade truth-seeking mission .
As someone said above, it's important not to teach something that becomes an error and a bad habit later. For me, the worst barriers to progress were things I learned to do incorrectly or suboptimally - we are just not wired to fix something that does not feel broken, especially when it seems dangerous. So learning the "safe" but incorrect approach that kind of works makes it very difficult to not stall at this level. So I'm in the camp of "learn correct techniques from the outset but in a scaled-down safe way to start with".
I was lucky that my first track car understeered so dramatically that my instructor relented and started teaching me trail-braking right away, even though some of the following instructors yelled at me for doing that. But what I learned was more brake-turning a pig of a car rather than complete trail braking, so I still had to re-learn quite a bit. A big lightbulb moment was when a bunch of racers that organized unofficial track days and tolerated some of the better newbs joining in, got frustrated with us and set up the autocross field with just one big corner. They made us trailbrake to minimize the time through the corner and maximize exit speed, everyone doing one corner over and over. The next track day (with BMW club) several of our group almost got kicked out for scaring our instructors by braking way too late (in their view). It got to the point that one frustrated student literally stopped the car before the apex to demonstrate to the instructor he did not need to start braking that early because he could slow the car effectively all the way to the apex. Besides learning to trailbrake, that experience also showed me that driving is more complex than it seems - if something that was almost a consensus among instructors was proven to be slower, how do I find the truth? That's how I bought my first "Speed Secrets" book and started my multi-decade truth-seeking mission .
That sounds like a horrible intro to the sport. I'm guessing this was 2005ish or older? I say that because I started around 05 and I remember trail braking being a hush hush type of thing and an engineers forum post dispelling the myth that is was pointless and dangerous.
That sounds like a horrible intro to the sport. I'm guessing this was 2005ish or older? I say that because I started around 05 and I remember trail braking being a hush hush type of thing and an engineers forum post dispelling the myth that is was pointless and dangerous.
Great post Max. I wish I had known this while entering T13 in my Radical at area 27
T13 is flat . I was referring more to T2 and to some extent to T1 in the initial question. Too bad we did not overlap in the Radical Cup West - I was looking for you because your posts contributed to me getting the Radical. It's such a fun championship now with less drama and getting very competitive with over 20 cars in most races and even midfield running 2:02s last race. We are exploring going to Utah and/or Sonoma Bluemarble races this season too.
What the hell?? I understand the logic of not teaching it on day 1, but if it's not their first rodeo and they already know it what is the logic of banning a normal technique, and potentially ejecting them from the event for doing it? Might as well ban hitting your apex and accelerating on a straight. I don't even...
That sounds like a horrible intro to the sport. I'm guessing this was 2005ish or older? I say that because I started around 05 and I remember trail braking being a hush hush type of thing and an engineers forum post dispelling the myth that is was pointless and dangerous.
2008-2009. Shortly after that, the club started including trail-braking in the curriculum from the beginning and we even had this "compromise" T-shirt as the official shirt later in 2009 - even though it recognized trail-braking as a valid technique, it still suggested a late apex and a long period of balanced throttle "to keep everyone safe".
2008-2009. Shortly after that, the club started including trail-braking in the curriculum from the beginning and we even had this "compromise" T-shirt as the official shirt later in 2009 - even though it recognized trail-braking as a valid technique, it still suggested a late apex and a long period of balanced throttle "to keep everyone safe".
I am not advocating not teaching trail braking or the "race" line (not a late apex in every corner) early in the driver's DE career. I am advocating making sure the student is ready for both and the potential consequences before doing so. Based on what I have seen and experienced, that is not usually their first few times on the track. This is especially true with people that show up with a GT3 RS for their first track day. Mistakes are easy enough to make when taking an overly late apex for these drivers. Throw in the race line and trail braking on the first day and you have made the likelihood of going off track even more prominent. All I am suggesting is that advanced techniques can be added as the student's skills and consistency increase.
You don't start the first day of cooking school with Coq au vin.....
Eh maybe it’s changed but I don’t recall issues happening in beginner groups. They’re just too passive and going well below the limit to the point any approach will work. It’s once they get out into the “advanced” groups just below open/race where it’s off roading and binning central.
Now how much of that is due to bad teachings turned into instincts might be worth considering. If these drivers came up the ranks not learning skills needed to up the pace then you could make a fair case that the lack of understanding and repetition of skill is now showing it’s ugly head.
I would have no problem teaching trail braking, ideal line, weight transfer concepts from the start. They’re not going fast enough to get in trouble anyhow and by the time they arrive at a respectable pace they’re coming there with the right toolset already ingrained.
05-04-2022, 04:01 PM
