Greg, it was very nice to meet you. I am sorry you had this experience, and I agree wiht George that your instructor should have been more proactive at focusing you forward and not backwards.

 

I had a bad instructor at Heartland Park. He talked about what a good driver he was (Red Flag!) and then just talked his way through the course. "Turn in here." "Look ahead." What I needed was help learning the course and how the corners relate.

 

Good instructor, but funny incident. Third session, first lap at NHIS I'm threshold braking going into the hairpin (right hander) This is the first hard right on the course. He forgot to buckle in and almost joined me in the drivers seat. He didn't notice it because the door was holding him upright on the left handers.

 

It was my second DE event. First time at this track. Instructor gets into my car, tells me to drive the cones. At the end of the first run, I asked him how I did? No reply. He gets in my car for the second session, I ask him for some feedback. He tells me as we are driving, you could have been closer to the apex there and there and here. Nothing else. Rest of the day goes pretty much the same way. Next morning, I asked and got a new instructor!!!

One event at the Glen, my instructor introduces himself and then states that he has a rule that he does not allow his students to go over 100 mph. I tried a couple of times on the back straight to pass the 100 mph mark, and he catches me everytime. Guess he was only watching the speedo. At the end of the day, I ask him what are criteria for sign off? He replies, "You are not fast enough."

 

 

Kind of a funny comment an instructor made to me last year when I was driving an Eagle Talon SCCA race car, built in Canada way back in 1990. We were at Mosport and I was coming along every lap, getting a little faster and really learning the lines and braking zones. The morning of the first day, my 951 crapped out on me and I didn't learn much in those 2 sessions. By the end of the second day, my instructor commented on how fast I was going. "I've never seen 190 mph on this track, you are really coming along!". I had to tell him the speedo was only in kilometers per hour.

 

"I had to tell him the speedo was only in kilometers per hour."

That's just priceless.

 

Damn. What a tool.

 

I hesitate to post here because this instructor was really good and helped me a lot, but there was one aspect to his teaching that could stand improvement (this is the same feedback I put on the comment card): I wish he could have adapted better when I wasn't getting what he was trying to say.

I was having trouble finding my way through the Carousel at Mid-Ohio. I was getting the entry right but was consistently running wide. I know this because he kept saying, "too wide". I felt like an idiot and I think we were both getting frustrated. Finally, he said, "just throttle steer the car where you want it to go" - and I never had a problem there again. So, if one approach isn't working, try another.

This same instructor did a great job of this on Madness. Again, I felt like a blockhead because I wasn't following him. This time he took me out in his car and demonstrated what he wanted. Again, problem solved.

 

A great reminder that DE is really a partnership between instructor and instructee.

 

If this instructor cannot feel the difference between 114 and 190 mph you have to question his experience level and quantity of seat time. That is a very BIG spread.

 

190mph at the end of the back straight at Mosport would be insanely fast and scarry since the "straight" isn't exactly straight.

 

This is very similar to what I was experiencing at TWS. I think it was just a communication gap. I too wish that 1) I'd been more proactive at letting him know we needed to find another way to describe what he wanted me to do, and 2) he would have been more proactive at recognizing that I wasn't 'getting the picture' that he was trying to get across and I was just getting frustrated. He was a very skilled driver (I rode a couple of laps in his car), so I don't question his driving or that he had valuable information to convey to me.

 

+1

 

{THIS IS MINDY, NOT MARC}

How about this: "In this region you are in green and in green we do not use 5th gear on the back straight at VIR." (PUNT!)