Instructor stories

[Evergreen Dan]

Mont Tremblant a couple of years ago. I'm pit crew for my former instructor, mechanic, and friend, along with his wife and son (who's back a bit from the pit wall).

Last lap, he tries an optimistic pass at Namerow, which is a very sharp right, with a huge apex berm (more like an asphalt cone), and sharp drop-off into oblivion. He goes up on two wheels (no contact) and slowly rolls over. When the driver is out and the car is righted, wife and husband meet.

I'm waiting for:

1. "Oh my god, are you ok? This is so dangerous you have to quit." or
2. "I can't let your son see you possibly getting hurt." or
3. "There's no way we can afford to fix that darn race car."

Instead, she puts up both hands, turns them palm toward her, smacks him lightly on the chest with both in some sort of Italian gesture, and say, "You had him at the checker!"

Of course he was thinking, "I just put on that carbon fibre hood."

Now that's a track wife. Oh, and she instructs too.

Did I just open the door to racing stories?

[ddavidv]

In spite of threads like this one, I still hope to move into instructing some day.

As a student, I had two humorous experiences. The first was early in my DE 'career'. I had an excellent instructor who was in his 50s, a racer. When I'd get a turn right he'd be very animated and yell "nicely done!". He did it so often I nearly started laughing. It was a wet weekend at VIR, and coming into T1 I thought something felt different about the track surface. I was't braking any differently than I had the last few laps but things felt slippy. As I went through the little kink after T1 I found out that yes, something was spilled on the track as the car suddenly went sideways and I was staring at the armco going past the front of the car in a decidedly unnerving direction. We go off into the grass on track outside as I'm trying to return the the paved surface, skate across the track pretty much in full view of the snack bar (hey, always have an audience!) and wind up in the grass on the other side, now moving in the proper direction and ready to return to terra firma. While all this is going on, I hear my instructor laughing. I get back on track and he asks what happened, I told him something was on the surface other than just water (later confirmed) and apologize for possibly scaring the crap out of him. He giggles again and says it was a fun ride...as soon as it started going wrong he saw I was going to save it (looked where I wanted to be instead of the impending armco, etc) and just enjoyed the ride. I've had him again and have always enjoyed his instruction and really do learn from him. I'm so glad he was a part of story #2...

I think it was BeaveRun. NicelyDone is my assigned instructor and we did a session or two. I get out of classroom and look at the schedule and time and realize I probably should be gridding my car. So I head out and sit on the grid, awaiting my instructor. The session begins, cars are pulling out, and he's nowhere to be found. One of the NASA folks asks me if I need an instructor and I nod yes, don't know where my guy is. So they find someone who breathlessly comes over and get in the car and we head out. I'm in Group 2 at this point and start doing my thing...I know the track pretty well and it's the same car I've owned for like 10 years and it's not very powerful. We're clipping around the track and the instructor is trying to help, but I'm a bit annoyed he's telling me to slow down and brake a little earlier. I'm not pushing my braking zones at all. WTF? After awhile the instructor seems a little more at ease with my driving and we do work on some things to make me quicker. Man, we are passing a lot of cars. I'm Batman and we're having a good time. But, something is troubling me...

The session ends and we pull into the pit. As my instructor gets out of the car I see NicelyDone walking down the pit lane towards me with his arms upwards indicating a "WhatTheHell?" question. By now I have figured it out...none of the cars in my run group looked familiar. Yep, I was out in Group 1. No wonder the instructor was terrified for the first half, and why I was HPDE World Champion. Ooops.

NicelyDone gets in the car and I tell him what happened. He laughs so hard he nearly pees himself. The next session (mine) is now heading out. He straps himself in and I'm like...uh...I just had a session. Should we really cheat and go out again? He chuckles and says "If they didn't stop you, it's not your fault". So we go.

[jwilly]

My "student" had a number of bad habits -- including leaving his hand on the shift knob and not checking his rear view mirror. Neil

The instructor cure for leaving the hand on the shift knob is to reach over and gently caress his hand. He may not put his hand back on the wheel, but for sure he will not leave it on the shift knob.

Joel

[BMWParkingOnly]

The instructor cure for leaving the hand on the shift knob is to reach over and gently caress his hand. He may not put his hand back on the wheel, but for sure he will not leave it on the shift knob.

Bingo! But it can earn you a 'reputation' and if your student is female.....perhaps even a lawsuit.

[E30 Stu]

My dad used to be a CCA Instructor for a number of years back when I was a youngster and I used to always tag along with him for track days.

In '96 or '97 at Roebling Road, one of his students was a 5'10 blonde that was extremely attractive. Her boyfriend driving an E30 M3 had brought her to the track to do her first DE in her 318. At the beginning of the weekend she was doing 65mph down the front straight but eventually picked up speed very quickly.

