OVR SCCA drivers school questions

[AudiOn19s]

Curious if any of you have done the SCCA drivers schools and if it's a worthwhile program? My wife needs some pointers and I'm the worst teacher in the world...I just cannot verbalize what's going on in my head and have no patience on top of that.

 

Looking to see if anyone here has done the drivers schools and you input on them.

 

Thanks

[Rally Red Evo]

Which drivers school? The only one I am aware of is the school to gain your comp license. That school is not to learn but to prove you are safe and have knowledge of all the rules. Also the car has to be a SCCA club racing car which means full cage and safety equipment.

 

Is the school you are talking about a solo school?

 

The best local school is Mid Ohio, but cost some $'s.

[Trouble Maker]

Originally posted by AudiOn19s:

Looking to see if anyone here has done the drivers schools and you input on them.

 

Thanks

It's highly dependent on who you get. They just put you with someone with at least a decent amount of autocross experience and are involved with the organization. Whether that person can necessarily teach or not is another story. I did it last year and the person I had was really nice and could drive very well, but she couldn't teach for anything. The biggest issue would probably be just getting used to driving like that at first. The driver’s schools are pretty laid back and any instructors there are going to be pretty understanding with someone on their first time.

 

I can only assume your wife might be a little scared or timid at first. You could always take her out to a TnT or fun day and have her start driving around it fairly slow then picking up the pace. Most of what I have learned about driving has been from reading theory and trying to apply it on course.

 

Another thing I have found to be very good to me learning how to get a decent line from the start is trying to visualize on the street where lines would be. I do this on things like on ramps where they twist back and fourth. Sometimes maybe even trying them at 'normal' speeds when no one is around. And honestly, even though it's probably the safest place, an Autocross can also be the hardest place to apply this. It's easy to get fooled by the cones as to what the correct line is. Then even when you think you've figured out a line, it's easy to get 'lost' in the cones while you are driving. Doing an autocross also makes for a long and tiring day, it could be a little bit disconcerting for a first timer.

 

I guess what I'm trying to say is that there are plenty of upsides and downsides to first learning on an Autocross course as compared to a road course. I guess it just depends on how intimidated you feel your wife would be on a road course as compared to an autocross course. I would personally say an autocross, if you could get some good instruction. That might be hard though, so if you feel that she might do ok on a road course, you could go that route, only because you can get professional instruction. I would like to suggest something slow like Gingerman, but that's far. Beaver Run is much less daunting and much safer than MO and is much closer than Gingerman. But it is a little bit faster of a track than Gingerman, in the straights. But probably slower and less techinical through a decent amount of the turns.

 

I honestly don’t even know if and when you can get good professional instruction, like NASA, at either Gingerman or Beaver Run. The first time you go to Beaver Run on an open lap weekend, if you don’t have lots of road course experience, they stick you with someone who is getting paid by driving that day for free. My guy was some old douche who had probably never gotten laid and decided to take his frustrations out on me by yelling at me a few times when I did things wrong. You can get good instruction at MO, but I would not stick my worst enemy out on that course for their first driving experience, but you probably already know that (IIRC You've driven there?).

 

This is just a little insight to what I’ve went through last summer, which was my first year of doing anything like that. Hope it helps a little.

 

[ 03. May 2005, 05:38 PM: Message edited by: Trouble Maker ]

[Trouble Maker]

Originally posted by Rally Red Evo:

Is the school you are talking about a solo school?

 

The best local school is Mid Ohio, but cost some $'s.

It's for Solo II, autocross. Read what I posted above. It's just a regular autocross day with an experienced person kind of guiding you all day, during the walkthrough and will ride along with you.

 

I forgot about the courses MO actually puts on.

[Rally Red Evo]

Thought it maybe a solo school, never did solo so didn't know what they did.

[Mallard]

I'll second everything Jesse said and add that OVR is looking at making this years school a lot better then they have been. They alos plan on doing course walks with everyone so they can see the line.

 

It can't hurt. Seat time is always good. Plus they'er limiting the number of entries so people can have A LOT of runs.

[martindc1]

I am actually doing the school this year and the way I looked at it was that it only costs $45 and chances are I will get twice the runs of a normal event. Since the events cost around $25 it seems like a winning situation to me. Add that to the fact that there will be some instruction there and it seems like a winning situation.

[AudiOn19s]

Thanks for the input guys. I may go ahead with the solo II school just for the fact that it will get her better aquainted with the car and car control...although I do have my favorite parking lot for teaching her car control picked out but was kicked out by the police last time we were there...oops!!

 

I've been trying to teach her the proper line and corner technique on the street at regular speeds, but the problem with most sweepers on the street is that you can run the proper line but you have to be darn near double the posted speed limit to even come close to the limit of the car.

 

Trouble Maker: Your comments are greatly appreciated. Hopefully she finds someone at the solo II school that can actually teach...as that seems to be my main problem...I understand technique but cannot verbalize it well.

 

We will be doing a tracquest event at Mid Ohio on May 30 in which she'll (and I) get an entire day with an instructor there but I'd hate for that to be her first experience with driving the car near it's limits. For me it should be nice as I've got pleanty of bike experience at Mid Ohio but very little car experience and I'm sure there's lots more to learn on my end too.

 

Thanks again guys.

 

Andy

[Trouble Maker]

Originally posted by AudiOn19s:

I've been trying to teach her the proper line and corner technique on the street at regular speeds,

That's actually one of the hardest things for me, and I believe most people to do, whether you are talking on the track or on the road. Doing the correct line at slow regular speeds is very hard. You always tend to want to turn too much. But once you can get the hang of this, it makes doing the line at speeds much easier.

 

When trying to do any line slow, just try to be very gentle with the car and use very slow inputs. I also find this to make me smoother on transitions at speeds too.