drive418

The most important factor should be fun. Whether DE or racing. Be safe, have fun.

For me, the competition both with myself and other drivers is what I really love about racing. It's a chess match, not just waiting for a point.

Admittedly, I am usually in the bottom half of my class, but spending a couple of teeth grinding laps behind a slower car and working to set up a pass is hugely rewarding to me. Oh, and hearing Uncle John's fire side chats on the race weekend. That's the icing on the cake.

We are all out there looking for fun and hoping to bring the car back in one piece.

Manifold

DE is very broad. At one end of the spectrum, you have people who just want to have fun driving their modest street cars on track faster than they can drive them on the road, but far below the limits of the car. They may go to the track once a year, or even just once in a lifetime. At the other end of the spectrum, you have pro racers testing and tuning, and preparing for races. In all cases, DE has restrictions which make it non-competition, and therefore not racing. I cringe when I'm at a DE and I hear someone refer to it as racing ...

mrbill_fl

One of my biggest mistake was treating DE's like test days.

When I started in racing, DE's didn't exist, I figure DE's were cheap track time, and where I could bed brakes and scrub tires.

-That thinking almost cost me a car. -when the car I was setting up for a pass, slowed unexpectedly for the car in front of him... I had to drive off track to keep from hitting him.

Racing is all about car prep, no mechanical failures, no DNF's, etc. Where one bad finish could wreck your season. -A major commitment for the entire season.

Racing is also more predictable, everyone is going fast as they can all the time. Bue at a DE, a guys might just rest a lap, and the car prep is not so much.

I would bring spare gear boxes to races.
at a DE I sometimes don't bring spare tires, cause if it breaks, no biggie. At a race, I HAVE to be ready for the next race, or I might be out of the season championship.

I don't try to time laps at DE's....

-the other thing is how close the cars are at a race vs DE. its nothing to be 6" off a guys bumper lap after lap at a race. for a DE a car length is kinda too close.

TXE36

The only exception I make to this is with my coworkers. They are generally very supportive and several like to listen to and watch videos of track experiences. I attend DEs and instruct, I don't race. But after years of correcting them, when they ask "Going racing this weekend?", just saying "Yep" is a lot less work.

-Mike

Manifold

LOL, my non-DE friends and family still refer to my DEs as 'racing'. I used to try to correct them and explain what we do, but seems that it's difficult for people to wrap their heads around the idea that someone can be on a race track and neither racing nor even going as fast as possible. Like you, I eventually gave up, so now when I'm asked how my 'racing' went, I just say it was fine. But I make sure insurance companies know it's not racing!

DTMiller

There should be a name for this, sort of like the Mendoza line in baseball, at which point a HPDE only driver just says "yep" when asked if he is racing this weekend because explaining the distinction is just too much f'ing work. For me it was after about 10 track days.

Unrelated, I'm not sure why the OP feels the need to post some blatant stir the pot post once a month. Maybe instead of saying I know this will stir the pot do some hard thinking in the privacy of your own chambers until the answer just simply cannot be determined.

savyboy

HOD (Hooked on Driving) "D" group, open passing, is awesome out here at N. CA tracks. Lower car count, situationally aware, fast drivers, wide mix of cars. Very easy to get clean laps. David Ray and his team are quick to communicate with/remove drivers who don't play nice. Love running with them.

NaroEscape

I still do DE's as much as possible (though with an engine builder that can't build an engine that lasts more than a couple laps, I haven't done much of anything in the past few years...). DE stands for DRIVERS EDUCATION...IMO, each driver out there gets a different EDUCATION while on the track: newbies get to understand how to brake/shift/turn and observe flags, more advanced work on their line, etc. For me, when nobody is around, I take different lines into turns, just to see how the car will react. Part of racing is being totally confident in your car in a given scenario, so how better to know what it will do when there are minimal consequences? I also use it to get a feel for any changes we may have made (which over the past years have been many). PLUS, my wife LOVES DE's and has no desire to race....

Seat time is seat time. None of us are pro drivers (or at least most of us on here) so practice, practice, practice always helps. And having the opportunity to practice and try out things in a low stress, laid back environment allows you to focus on what you're doing instead of what everyone else is doing...(obviously within the DE/point by rules).

LuigiVampa

Another thing to keep in mind is no matter how "hot $hit" you think you are there is generally someone better than you. (My apologies to any F1 drivers frequenting RL!)

I remember feeling like I was really tearing up Sebring, humming the Top Gun theme in my head, and a pro driver came screaming past me like I had parked it. Yup - I suck. Back to reality.