During lunch on Saturday or Sunday, several other guys were chatting it up with this blondie, which seemed to piss off said boyfriend. During the afternoon, he takes her out in his track-prepped M3 to give her a real ride...only to blow the braking zone for T1 and put it striaght into the wall.

[z3papa]

As a new student, I feel that reading this thread is invaluable to anybody about to head out to the track for their first event. I'll confess to some of the less egregious errors in my very first session (hand shuffling, trail braking, braking too heavily coming into corners) the latter two of which are by-products of autocrossing. During the first session, my instructor was continually reminding me of where I should be, what I was doing right or wrong and wanting me on the throttle virtually as we entered the turn. By the end, I felt there was significant improvement and he felt he had overcoached me through the process. All in all, I took all those insightful pearls of wisdom with me for the remainder of the day and more importantly back the autocross.

Thanks for the insight guys and keep it coming.

[99E36M]

Mont Tremblant a couple of years ago. I'm pit crew for my former instructor, mechanic, and friend, along with his wife and son (who's back a bit from the pit wall).

Last lap, he tries an optimistic pass at Namerow, which is a very sharp right, with a huge apex berm (more like an asphalt cone), and sharp drop-off into oblivion. He goes up on two wheels (no contact) and slowly rolls over. When the driver is out and the car is righted, wife and husband meet.

I'm waiting for:

1. "Oh my god, are you ok? This is so dangerous you have to quit." or
2. "I can't let your son see you possibly getting hurt." or
3. "There's no way we can afford to fix that darn race car."

Instead, she puts up both hands, turns them palm toward her, smacks him lightly on the chest with both in some sort of Italian gesture, and say, "You had him at the checker!"

Of course he was thinking, "I just put on that carbon fibre hood."

Now that's a track wife. Oh, and she instructs too.

Did I just open the door to racing stories?

LOL I know this one!
Friend of mechanic's former employee and not at all surprised at wife's response! lol

[99E36M]

By the way, these are great stories. I have a few from AutoX events but they just don't compare to the "100+ MPH OH SH*T" stories!

[JS154]

By the way, these are great stories. I have a few from AutoX events but they just don't compare to the "100+ MPH OH SH*T" stories!

I have one that combines those two.

Boston Chapter Autocross, event 1, 2002.

South Weymouth Naval Air Station taxiway and runway.

This is our first time running at this venue, and it's *HUGE* - two 10,000 foot runways of highly abrasive and grippy asphalt/concrete.

Turn 3 is a big sweeper. Not your typical little autocross sweeper or turnaround, but a full-on, full-throttle, high third gear sweeper.

Not kidding - 85 mph *easy* in this turn.

I'm in a novices car, and he's trying way too hard to go way too fast - he's got the steering wheeel crakned all the way over, foot to the floor and the car is just plowing and plowing...

I start to tell him, unwind, unwind - each time fater and adding decibels and urgency... I can see the spin coming and I'm looking at the distance we ahve to the grass on the edge of the runway and trying to calculate in my head if we will stop spinning in time or not before we reach it, since I have no confidence at all that this guy is going to catch the impending spin. There's tons of room.

Sure enough, the car scrubs enough speed that the front tires grip and we go around

and around

and around

and around

and then we stop.

And in my sternest voice possible, I tell him that he needs to unwind when I tell him to, and if we didn't have all the room we did, one or both of us would probably be pretty badly hurt not to mention his car mangled etc....all the while trying not to bust out laughing hysterically!

The best part was, he never went off course and finsihed his run with a decent time!

[simonh]

I haven't done any instructing in a while but in the past I was the assigned skinny crazy racer guy so I would get all the silly assignments. So I've been in an exige where the roll bar goes between my legs and my helmet would bounce against it. I still remember Bob Stommel asking if I was ok with it and I think I responded "British guy in british car what could possibly go wrong?"...naturally we spun later. Probably my most memorable was instructing my Mum. She wanted to do a driving school for her 60th birthday. There were a few things working against me here

1) Its my Mum
2) She is 60
3) She has never been on a race track
3) She is coming over from England and hasn't driven a left hooker for quite some time
4) The car to be used is my J-Stock prepared E30 M3 race car
5) She can't see over the dash
6) We had to run R-compounds as the street tires I had got had a puncture in them

All in all it went fine, we were going so slowly the stiff suspension and tires didn't make any difference. The only moment was when we put 2 wheels off and I said "You know you are in the grass?", to which my Mum politely replyed "Oh no I didn't realise." We did almost catch one car the last session of the day, um it was a volvo station wagon. My race car has never felt so ashamed.

