Maybe you think you already know how to drive fast. After all, you do it every day speeding to work, or on the weekends carving your favorite canyon, or maybe getting sideways at your local autocross or open-track event. But until you've actually done it in a controlled, professional environment, with personal instruction from a seasoned race car driver, in an ultra-lightweight track-prepped race car, you really don't know squat.
Here are three ways to start earning your hot shoe. ec contributors attended three North American driving school programs: the Skip Barber Formula School at Laguna Seca in California, the Allen Berg Racing School in Calgary, Canada, and the traveling Ariel Atom Experience (coming soon to a racetrack near you). Each program is unique in its own way, yet each is also similar in that they all offer quality professional instruction in a real racing environment... in cars designed specifically for on-track performance driving. So read on, and find out how to really get your race on.
Skip BarberFormula Racing School
Drive The Time Of Your Life
I remember my first ride in an exotic car--a Ferrari 348, back in 1990. It left me grinning ear to ear for weeks. Nowadays many of us are so power-jaded that anything south of 400 ponies risks being boring, and it saddens me to think I might never again reach the euphoric state I experienced nearly two decades ago. But a few days driving a Skip Barber Formula car at the famous Mazda Laguna Seca Circuit quickly changed all that.
The Skip Barber Racing School is designed for a wide range of clients, ranging from the novice driver looking for a way to drastically improve his/her driving skills to anyone pursuing a racing career. When you drive a Formula Skip Barber you get an open-wheeled car that offers no aerodynamic assistance and no power braking or steering. Its 135 hp may sound weak, but consider it's pushing only 1,100 pounds--a better power-to-weight ratio than a 500hp BMW M5. With a tall First gear it's good for a mid-4-second, 0-to-60 blast, and can hold up to 1.2 g through a turn.
To familiarize yourself with the controls you first lap a coned autocross course where, aside from a small cone or courageous instructor, there was no fear of hitting anything. Since the asphalt had very low grip it provided great practice in spin control. Doing it all in First gear, up to 65 mph, prevents doing too many things at once while getting familiar with the car.
The autocross is followed by more classroom instruction on how to properly upshift, brake, and downshift, which took place down the front straight of the main track. Because of the old-school, dog-gear trannies, we were shown how to double-clutch, heel-toe downshift, a five-step technique mainly used in vintage racing that hardly anyone here had ever attempted. While some instructors hinted we could get away with single-clutch rev-matching, I was determined to learn the technique.
We were then driven around the circuit with an instructor for several laps. Riding shotgun in a 15-passenger van over the infamous Turn 8 Corkscrew is an experience in itself. It feels like a 10-foot free fall.
Afterward we were separated into groups of two and three cars for a lead-follow exercise behind an instructor, who gradually brought up the pace. While the school preaches safety and comfortably working up to speed, we were eventually pushed to the limit.