Originally posted by Andrie Hartanto:
Hey 2slow,
have you taken any of the NSX driving school? Have you taken any of the professional racing school?
Hi Andrie,
I took the 4 day Grand Prix Driving School in Arizona in April, and will be getting a bit more track time over the summer/fall with the NASA HPDE events and some other open track days, I also plan on attending some open lap days with Skip Barber in Laguna Seca driving the Formula Dodges.
Once those are done I will be taking the Adavanced 3 day Racing school at Bondurant and Skip Barber either later this
fall or early next year.
When I took the driving school down in AZ our
class was made up of only 6 people so we got
some serious seat time on the Mustang GTs and
the Formula Fords. 4 of the guys who took the class were SCCA drivers (2 WRX drivers and 2 BMW drivers), 1 newbie guy who wanted to become better before getting his dream car (Pantera) and me who had been away from motorsports for close to 10+ years.
The SCCA drivers were quite good, but even they were able to learn a bunch of things that made them better drivers after spendig the time in the class.
Our course was not really a Racing School since we did not concentrate on passing, the runs were not being timed, etc, etc, but we concentrated on good technique. BTW: The students that graduate from the the 4 Day Program actually qualifies the students to take the SCCA Novice Drivers License..
The 3rd Day is focused on rolling starts, SCCA rules, etc, etc and an actual full race.
The 4th day is spent on the Formula Fords (open wheel cars with a 1.6 liter engine, mid engined, can we say snap oversteer... hmm
What I can say is that I learned quite a bit
on those 4 days, having being out of the
motorsports for over 10+ years (Last time I
did any motorsports was back in college on
my CIVIC SI on the SCCA Solo events wohoo!) it was a great refresher course....
The track that Bondurant uses for their 4 day Grand Prix course is a fairly short one, 1.6 miles in length max speed 100mph on the main straightway on both the Mustangs and the Formula Fords, but it is very technical since it involves quite a bit of turns of varying difficulty and elevation changes, and a lot of shifting and braking and they really drill you on the basics and fundamentals.
The intructors will really push you to your limits, and even assume that you will spin out a couple of times while you are at the school. (Everyone who was at the school spun their cars at least a couple of times, with the exception of one of the BMW guys who had taken the course 7 times previously and was a regional SCCA champion!)
The good part is that they also go over actual excercises about car control and how to get out of spin situations or how to simply avoid them. The good thing is that
everything happens in a controlled environment so you never feel like you are at risk at the track. Several times I was on the verge of spinning or losing control of the car, but by applying what I learned I was able to regain control of the car without going off track.
In contrast, I attended the NASA HPDE event at Thunderhill a couple of weeks ago, I was quite dissapointed at the way that they were setting up their program.
I was running in Group 2 since I had never been to Thunderhill but had track experience, but to tell you the truth I felt very sorry for the people who were running in Group 1.
The first run was pretty much spent in a full course yellow, the rest of the runs seemed to be a free for all for the people in Group 2, with people concentrating more on trying to go fast rather than to use good technique or to learn the proper things to do on the track. 2 guys in their WRX were passing people in some of the more dangerous turns (7, 10, 11, 12) simply because they had the traction and the power to do so even though
passing was not allowed in *any* turns.
Sadly the people in Group 1 got very little out of it they spent most of their time on lead and follow excercises with "0 hours of classroom education" nothing about braking points, trail braking, throttle steering, heel and toe downshifting, reference points entry/apex/exit points etc, etc.
The only folks from that group that did get anything were the ones that had attended an actual school somewhere else who were applying what they learned at the track or people who had track experience somewhere else...
Being on the track with them was quite dangerous as well, I saw some very stupid moves being made by people (like braking at the top of turn 5 in the bypass configuration) [the off camber downhill turn] . 3 different people who were in front of me spun out in different turns (Cobra turn 3, Corvette ZR1 turn 5, BMW 325 turn 11) .
I doubt that I will be taking my NSX to any more of these events considering how most
of the people were driving. Just the people
going off track and all the dust and sand that they were leaving on the track made it very dangerous to be on the track with them.
I'll probably do something similar to what you guys are doing. Get a real affordable track car so I don't have to really worry about the damage that the NSX could encounter in one of these events.
From what I gather the NSX driving school is nothing more than a Thunderhill HPDE event,
hopefully the Thunderhill HPDE events are better than NASA envets..
It sure is fun to be out on the track with your NSX, but it is a lot more fun if you have gone through the entire basics of High Performance Driving prior to stepping into the track at one of these events.
I agree with you that attending one of the NSX driving schools is a good thing to do, but I am sure that it is *NOT* a replacement or a real *driving school*..
To clarify, I am very grateful for Hrant and the other folks who have been involved in the various NSXCA sponsored events at Thunderhill and sorry that I was misinformed about the actual track time at the last event.
But at the same time I would really like for people to realize that spending more $$ on your driving skills is a lot better than simply spending $$ on your car. Many of us don't think twice about spending $$ on go fast parts, but that won't make a difference if the required investement in your skills are not made as well..
For what is worth, if people are really thinking about participating in many track days, they will be better off spending the 2K or 3K at the driving school, it's nothing compared with the amount of damage that you can inflict on your NSX if you take it to the track and really lose control of it.
Just my 2cents.
Take Care Andrie, and good luck racing your
E30 M3
See you again at the next NASA event.
PS2: Number9 Controlling a brick of a
modified Mustang (Roush) GT at the
limit made driving my Prelude and my
NSX a breeze compared to that.
People might think that driving a Mustang GT is not fun but once you learn
to control a brick then everything
else becomes a lot easier to control
Ken
Finally a question for the peope who have run many track events at Thunderhill, when running counterclockwise and when Turn 5 is in bypass mode (of camber downhill right hand turn), what line/speed can you take to keep the rear end of the NSX planted?
I experimented with many different lines and many different speeds, and every single time the rear end of my NSX became light and wanted to come around. That was the scariest part of the track. Tried asking Andrie but he had not run the course in that configuration previously on his NSX, although he was running it that day on my E30 M3!
Some of the other drivers in their 911s and 914 were having the same difficulties, the guys running Front Engined RWD cars were not affected as much...
