Boulder GT3

Bingo. I wish these folks did events in the West. It looks fun, safe and flexible.

I think as other groups do more and more track events PCA needs to look inward and ask what they can do to make the events better for the participant not the instructor. I only have exposure to two PCA regions but the other groups like Chin are growing much faster. PCA feels stagnant by comparison.

Bob Rouleau

I strongly disagree. I think we're confusing DE with racing. There are plenty of 500 ish HP cars which are driven on the streets and highways without additional safety equipment. The emphasis on DE should be on learning how to drive safely, even at speed. Many DE drivers never race, some don't even come back after a season or two. Our job is to make them better (and by definition, safer drivers). DE is not racing school.


Strongly agree. We do this in our region. Teaching proper driving techniques, cornering, smoothness, car balance and contact patch management has nothing to do with ultra high speeds. How many corners are there that demand entry speeds much above 80 MPH? If they do exist, do you need to exceed 80 MPH or so to learn the technique? As skills improve the speed limit can be safely raised and we do.

I strongly disagree. Run groups should be divided based on competence and experience. Note that higher speeds tend to follow suit. One of the most important criteria is traffic management. If a driver cannot handle significant speed differentials, then he isn't looking far enough ahead and deserves to be put back into a lower run group. Our red group has a couple of monster cars which LAP well driven GT3's in a 20 minute session. No problems whatsoever. I expect , no, demand that a driver being promoted to a higher run group be able to manage traffic, slower, faster and anywhere in between.


Strongly agree and we do this. Run groups are smallest for novices and increase from there. The red (instructor) group can be twice as large as the novice group with no issues at all.

I think this is a good idea. Some will benefit some won't. Worth doing. Thanks for the suggestion. We do this now in print via our monthly region magazine.

Penguinking - I strongly disagree with your comment about classroom sessions being superfluous. My personal experience is that drivers who have attended our ground school and are familiar with the basics learn more quickly. I can spend my time with them correcting errors, reinforcing aspects they are weak on etc. Some regions are now making "ground school" mandatory for DE.

mrbill_fl

Train the trainer!

do eveything possible to retain instructors, and cross train.

at most of the 'instructor days' there not much emphasis on existing instructors, and that could be improved.

-while most if not all instructors are good to great drivers, many need help in the communication area.... and thats easy to fix, with a round table type discussion on "what has worked for me", (lessons learned, etc) .


artifical limits are just a false sense of security.

it all comes down to split second decison making, understanding why a student is doing something wrong, and how to prevent a problem from occurring.

I'm not sure how much rules can really replace exerience.

(if you've never had the red mist, how can you recognize it, etc...)

Larry Herman

And most regions, including mine can start with one student per instructor - no exceptions. I get burned out after a couple of days with 2 students, and really have no time for myself to enjoy my driving. I think that this chases some racer/instructors totally away from DEs. It did for me 10 years ago, and if I didn't have kids running in DEs, I probably would re-commit almost totally to racing. I can't wait to get to the Glen club race and walk around the pits, shoot the breeze, race my car and relax!

Flying Finn

Ditto that.

I had two students two days back to back last time at homestead and it was not fun. In one day I also had couple of guys in yellow group who asked me to sit in their car for one session (I was nice/stupid enough to say yes and will do it almost every time non student wants it, I have no problems with it normally and enjoy it but not when I already had two students) so I was at track almost all the time. Couldn't really even check properly the tyre pressures etc. and definitely there was no time to rest. It's too much and as you said, takes lot of the fun out of it.

penguinking

Bob - if you'll read back to my discussion with John, you'll see that i rephrased what i meant from my initial post. while some regions might have superb classroom instruction, i find that many of the regions i drive with could use better classroom structure. while alot of it comes down to lack of resources, i think that if DE's are going to have a classroom for green and blue students, then the advanced solo groups should also have a class. classroom's do great for green students, but i think there should be a class for more advance drivers.

bobt993

Provide a full hour of track time to instructors at the end of the day (continued session for basically red). This would entice more instructors to offer instruction services while at DE's. It is not unusual to for an instructor to miss sessions while working with students. BMWCCA on West coast pays for instructor hotel, track fees, and some meal allowance, but loads them with 3 students a day. They cannot figure out why it is hard to get more instructors? DUH!

Bob Rouleau

Penguin - I agree with class room sessions for ALL run groups and we do it in our region. The reaction has been positive since we can always learn new things. The classes for the upper run groups are different as you can imagine. One other thing we like to do (as long as I have enough instructors) is to "blitz" run groups.

Instructors jump into every single car and we run exercises - the most popular is the "no brakes" race. Drive as quick as you can but never touch the brakes. It teaches a ton about momentum, how much better balanced the car is without being upset by braking and how much faster you can enter a corner with a balanced car.

