Craig T.

The good thing about our Calif desert tracks is there isn't much to hit. Genreally, a major screw-up by a student just results in something simular to 20 seconds of the Baja 1000. Spending the next session cleaning 30 pounds of dirt, sand, cactus, and scorpions out the wife's new Porsche changes their track focus pretty quickly.

I can not imagine getting into a GT3 with a first day student at some of you guy's East Coast tracks, where an OTI means a wall or tire barrier.

Bull

Randy, I find that if you get in the car with the attitude that you are in control, then act that way at all times, instructing is far less "exciting" than it could be otherwise. I have been lucky enough to have many very good students, with only a few exceptions over the years. The exceptions are those who are unencumbered with the need to listen, and they get to experience sitting in the pits while they watch their run group enjoy the track. In one extreme case, the student had the opportunity to sit out a good part of the day while I thought about getting back in the car with him (the CI agreed that he went out with me or not at all). He was the extreme exception (refused to pit-in under a full course black flag, and instead wanted to debate the need!). I have had great, fun students 99% of the time.

Circuit Motorsports

Having just finished a summer where I was sitting right seat with 9-16 year olds in off road buggies. A green student with a Corvette or a GT3 is nothing.

4 hours a day showed me two things.

1. Most people are natural drivers when they are young we just have to get those skills back out of them. The amount and quality of corrections that these kids had (most with little to no experience behind the wheel) was amazing.

2. Trust the little voice in your head. Every time I said, one more lap, something happened. Every time I brought them in I was happy.

race911

I've really never NOT instructed, even from day one. Something about having an SCCA license, even though I was 21 and had completed a whole one track day and a licensing school. Everyone pitches in when you're struggling to get 25 paid to rent the track like we did in Phoenix.

But over the years I've never really had a problem. As was said above, make sure the student knows you're calling the shots. Don't hesitate to pull 'em in early. Work at their level of competence. Most important, make sure the student feels s/he has gotten value for time/money.

Sometimes I'll offer a ride, often not. A first-timer usually has no business being subjected to a sports racer. If I'm taking a stockish car out, even that is way over their head. And no way do I drive a student's car anymore.

Wednesday will be one of my only pay-to-drive DE's I'll do this year!

Qwickrick

Welcome to the instructor corps. Instructing for me is now the best part of the HPDE environment, and yes, you're going to find yourself missing your own run groups as you debrief a student after his/her own session, or just too hot or tired to go out yourself. Tremendous job satisfaction, and the more you instruct, the easier it becomes.

993inNC

I love it, especially when I seem to click with the student and they are capable of learning. I have only had one student that just couldn't get it and went home Sunday morning. He was the "artsy" type, an older retired gent, he wanted so badly to be able to drive.....but alas it wasn't meant to be and he left
He was really bad too, squirt from turn to turn and practically stop at each one! Oh well, can't win 'em all

tkerrmd

I realize you are using lap times for some frame of reference for us. but I would drop the whole clock watching thing. especially if you are sharing this info with a new student. bad enough you are a new instructor watching lap times ( which there is no reason for) but to share (read pressure) a new student or any student at a DE with lap times I think is inappropriate in a DE setting.
welcome to the instructor corps................


few after thoughts, if you find yourself "screaming" something is certainly not right. student not listening you not instructing well whatever. at that point the student is instructed to stand down, stay in one gear, and tell him he is going into the pit for a chat. regroup decide for yourself if you are even capable for teaching or controlling this student safely, and do you feel safe in his car.
remember you always also have the option of handing off a difficult student to someone with more experience, nothing wrong with that.

Craig T.

I appreciate all criticism. However, this was a timed event, with a plaque awarded to each class winner. Try telling your student not to look at his times when he ordered a transponder before the event. Again, I appreciate your points, but without using time as a frame of reference, how do you tell whether the student is improving? “Gee student, we got pushed off the track by a 914, but you're nice and smooth now, and hit the apex at the right spot”. I think time should be downplayed, and we did a session at slower speed to help him capture the line, but I think it’s a combined package.

..And for the record, I never said my student was insubordinate, argumentative, or unsafe (reread). He didn’t require a “stand down” of any kind. He was just inexperienced. It was more like 993inNC said; “squirt from turn-to-turn and stop hard at each one, with violent yanking of the steering wheel, and only in the first session. I was trying to give him fundamentals over the sound of squealing tires. That was my mistake. I should have spent time with him in the pit prior to jumping in his car at the grid.

Unlike many of us who have come up through the ranks of karts, spec, etc, this was his first experience. At the end of the day, he was driving exceptionally. I wouldn’t have thought someone could improve so rapidly. I would share the track with him anytime.

After two pages, sooo many messages get taken out of lighthearted context and turned into a lesson by those who carry strong opinions.

