Safer in the Instructor's Hands
I was sitting here and thinking of an experience that I had at the race track many, many years ago, and I do not know why I was there. It was a day that they were having a driver's school, I do not think there was a race until the next day, which would have been Sunday, and I would have not been there anyway. I think I just wanted to see who was out there with the Porsche 944 group.
At driver's school you set for a few hours in the class room, learning what all the flags mean, what the apex of a corner is, what to do if you get in some type of trouble on the track, and the lay of the track. But that majority of time is driving the track and trying to learn the fastest way around. You will have up to 10 sessions of half an hour to drive the course in two days, in which they will throw at you flags, that you will have to respond to, safety cars, and safety trucks. So you have to be on your toes, so at the end of the session your instructor just comes and talks to you about your driving.
I found myself eating lunch with a few guys that I had raced with, and they were both instructor for the weekend. One of them had his student with him and we started talking about his experience, and how things were going. It then turned to where everyone was giving there opinion on how to take this turn or how to that turn, finding that all of us did it differently. I found myself caught up in this conversation, when I realized the biggest mistake that we were making. It was not our place to teach him at this time, it was his instructor time. At that point, that is when I made the comment, that they best thing he could do was listen to what the instructor had taught him.
This brings me back to my first time in a race car as a driver. We had finished Alex's car and he had gone through driver's School a few weeks before. A local group called ASRA (Arizona Sports Racers Accusation) was have a track day and we needed the practice. The deal was that we share the car on open track days. At the time we were driving the Mazda RX-7's, and they had both front seats in it. So the first session, Alex drove to show me the driving line of the track and I seat in the passenger seat. So on the next session it was my turn to drive.
The first few laps are kind of a warn up laps, to build up heat in the tires for gripe. So after that it was full speed. I was trying to apply what I had learned from the first session with Alex, and trying to drive it the way that he did. I got to this big turn called the carousel, and was taking a little bit different line through there then Alex. I did not like the line that he had shown me and was looking for a little bit more speed out of it. Well Alex did not like that, so instead of telling that I was not doing it his way, he grabbed the wheel to steer it into the line he wanted me to take. I could not believe he did that. I was mad, and told him never ever do that again. What if we would have wrecked. What if we would have gotten hurt. It really was one of the scariest times I have ever been in a race car.
My point in tying the two stories together is, that I was like Alex, no I was not in the car with the guy pulling at the steering wheel telling him he was doing it wrong, but I was countering everything that his teacher had been teaching him all day. He was not going to learn unless he did it they way he was taught. And once you got it down, then you can try it a different way.
Boy I hope that makes sense!!!!!
At driver's school you set for a few hours in the class room, learning what all the flags mean, what the apex of a corner is, what to do if you get in some type of trouble on the track, and the lay of the track. But that majority of time is driving the track and trying to learn the fastest way around. You will have up to 10 sessions of half an hour to drive the course in two days, in which they will throw at you flags, that you will have to respond to, safety cars, and safety trucks. So you have to be on your toes, so at the end of the session your instructor just comes and talks to you about your driving.
I found myself eating lunch with a few guys that I had raced with, and they were both instructor for the weekend. One of them had his student with him and we started talking about his experience, and how things were going. It then turned to where everyone was giving there opinion on how to take this turn or how to that turn, finding that all of us did it differently. I found myself caught up in this conversation, when I realized the biggest mistake that we were making. It was not our place to teach him at this time, it was his instructor time. At that point, that is when I made the comment, that they best thing he could do was listen to what the instructor had taught him.
This brings me back to my first time in a race car as a driver. We had finished Alex's car and he had gone through driver's School a few weeks before. A local group called ASRA (Arizona Sports Racers Accusation) was have a track day and we needed the practice. The deal was that we share the car on open track days. At the time we were driving the Mazda RX-7's, and they had both front seats in it. So the first session, Alex drove to show me the driving line of the track and I seat in the passenger seat. So on the next session it was my turn to drive.
The first few laps are kind of a warn up laps, to build up heat in the tires for gripe. So after that it was full speed. I was trying to apply what I had learned from the first session with Alex, and trying to drive it the way that he did. I got to this big turn called the carousel, and was taking a little bit different line through there then Alex. I did not like the line that he had shown me and was looking for a little bit more speed out of it. Well Alex did not like that, so instead of telling that I was not doing it his way, he grabbed the wheel to steer it into the line he wanted me to take. I could not believe he did that. I was mad, and told him never ever do that again. What if we would have wrecked. What if we would have gotten hurt. It really was one of the scariest times I have ever been in a race car.
My point in tying the two stories together is, that I was like Alex, no I was not in the car with the guy pulling at the steering wheel telling him he was doing it wrong, but I was countering everything that his teacher had been teaching him all day. He was not going to learn unless he did it they way he was taught. And once you got it down, then you can try it a different way.
Boy I hope that makes sense!!!!!
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