JCP911S

I wouldn't have them in 3rd all day... that's a bit much.

However, I do have students who do not know how to heel and toe. For them, keeping the car in one gear, or more likely just doing one upshift and downshift a lap lets them concentrate on braking and turn in. Then I teach them heel and toe in the paddock, and tell them to practice on the street.... this is not something you can learn on the track.

Also, you should explain (or be able to explain) why you are doing everything "Becasuse I'm the Instructor" is not a good reason IMHO.

mpaton

Hmmm, I'm with Bill on this one. Just had a brand new Green Student at TWS, and kept him in 4th almost all weekend long. I was prepared to let him use 3rd as well if various other things progressed sufficiently, but mostly due to 2 wet sessions they didn't.

His Boxster S was quite capable in 4th of everything we wanted. It's my experience that with first time Greens, the workload is such that the issues of when to change gear, let alone how absorb far too much brainpower. I want to verify the student knows where the line is (even if they don't always show it to me) and can be reasonably smooth on brakes, throttle and wheel, and have a little concentration capacity left over before we begin to shift.

Sometimes I'll let them show me a shift at the end of their first day, just in case perfect shifting happens, but that's only happened once. Based on the driving tests I've seen in this country, I'm not surprised either.

Michael Paton

Brian P

Ah... I remember back when I was a green student. I was driving a Tiptronic, and I have to say that I found it so much easier to concentrate knowing that I didn't have to worry about shifting.

A few years later when I got a manual, I found it easy to heel-toe (had it figured out by the end of the weekend) because I already had the other basics down pat.

Plus, most beginners (or at least me) shift too often anyhow.

Bob Rouleau

Stacy - two points awarded. You make us proud.

Best,

sjanes

sjanes

One of the big concerns that female student that mentioned earlier had was shifting. It was basically her husbands car and she had only driven it a few times. She was not comfortable with the way the 915 shifted, so I suggested to just leave it in 3rd for the entire session. Not having to worry about shifting gears went a long way towards giving her the confidence she needed to relax and have fun.

JCP911S

The only rule is there are no rules.... a good instructor will always adjust the instruction style to fit the student... not force the student to fit the instruction style.

Objective #1 is always to get the student in a comfort zone. The most "challenging" ( I won't say "worst") students I have are those that are nervous... it is very difficult to "push" a student not to be nervous. Sometimes it takes some detective work to find out why they are nervous... but once you figure it out, hopefully you can come up with ways to remove that issue.

Sometimes when I have a very inexperienced driver that I sense is a bit nervous I will tell them to just drive around the track the first session like it is a road. The only instruction I give them is "keep it on the track"... no apexes, no turn in points.... this lets them get by all the distractions that come with being on a race track, wearing a helment, etc, etc.... once they realize that they are not going to fly into the wall, they are much more ready to get instruction the second session.

I firmly believe you can't learn if you are not first having fun.

Larry Herman

Agreed! Comfort level has everything to do with it. Most sane people do not go careening around the track scared to death. Those who are really quick just have a higher comfort level with what they are doing (and commensurately more skill) than most others. I had a female student who's first event was at Watkins Glen. The Glen can be an intimidating track for even advanced drivers. Anyway, by the end of the 3 day event she was trailbraking deep into turn 1 like an expert "because it felt right". You just can't safely force people to go faster, it has to feel right to them.

sjanes

JCP911S

This highlights what I found to be the biggest challenge to instructing. Figuring out how another person learns, and to be able to adapt how you teach to that.

In Rennsport, our instructor training program is centered around the human interaction portion of instruction, since, no matter how much you know about driving, if the student can't understand what you're saying, it's just wasted.

When I started driving at the track, I read a lot of books to get as much technical information about driving as I could. Now that I'm starting to instruct, I'm going back through those books (and some new ones) to learn about how to describe this stuff to others in a simple to understand way.

Also reading how other instructors describe things in threads like this really helpful.

RedlineMan

Hey All;

I am constantly spouting phrases and I seem to have a gift for rapid fire analogizing. As mentioned, peope learn in different ways. I have certainly had my challenges in that regard, both in my own personal discovery, and with students. I have found that having several ways to analogize a particular point helps me land on the proper learning method for a given person. When one doesn't work, I'm seemingly always ready with two and three and even four ways of describing what we are looking for.

Having written extensively on driving has also been a distinct advantage. I have and do constantly work out problems in my head and then on the page, and am ready with reasoned responses to student's dilemas. On some occasions when I have corresponded with my students before the event, I have asked that they take time to read and familiarize themselves with my articles.

More than once a student has taken that time, and you would not believe the rapid results that flow from our interaction. I have experienced times when all I had to do was simply call out the title to one of my articles, and the learned student has known exacltly what I wanted them to do, or what they did incorrectly. Talk about distillation of reparte!

We're heading for the next turn, and I say "Business Cone, Don't Turn till you Turn, Big Mo." BANG! Instant results. Critiques go the same way. Titles offered after the turn immediately are met with either "OK" or "Yeh, I knew it as soon as I did it."

...and it's constantly evolving!

Robert Henriksen

I don't have it distilled down to a pithy phrase, but I've got a baseball/football analogy for turn-in.

When a student is wide of the apex, and makes a big notchy correction to tighten his line (usually only when he's already parallel to the apex), I'll ask him to think about throwing a baseball. The thrown ball describes a nice arc through the air - that's the line of his turn through the corner. When you throw a baseball, you only get to influence its path for a few feet - while it's in your hand. Once you release it, it's on its own to describe the arc that you determined in those first few feet. Turn-in at a corner is like those first few feet. That's why looking ahead, visualizing your 'arc', then turning in is so important. At the limit, you don't have much flexibility for adjustments.

Clem

Beautiful analogy.

sjanes

I like it. I think I'll add it to my "analogy toolkit", although I'll probably swap in "snowball", since I'm in Canada

JCP911S

I use that same ball throwing analogy... I think it is the closest and most understandable.

I think the biggest change from street driving is to get students to stop "driving" the car through the turn. I often tell them that once they set the wheel at turn-in... "you've bought the turn...there's no refunds on the track."

I also tell them to train their wrists never to tighten the line once they have set the wheel.... if they miss the line, they have plenty more laps to adjust to get it right. I always watch to see if they are fiddling with the wheel at the apex, and let them know immediately that I caught them.

This is a critical habit to build, since the biggest single source of accidents in my experience is students jerking the car back onto the track after they go two off... it is such a natural reaction that you cannot "talk" them out of it any more than you can "talk" them out of flinching if you thow something at their face... you just have to break it by repitition over time.

Of course you hve to tell them that they can conscously over-ride it, if, and only if they're about to hit something, but do it as a conscious decision, and knowing that a spin is likely.... then they are already preparing themselves for a possible correction even berfore they do it.

aam993

Do you consider pushing student to that limit in the safe part of the track(no walls around)? Experiencing first hand the rear-end coming around or going off the track might be quite an eye-opener from perspective of WHY it is important to hit those apexes, to not to brake after turn-in point, to get on the gas as soon as possible, etc.