993inNC

WOW a timed event with newbies on track? That seems like a recipeit for disaster!
Sounds like you realize you should have spent more time instructing in the pits and thats great. You'll figure this all out in time, but the Nat. Instruct. program really does work. The initial interview (the more in depth you are the better), starting out with the basics of the track etc....
My green's don't get out of third gear. I make them memorize the track the entire first session, we don't go fast, we just drive around the track making sure they have the lefts/rights in mind (no lines, just direction). Second session I tell them to start driving lines and working on inputs and thats where the "instruction" all begins. I take lines first, then inputs (if necessary) in later sessions. Its a nice progression to getting them to fast without overloading.

I can't imagine a timed event with any of my green students, they just have nothing safe to work off of and I don't believe I'd get in someones car under those circumstances. You're a brave man

Best of luck and welcome to instructing

race911

Pretty much every event out here through PCA or POC has had a timed element since I've been aware/around circa 1978. (In stark contrast to the first BMW school I showed up to help a friend at, and found out he would get booted if I didn't put the stopwatch away.)

New drivers seem to adapt just fine.

993inNC

hmm......learn something new every day Nothing like that on this coast that I know of (DE wise). I wouldn't do it personally. I hadn't ever been with a newbie I would trust to put under the pressure (to use Tom's term) of lap times and trophies............btw isn't that called racing?
I use lap times for my own use to gauge whether or not my students are really improving, and then I tell them how they did at the end of a days sessions or w/e but never session to session or use it as a tool for training. I actually got complained about by a student who caught me watching my watch and thought I was wanting to be anywhere else but there. I had to explain to the CI (long after the event) that I was using my stop watch as a teaching gauge for me, not bored with the student.......thats how little lap times are used here.

Z-man

After my first DE event, my ride home was spent thinking how fortunate I was to have an instructor help me out, and that someday, I would be able to do the same for someone else. So my goal to be an instructor at DE's was set early on. In 2006, I became a PCA certified instructor.

Instructing at DE's has been a very rewarding experience for me so far. I've had various types of students from late braking-throw-the-car-into-the-corner-and-pray-I-can-catch-it-on-the-other-side to the slow, slow SLOW types, and lots in between.

This weekend, one of my former students asked me to take a ride with him. When I first instructed him in 2006, he would brake very late (too late), and enter most corners very unbalanced, making that poor outside front tire do all the work. This past weekend, as we were staging up, I mentinoed that to him, and he responded, "Yeah, I've been working on that." And he had improved tremendously. He was braking smoother, and entering the corners with a far more balanced car. A couple of times I felt he was braking a little too late, but he knew that right away as well. He is now running in the White run group, and had no problems chasing down other cars - I especially like the way he was all over a 996TT. (He was driving a 944S2) That point-by was truly rewarding! Knowing that I may have had a little to do with his progress makes it worth it. He's definately ready for the next run group.

I've had a couple of my students tell me that when they're out on the track they still hear my voice in their head saying, "Get in tighter on that apex!" "gas, Gas, GAS!!!" "Squeeze on those brakes....squeeze off those brakes..."

Instructing at DE's helps you learn how to communicate. Most of the work in the car is to pick up on how the student learns -- is he an auditory learner? A "kinestetic" learner? The quicker you can pick up on this, and adjust your teaching technique, the easier it is to instruct. For example, if someone is a kinestetic learner, saying "The car feels better taking this line..." makes much more sense to them vs saying, "Can you see how close you came to the track out..." or "I can tell you are going faster by the higher revs of the motor I hear..." It is the subtle differences in your approach that can make a world of a difference.

As for the frustrating drivers? Make the best of the situation. If they are driving too agressively, do your best to reel them in. If that doesn't work, ask to switch off with another instructor. And for the OSB (Other Sports Beckon) student, well - just help them progress to whatever level they can achieve, and leave it at that.

-Z-man.

tkerrmd

sorry Craig I didnt see you mentioned you were teaching a first time student how to drive fast in a timed event guess I will go back and re-read, and you did say it was your first time instructing, no harm intended.

also no strong suggestions that I could see. and I on this forum appreciate the lessons offered whether I need them or not as people take the time to share them here and what this is all about. I thought that is what you asked for, again sorry if I misunderstood that as well, I stand corrected.

also who ever heard of a timed event with a student driver, what event was that?? now all of a sudden the "student" has a transponder, that is funny!!

as for your question regarding how do you teach your student if he is improving without time. well guess you still have a long way to go in learning how to instruct, good luck to you and your students. I would search this forum on instructing it may give you some help.

tom

tkerrmd

no PCA DE I ever heard of has "timing" involved

race911

Golden Gate Region Time Trial series since its inception in about 1973 @ Laguna. I'll let the POC guys speak to this themselves, but the first events I ended up helping guys out with them in maybe '83 or '84 were time trials.

Now understand this was running for time on Sunday afternoon, one warmup and two hot laps. So it's not like today where a transponder is timing all laps.