Also, there are a lot of people out there who are only fast or slow, respectively, because of their cars. Is the guy tooling along in a vintage 911 a worse driver than me because I blow past him? He's been driving that car for 30 years and my guess is that in equal cars I would have my hands full.

Bottom line, most, but not all people at the track are Type A. We all want to "win" even if it is DE. Its how we are wired so the OP shouldn't have to apologize for what he is writing because most of us, deep down, have similar feelings. Its just how you deal with those feelings that matter.

(Did I really just talk about my feelings? Yech!)

ProCoach

I'm just going to correct a commonly held fallacy when it comes to data acquisition, lap timing and DE events.

While participants should (and for the most part, must) abide by the host region's protocols regarding in-car lap timers, the advent of MANUFACTURER supplied performance measuring equipment in their cars has introduced a conundrum. Porsche Sport Chrono and Track Precision app, BMW M-app and GM's PDR all provide excellent information to quantify objectively driver improvement.

The proper use of these tools is not and should not be a "DE sin."

The reason why some DE committees mistakenly believe that lap timing IN-CAR is prohibited is because of the insurance company's statements against covering "speed events," as opposed to "driver education." Their definition of a "speed event" is when lap times are posted.

Let me repeat this. A "speed event" is when lap times are PUBLICLY POSTED AND READILY AVAILABLE FOR COMPARISON.

A "driver education event" does NOT include public posting of times or even include a mechanism for measuring everyone.

Therefore, a "drivers education event" does not mandate a prohibition against individual and personal measure.

Since there is NO USE of a communal timing loop, timing and scoring personnel or public posting in print or via the web of COLLECTIVE and COMPARATIVE lap times, NO DE is technically a "speed event," therefore personally tracking one's own progress (pun intended) respects the insurance underwriter's requirement for coverage.

DEC's for various clubs, organizers and operators of high performance driver's education events NEED to know this detail MUCH better than they do now, not repeat old wive's tales...

Quantifying speeds through corners, g's sustained and using lap times to break out better personal performances are NOT antithetical to a proper Drivers Education approach or execution.

Doesn't mean you HAVE to do it, but it does mean the people that do are not "bad seed" within the DE community!

Veloce Raptor

Two excellent & spot on posts...

montoya

+1- To the OP, I would say that humility will go a long way towards improving your skills on the track. As noted above, you think you are fast until you put yourself in a different pool of very fast drivers and then you realize, wow, I suck! So humility keeps you open to criticism, helps you realize there is always more to learn and keeps you in a learning mode. If like me, you thrive on competition, then DE is not for you, you must race or has been mentioned at the very least do Time Trials. I race in a spec class where your speed is more dependent on you than the car and I love it. Not everyone has the ego that can take the bruising that comes from being beat in that kind of environment. It's important to know yourself, to know how to get the most out of this sport- there is room for everyone but as you say if you are in the wrong environment, you will just get frustrated, so branch out and explore Autocross, TT, or just dive in and go racing- but most of all have fun!

hunterpeaks

Only thing I have to add is that if you start racing, you are most likely at some point destroy your car. If you race long enough, it's probably going to happen. And you'll be in a few incidents along the way as well. I have replaced fenders, quarter panels, bumpers. And let me tell you....It sucks each time.

Racing is amazing though and highly addicting. The old famous question applies here as well. Aspiring racer asks, "Hey, I am thinking about getting into racing, how much money should I budget for it?" Old racer replies, "All of it.".

docwyte

As an instructor I have two main goals for my students:

#1 Be safe. I want them to not injure themselves, myself other drivers or their car

#2 Have FUN! This is supposed to be fun and that's important to remember

Based on their level of comfort and driving as long as the two main objectives are still kept in mind I'll start trying to correct their lines, braking etc to get them smoother. They'll gain speed naturally because of that.

I'm not a race coach and won't be analyzing data with them looking for tenths of seconds. That's not my job or my goal...

Cory M

The instructors #1 priority is to get you around the track safely. He doesn't know you, you are new to the club and track, he has nothing to gain by helping you seek out a few tenths here and there. Not worth the risk. Be thankful he is willing to put his life in danger to show you around.

As for the slow speeds: each club has different acceptable levels of speed an aggressiveness. Depending on which club I'm running with I could be at the pointy end or buried in the middle of the pack, at the same track running the same laptimes. Some groups run hard and close, others queue up and wait patiently for a point by. It should be clear in the drivers meeting, and/or after the first session, what the expectation is.

Sounds like you just need to find a club that has a better match to your expectations for a track day.