Random quotes from Instructors to student

"I'm not really comfortable going that fast through turn 1" - Instructor drove a Porsche race car

"Brake, brake, brake! I thought we going straight off there" - Another PCA racer, i think they forgot we were in a 318 that was probably doing barely a 100 at the end of the straight

"Why are you reving over 6K?" - I was in an E30 M3 and the instructor owned an E30 M3 weird

[GGray]

Ive had good students except in Memphis

Integra type R supercharged with every suspension part you could buy for them at the time...SECOND track week end..

Coming into the famous Memphis, from the carousel, M's I have to keep telling him "don't lift here" Basicilly he's lifting in the middle of the sweeper going into the M's...

SO last run session Saturday....He lifts...Car snaps side ways and we shoot off the strack into the nice grass at a good clip, sidways.....Heading for the corner worker station.. THEN I feel my side of the car coming up off the groundn probably 6-12 inches, a few times... My response... " OH shit!, Oh shit!, Oh shiit!, Oh shit!" basically every bounce got an "Oh Shit!" Car comes to a sliding stop in the grass ten feet from the tires and worker station...Workers duck behind the tires...

Guy looks over at me, I'm pretty silent...Guy:"I guess that was pretty bad" Me:"ahh yeah could have been.." Guy: "I thought it must be bad when you kept saying "oh shit"... Fired the car up and drove the the pits to change my underware

[JS154]

... and I think I responded "British guy in british car what could possibly go wrong?"...naturally we spun later. Probably my most memorable was instructing my Mum. She wanted to do a driving school for her 60th birthday. There were a few things working against me here

1) Its my Mum
2) She is 60
3) She has never been on a race track
3) She is coming over from England and hasn't driven a left hooker for quite some time
4) The car to be used is my J-Stock prepared E30 M3 race car
5) She can't see over the dash
6) We had to run R-compounds as the street tires I had got had a puncture in them

All in all it went fine, we were going so slowly the stiff suspension and tires didn't make any difference. The only moment was when we put 2 wheels off and I said "You know you are in the grass?", to which my Mum politely replyed "Oh no I didn't realise." We did almost catch one car the last session of the day, um it was a volvo station wagon. My race car has never felt so ashamed.

[AMFTime]

Adventures from an HPDE student in the wilds of Arizona:

At a download meeting after a NASA HPDE session, one of the instructors chastised a student for failing to give a pass-by to a train of cars behind him. The student denied holding anyone up. "I was behind you for three laps and finally told my student to flash his lights," the instructor said. The student became argumentative: "You were not behind me for that long." The instructor disagreed. The student said, "You shouldn't really argue this, I have an excellent memory. I went to college for six years."

Phoenix Int'l Raceway is a roval. Coming out of a banked oval turn, I'm barreling down @ >120 mph toward T1, a somewhat gnarly concrete-infested high-speed turn into the infield, when I see brake lights illuminated on a car stopped on the main track just beyond the turn. Then I see his reverse lights... Having gone past the turn, the guy had put his car into reverse and was driving it backward on-track so that he could get to the turn-in point and into the infield. After the session, he explained that he hadn't been to PIR before and didn't realize he was supposed to turn-in there.

[NeilM]

I haven't done any instructing in a while but in the past I was the assigned skinny crazy racer guy so I would get all the silly assignments. So I've been in an exige where the roll bar goes between my legs and my helmet would bounce against it. I still remember Bob Stommel asking if I was ok with it and I think I responded "British guy in british car what could possibly go wrong?"...naturally we spun later.

Yeah, we figured you were the only one both skinny enough and crazy enough to take that car. On the other hand you did have that roll bar diagonal between your legs, but the rest of us have fathered all the kids we're planning on...

Neil

[Lateral G]

In the late nineties I did some instruction. There's one novice student I instructed at Sears Point I'll never forget. Like many, he wasn't looking much past the end of his hood. But all my general admonitions -- keep your eyes up, look ahead, look to where you want to go -- had zero effect. So I started calling out specific things for him to look at -- cones, fixed reference points, etc. He was very good at taking input, and always looked where I wanted him to.

Gradually I got him looking farther and farther down the track. Coming through T10, I had him looking way down the track to the exit cone as soon as it popped into view. I patted myself on the back for cracking this problem. But as we proceeded through the apex and towards the exit of 10, building speed the whole way, I noticed he was staring at the exit cone. The closer we got, the more he stared. He was completely target fixated. I waited to see if he would self-correct, but no, he looked like he was going to drive right over the damn cone, even if it meant dropping tires in the dirt. Before it got too late, I redirected his attention down the track to T11, and all was good.