We are teach lower run groups how to enter corners off line. NO matter how much we stress passing zones, people will still give and (sadly) take late-late passes. We found that too many don't know what to do after they have passed and find themselves on the wrong side of the track. This is sort of like giving kids birth control

Best,

penguinking

now those are some exercises i'd push for my region to add to the DE program

JBH

I appreciate all the comments - I don't want to belabor some of the points, but we tend to look at students as either being beginners or advanced. It is that grey area in between when students start to go solo. So my first suggestion to require safety gear is directed toward that group (where the instructor is no longer in the car), though it is applicable to all groups not subject to a speed restriction on the track. Just because DOT doesn't require higher standards of safety equipment in higher hp cars, doesn't mean they are safe. When you stop to think about it, that's pretty crazy. I suppose they don't because people are supposed to obey the speed limits - the safety features of our street cars were designed for that range of speed. Obviously, we far exceed that on the track, so it's really not reasonable to think we can expect the same degree of protection.

DE is not racing, but it can still be very high speed. Perhaps I should rephrase my first suggestion and say I believe DE organizers should state that they highly recommends the use of rollbars, safety harnesses and H&N restraints for all cars exceeding XXX hp.

The suggestion for classroom sessions for intermediate and advanced drivers is a good one - the problem is scheduling. If instructors are not driving they are probably riding. Bob: how does your region organize advanced classes?

Flying Finn

Bob,

That "no brakes" exercise sounds very good. Have to try to introduce that in our local club.

38D

I would say that run groups should be experience and speed in the turns. Someone who has 20 years of driving epxerience, but is brutally slow has no place in red...yet we can all name people like this. The only reason they are there is ego. It's fine to be in a slow car, so long as the person is at least fast in the turns. There may be a few cars, like a 2.0L 914, that probably never belong in Red, as they are just too slow (except maybe at Lime Rock).

And anyone who is getting lapped in a GT3 at the Glen is just horrid. Even Bill Chadwick couldn't lap a decently driven GT3 in a 20 minute DE session.

SundayDriver

Here is a story about how strong brakes are not all that important...

This is my story from a National race at MAM earlier this year. I started on the front row and jumped out to the lead with another car in class on my tail. I opened up 3-4 seconds, only to lose it in traffic. I got another couple of seconds gap when my brakes started to go away. Very long pedal and pumping didn't change it much. Figured I must have a leak and was sucking in air somewhere in the front. I knew if the other car got close, he was going to kill me under braking and I could not hold him off. So I droe as hard as I could while braking early. I would test the brakes before each corner go give myself some margin if they were completely gone. This was about 1/3 of the way through the race. I kept pushing and pushing - I was running laps within ~1/2 second of my best with very weak brakes. If you brake early and less, you do not lose that much time.

(End of the story is that I managed top open enough gap that I could back off and take fewer risks. Held on for the win but there wasn't much in the way of brakes left. A caliper seal had torn and leaked a lot of air into the system - it was damaged on one side and I guess air could leak in but fluid was not leaking out beyond a few drops.)

RedlineMan

I Agree, JBH;

I think you see that realization in the fairly new PCA National Program, in regions doing extended instruction for all groups, in "instructor raids" on intermediate and advanced run groups. All in an effort to further refine the system and not let learning languish.

I think it also needs to be stressed that open "instructor days" are for instructors to instruct EACHOTHER. I am right at the head of the line in NOT utilizing these days thusly. I have not had an instructor in the right seat in 10 years, and I am SORELY overdue for some advanced intuition and insight. I've reached the point where my ability to self-critique has become very limited, where it would be fairly easy for an outside observer to pick up on subconscious traits that are short-changing me of speed. I know I am not alone in this regard.

Any volunteers? Finn? You can't say no, eh?

---------------------------------------------------------------
Reporting Live from Brockville, Ont.

bobt993

[QUOTE=RedlineMan]I Agree, JBH;
I have not had an instructor in the right seat in 10 years, and I am SORELY overdue for some advanced intuition and insight. I've reached the point where my ability to self-critique has become very limited, where it would be fairly easy for an outside observer to pick up on subconscious traits that are short-changing me of speed. I know I am not alone in this regard.

Get a datalogger. Seriously, it really helps. Use a GPS portable unit and move it to another car (or better yet, have them drive yours) of a faster driver and compare your results. Then have them ride in your car and narrate their line while you drive, switch and listen again, switch and apply. You will value their input after you are confident of their ability ie: data results, faster exit speeds, later braking, higher loading etc. We are very stubborn people and it is hard to accept the changes without complete acceptance.