Mark Dreyer

Well maybe. I've only been instructing for a year or so, but I had a most unusual experience instructing this past weekend at Roebling. Middle aged banker, first time Porsche owner, (06 Boxster bought recently) first time DE. He had done 2-3 autocross events prior.

Absolutely fantastic student. Great attitude, quick learner, and fast! I moved him to blue group the second day and by the end of that day I couldn't think of anything more to teach him. Granted he wasn't perfect, but he knew if he missed his line, and he was smooth, so I was able to push him to go way faster than any green student I'd ever taught before. When he was getting close to the limit and the car would slip a bit, he countersteered like he'd been doing it for a long time. Very cool experience. Any of ya'll had a student like that before? I told him that if he'd started when he was 10 instead of 55 he might be doing this for a living!

FrankyV

Never had a student like that but have a friend I started DEs with back in the 90s who was signed up from green to white (no instructor) after one session in the morning at his first event. Only prior experience was one Skip Barber school. To this day he is a dominant club racer, old school style, no data acquisition, no coaching, no cool suit, no track support. At a new track, he will be within one second of his fastest lap time of the weekend within his first five laps. Amazing natural talent.

dew-e

I've had several very good students that were complete newbs. But none of them would I have considered for solo after one weekend on the track. Mainly because of lack of experience. It is one thing to do the right thing when there is an instructor sitting next to you, a completely different thing to do it when you are in the car alone.

Best example I can think of is the amount of black flag all situations I see instructors and solo students completely missing. I've gone through two or three black flags, and then have somebody behind me flashing lights and honking to horn, hands waving, wondering why I'm going slow and not giving them a pass signal. Usually, when the discussion happens in the pit as to why they were ignoring the black flag all, they say they were not aware that it was a black flag all.

To me, if you don't know that if you see a black flag at a flagging station other than then designated "black flag stations" you don't have the right amount of experience to be in the car alone. regardless of your driving ability.

I had a student two weeks ago that has been racing karts for 20 years, had better car control skills than I do, and was very track aware. I would not have signed him off for solo just to get him more experience being in a car, and in a DE type situation as compared to racing karts.

When I have a very good student that has good car control skills, but not a lot of experience in the car on the track, I start talking to them constantly and make sure that they are responding to me. If they can't keep a conversation going at DE speeds, they are hyper-focused on driving and not comfortable at those speeds. I ask questions about different flagging situations, I make them think about things other than driving, and see how much focus they can give to what I'm talking about. If you can't focus on something other than the line, you may not be able to focus on the bad situation that you need to avoid.

I also think students should have a few oops moments with instructors in the car to really make sure they know what to do when the instructor is not in the other seat.

Mark Dreyer

Good points on lack of experience and the flag thing. Very important points. He seemed quite aware of flag stations, but like you say until you've done a bunch of track days, it isn't always possible to evaluate the student's awareness in different situations. I think part of the issue is that Roebling is such a simple track relative to some of the other ones out there. His next event will be at Road Atlanta. I told him not to expect to be going solo there any time soon.

Matt Romanowski

+1

kurt M

(question in bold) Yes, one, he is a C.I. now. I did not have him as a student long enough to run out of learning (one day) but more than enough to see he would do well.


Had a few that I could see early on that had what it takes. Had a few more than had what it takes to use the car to go golfing too...

swftiii

That is awesome...I always like having students that 'get it' right away and can apply the information. Makes the instructor look good (I had one of these students just a year or so ago and now he is running top of his class in NASA...great driver and attitude) - makes me look good although I didn't do much to help him really.

As others have said, situational awareness is so critical in progressing through the ranks of DE, not just car control and speed. I would say that flag awareness is also only 1 of the key pieces of situational awareness of track driving which comes from experience with and without instructors in the car.

Being directly aware of what is going on in front of you, what is going on behind you, and how do your actions impact both is also very important. Having the experience and skills to handle the unexpected comes from experience and awareness.

What do you do if the car in front of you suddently slows and you have 2 others right on your a$$ moving faster than you going into a high speed corner?
What is your out plan if a bad situation happens quickly without screwing everyone?
How easy is it for them to take corners off-line?
How do they handle getting out of shape a bit at turn in, mid corner, track out?

Just my $.02....

John H

Funny, I had the same deal with my student this past weekend. I did not sign him off or move him up though. It rained Saturday all day and we went slow and drove the normal DE line. Sunday, good weather and he was right on it. I sat in the car after the last session and told him I did not know what to say. He had room to go quicker obviously but didn't (which told me he has pretty good judgment and a healthy "fear" for a DE student). He was quite a pleasure to instruct.

I did not sign him off because of the lack of experience, not from lack of ability or common sense.

racer

I've had several over the years with some natural skill. I find it helpful to take some time to talk to your student about other hobbies / interests they have. For instance, folks who used to ride motorcycles, or ski etc, seem to posses a natural-ness about their inputs (good sense of balance) which makes the instructing easier.

its hard to teach "feel" so when you have a student with a natural inclination, take advantage of it!

EPWilson

I did my first ever DE last September at Pocono North. I guess I was doing well, as the afternoon of the first day my instructor offered to sign me off to go solo. I actually declined - I felt better having him sit there and I thought he was pushing me a little to go faster where I wasn't yet comfortable.

My instructor did this to me - we were talking about seating upgrades and Spec Boxster - then I missed two apexes in a row and he told me to go back to focusing on the line. :-/

I did notice there were some other students in the green run group (not sure if they were first-timers or not) that did go solo by the end of the second day, and I was able to stay ahead of them for several laps, despite them having much higher horsepower cars.