hf1

I raced MX-5's with SBRS 2009-2014. Learned a ton from the instructors mentioned by procoach and had a lot of fun racing with kids that are now pros. Left to race my own SPB car due to the deteriorating quality of the cars and safety concerns.

Seeing how much $ people spend on racing and tracking their own cars, I still don't understand why it is so difficult to run a racing series like SBRS profitably and successfully considering the economies of scale it enjoys in terms of parts, labor, and transportation costs. Maybe there's space in the market for a series that offers 100% arrive&drive racing in safe, fun and EQUAL cars but with less (or no) instruction?

Just trying to understand which parts make it a losing proposition as it is. Maybe it's as simple as bad management.

NaroEscape

And there it is...

http://www.thedrive.com/news/10526/s...rk-1-2-million

ProCoach

Long time coming... A damned shame.

LuigiVampa

First time I ever drove an open wheel car - Formula Skip at Lime Rock. Had a blast.

Too bad. Maybe Skip will buy it back for pennies on the dollar after bankruptcy.

Frank 993 C4S

I restructure businesses for a living and failures are mostly related to managements inability to adapt to changing market conditions unless of course they never get off the ground to begin with (which was not the case here)

mrbill_fl

chapter 11

http://blackflag.jalopnik.com/skip-b...rep-1795448294

hf1

Judging by the sums I see being spent by people on all things track related (de, racing, etc.) I would think there is a market there for a safe, fun, and involving arrive & drive race series in the area of $3-5k per race weekend. People who track/race their own cars know how quickly costs add up. Personally, I'd prefer to arrive&drive to 6 race weekends for $25k per season and avoid the hassles of funding and trailering my own race car. Economies of scale and marketing/sponsorship deals with mfgs of cars and parts would be essential to make this work.

I would have stayed with SBRS if their cars' quality didn't nose dive so quickly, bringing interest and competition levels down. There's smth attractive about taking the car out of the equation, picking your car via a lottery and knowing that all performance variations come from driver's skill. This is why I picked SPB as a close approximation but even there differences between cars can be noticeable.

Why did SBRS fail? Was $4k per race weekend too cheap even for such cheap (even crappy) cars? Was their math way off?

ProCoach

It's called the Lucas Oil School...

But there were many shifts in the market that began the steep decline after 2007 and particularly after the 2011 move to Road Atlanta from Lakeville (a cost shedding measure, for sure). More schools, the growth and multiplicity of manufacturer ride and drive programs eventually taken in-house by manufacturers after years of being the staple of SBRS (and one of the best crews in the business headed by Don Harple), the rise of AMCI and a ton of other reasons...

A shame.

Frank 993 C4S

In my view a lot of competition to these driving schools has emerged with DE days over the past several years at a fraction of the cost. Instruction is usually free and you can drive your own car. With respect to race weekends, it seems that whatever they were charging didn't cover their cost.

Also, when you start a downward spiral with the good instructors leaving, cars lacking maintenance you lose your reputation quickly. They tried to make that up with discounts.

The one thing that still gave them business over the past several years has been their name. Most people didn't know that Skip had sold out over 15 years ago.

hf1

Thx. I now remember receiving emails from them about this.
Not bad. $6.5k/wknd for 2x(30min practice, qual, and race each day). $34k pre-pay 25% discount for a whole 7wknd season. Any idea about their typical field sizes and competitiveness?

Was hoping to avoid open cockpit cars, but beggars can't be choosers. May try their cars out on one of their LRP 2day lapping event or just go for their LRP race Oct 3-4.

ProCoach

I REALLY recommend them highly. Todd Snyder is the COO and former Regional Chief Instructor for SBRS, Randy Buck, often attends. The cars are top notch (AiM data, video and paddle shift, too) and again, the curriculum is SBRS on steroids, presented by the senior instructors.

Like anything, the front few are competitive and then the field stretches out, but they've been up and running for awhile and are expanding significantly and quickly.

PAlspach

The Skip Barber School had been losing their touch for years before this happened. I remember when I took one of their schools that the cars were literally falling apart while on track and everyone on their staff seemed a bit over stressed.
Do not forget that Skip was not the only great racing school around before Lucas though. There are other racing school titans who still know how to provide great training to their students like Bertil Roos or Bondurant, both schools I would recommend.
Bondurant can be pretty pricey, but their cars are top of the line and they provide some great training, though I have never attended this school personally.
I have done multiple events at Bertil Roos though, and even though their cars may not be the most advanced, they are a blast to drive and you get a ton of seat time and training for your dollar.
The Lucas School has a staff of veteran instructors who know how to teach, but I am still unsure of the school's overall approach.
Personally, I do not think it a good idea to strap someone new to performance driving into such a high tech car. I know when I first started, throwing AiM data at me would have been overwhelming and I am grateful for learning on a standard "H" pattern because that is what is found in most the cars I have driven. It will be interesting to see where they go, but for now I am going to stick with schools whom have years of experience but have not made poor decisions that lead them to bankruptcy.

Mitchell Butaud

^.

dennis macchio

Peter,

Will discuss with you in private, at some later date.

Veloce Raptor

Whoa
This got interesting