Veloce Raptor

Agreed.
And frankly, as a professional who makes his living coaching all around North America, I have no interest or need to be "validated" to the tune of several hundred dollars a year. Clients either pick me because they believe I am qualified and can help them become better drivers and racers, or they don't. It's self selecting.

TXE36

Agree. Also, for me anyway, name dropping Sean Edwards in this context doesn't move me either as his tragic death was not due to him be an unqualified instructor.

-Mike

uscarrera

JSScot82 nailed it for me:

I haven't read the article... But I would assume since PCA (BMW, etc) is the beneficiary, they would be the ones footing the bill.

Why in the world would I pay to work for someone else for free???

Now I read the article: Certainly implies the individual would pay.. That makes no sense. Organizations are having enough trouble attracting good volunteer instructors. If this were to go in I would simply quit instructing. I do it for sense of giving back and being part of the "team". I'm already giving a good bit of my free time, not to mention the added risk... asking me to pay real $$ is the straw that would break my back.

On second thought: I guess it opens the market for "professional" instructors who could charge a fee for their services. Not for me, but I can see how this would appeal to some folks...


I have been instructing in PCA, Chin and others for about 20 plus years, I am currently still an instructor, check out to solo instructor, and past Chief Track Instructor for PCA all of these efforts I give freely and am proud to do it as someone did it for me when I was starting out but I would back away if not only a fee was associated with my efforts and I prefer to be judged by my students as at the end of the day the students pay the freight for the track rental and their opinion of the success of the day is the most important and it is my obligation to try to meet that success expectation in a safe and fun manner. The one thing I continually remind my fellow instructors is to spend conversation time with your assigned student before getting in car or going on track establishing students expectations and how together we can try to meet those expectations or alert student to expectations that are not appropriate for a DE environment,
"I want to hit 150 on the back straight in my new Corvette" No BS I had a student tell me that, Ouch
Rich

Manny Alban

Their 'advisory board' should have included leadership from PCA, BMWCCA, SCCA, and NASA. These are the clubs that hold HPDE's and utilize volunteer instructors. Personally, I think that's important. I have given and still give, a lot of my free time to PCA. I do it because I love the club, people and helping others out. I think the idea is worthwhile, the execution not so much.

Bman

Anyone engaged in the DE community would find great interest in this topic, who doesn't want meaningful safety standards? But if your organization seeks to lead and define safety standards wouldn't it be critical for you to be viewed as professional, unbiased and competent? This organization, IMO, should seek trusted relationships with individual clubs where they openly share their challenges and best practices to truly drive meaningful change. Sadly that doesn't seem to be your organization's goal.

http://www.roadandtrack.com/motorspo...-speed-limits/

Do you support one of your self proclaimed spokesman's, the "expert" in the article, opinion and smear that PCA cares more about money than safety? Beyond being irresponsible and insulting to thousands of unpaid PCA volunteers, it's counterproductive if are truly seeking to make a difference. Why would any club share information with your organization when the facts are twisted to undermine the ethics of club in an International publication??? Ponderous, pathetic and disappointing!

fatbillybob

You pros have the best chance of nipping national certification in the bud by refusing to play. If I was a pro the last thing I would want is what amounts to a regulatory bureaucracy for my industry. Pros should be answering to their clients. Beware the unintended consequences. The game of life is chess not checkers.

LuigiVampa

All good points.

Huge variation of instructor training and skill-set even within organizations. I'm finishing my instructor training with PCA - CVR region - its pretty rigorous.

Contrast to several years ago when I had just been promoted to HPDE3. At an event at LRP with another PCA region and they were pressuring me to instruct. "It's only a green student - just keep them safe." I said no.

I agree with many that once a bureaucracy gets its foot in the door it tends to be a problem, but overall, it may not be a bad idea to bring a certain amount of unity to the instructor corps.

Can we go back to discussing drones at the track?

fatbillybob

This is the root of the issue...choice. Choice as we have now is good. But national certification will slowly morph, by insurance company pressures, into a mandate. Certification will become the new required standard. MSF will get paid as a new bureaucracy and drivers will pay more to drive. This scenario has been repeated over many many enterprises in our country.

Tim Webb

Fatbillybob has hit the nail on the head.

Insurance and lawyers on the way....

CosmosMpower

Money grab and I'm not willing to go through this BS to volunteer. I'd rather just stop instructing and pay for my track time.

multi21

agree. With all due respect to Matt, the argument that we spend way more money on other things has no relevance to this topic. IMO, it's not the overall dollar figure, but rather an organization that comes in and takes over certification and can control who or who does not instruct, for a fee of course while making $$ in the process.

If one would like to be MSF certified, it's their choice, and if they're a professional coach or instructor that gets paid, then perhaps it's better on their cv. However, the impression I got when I read this was one of infiltration of the national database of motorsportreg and eventually only having certified instructors with MSF instructor at events. If you're not a MSF instructor, then you don't instruct.

Finally, and I preface this as sounding a little harsh, but it must be said because I absolutely HATE people or organizations that profit under the guise of "trying to do the right thing"; "Is there a problem with instructors at the moment"? I understand some smaller chapters or regions may not have a large pool of instructors and therefore may not have properly trained members in great quantity, but I'm not aware of any recent accidents, fatalities where instructors were the cause. The last one I can remember was perhaps the Ferrari event at Fontana 15-18 years ago? Maybe?

ExMB

If you get free track time for instructing you are lucky. Not every region offers this to instructors. Discounts range from none to minimal to average. I only know of 1 region in my neck of the woods that offers a benefit similar to yours. All others don't.

Manifold

Seems that a good approach would be for all of the major organizations running DEs to get together and establish consensus minimum standards. Then any of those organizations who have an instructor training program could provide a certification accepted by all organizations.

One potential pitfall with this approach is that an organization could fall short of meeting the minimum standards, but maybe that could be addressed by an agreement that organizations would have representatives participate in the training programs of other organizations to some extent, so that everyone generally stays on the same page and there are no egregious violations of the minimum standards. That kind of collaboration would also foster development and sharing of best practices.

I don't think it would be feasible or desirable for there to be a central policing body which audits compliance with minimum standards, since this recreational sport is structured such that each organization has a degree of sovereignty which it's unlikely to surrender.

There's a limit to how far we can 'professionalize' DE, since it's generally done for fun rather than livelihood, and the risk is limited to voluntary participants rather than the general public or clients paying for needed professional services which generally require licensing (like health care, legal counsel, engineering services, etc.).

deutschkar

Good, then you agree that this program has no value to me as a volunteer, nationally trained instructor. I have zero interest in your agenda and this is quite obviously a money grab based on fear mongering...

needmoregarage

I respectfully disagree.

The professional coaches are not the target market and there aren't enough of them (relative to how many volunteer instructors exist) to influence the outcome by "not playing".

Why would a pro need certification from MSF? MSF is geared toward the amateur volunteer who has a job doing something else, or is retired - but not earning their living in the right seat.