I couldn't crack the target fixation, but I was able to keep moving his focus to new targets far enough down track so that he could drive a decent line. After the session we got to talking and he said he was a microbiologist who worked in a pathology lab. On a typical day he spent several hours looking into a microscope.

Now it all made sense. At the end of the weekend I sent him away with some homework: every so often look 15 seconds ahead on the freeway.

[Specter325]

I was a student at a Tarheel Sports Car Club DE event at VIR South course. I am driving my 1992 BMW 325i with the non vanos motor. This is my 4th or 5th school. Coming through fishhook (where the infield rejoins the main course)the car suddenly pushed way wide. I heard the instructor breath in heavily and I said "Whoa!" as the car lunged for the outside far off our normal line. It came back in and I glanced in the side view mirror. I saw blue and white smoke trailing out behind the car from my side. I screamed into the intercom "We're on fire!" The instructor was not to happy about this situation. As we pull off line to the inside and are slowing rapidly getting ready to bail out of the car I suddenly smell antifreeze. The instructor smells it as well and both of our sphincters relax their grip on the seats. We drive offline and in the grass around to a flag station and eventually at the end of the session we make it to the pit. Turned out I had split the left end tank vertically on a 40k mile old radiator. Another instructor and friend of mine happened to have some plastic epoxy. I said what the heck and pulled the radiator out of the car there in the paddock. Kneaded up the epoxy and put it into the crack. Packed the car during the curing period figuring that if it worked I could go home and if it didn't all my stuff would be locked up while I figured out what to do. Turned out it did work and I made it the 2 hours back to Charlotte without issue. Another instructor had called what happened a radiator fire. It definitely lived up to it's name.

[Damon in STL]

I'll pick on the instructors a bit....

Signing off a student to run solo....

An instructor comes to me to ask for a solo sticker for his student. I ask him to tell me how his student is doing. He goes on and on about what the student is doing wrong and he ends with ".....I've really got some concerns about this guy....."

The Gateway Fireball

Instructor in a turbocharged MR-2 running in a student run group. Coming out of NASCAR T4 with a three to four foot long full rear-end wide flame show down the front straight....into T1.....into T2....and then finally pulls over (must have run out of flame juice). Students then get to wait an hour and one-half for us to put oil dry down over the 2000 ft.

The "Race Car Driver"

A guy signs up to run the Friday test and tune day. Says he's an ex-race car driver and gives a long list of previous racing experience. He also makes note of the two eye surgeries he's recently had. I take my Chief instructor duties seriously....so I delegate the check-off ride to another instructor

An hour or two later, I see the instructor sitting there....kinda white....trembling slightly. Thinking he's gotten overheated...I ask him how he's doing. He says "...we've got to talk about this guy....." LOL...I had forgotten that he'd taken the "race car driver" out. The guy was so bad....we had to drop him down three groups and were still a little concerned about him....

Filling In

I was walking by and an instructor was having a car problem and asked if I'd take his student out just before lunch. This would give the instructor time through the session and lunch to get his car fixed. I said sure, I'll take him for the session. I ask how his student is doing and he says "Great, he's done a bunch of auto-x's..."

I get in and we do a lap to get up to speed and the student does fine the first lap. On the second lap we are going through Gateway's NASCAR T3 and start into T4. I see the student looking in the side mirror....his hand comes off the wheel to give a point by...my eyes do this > You see...NASCAR T4 is about a 100 MPH corner with HIGH G's. If you are not prepared to take your right hand off the wheel....your left hand gets a bit lazy and the natural tendency is for the car to move to the outside. Well....there's this big white thing on the out side called the "WALL". Just as I'm about the grab the wheel...the student realizes what he's done and takes corrective action sliding the car sideways....while I'm thinking..."...if I were to stick the tip of my finger just outside the car...I'd probably touch the wall..." We then proceed to go down the front straight sideways to the right....then sideways to the left (barely missing the inside wall) then sideways to the right again. He finally gets the car under control.

Later, I go to the instructor who asked me to ride with his student. He says something like "Oh, I probably should have told you he's a little twitchy...."



Damon in STL

[txse46m3]

So I'm instructing for PCA at MSR Dallas. My student is an older, super nice guy who has a shiny new 360 Challenge and his wife an E46 (m3 or 330, cant remember). She goes for a ride with me. We pull in, all is good, I haven't scared her that I can tell. Before I can explain to her the easiest way to get out over the door bar, she puts both feet out the door and pulls herself out. Now, this is a really nice, very classy lady...but the abdominal strain was a bit more than her backside could tolerate. She farted so hard it lifted the visor on my helmet. The look on her face was simply priceless.

First time I ran w/ PCA as a student, they put me in their bottom group. I was there with my HP-lite E46M3...SSF door panels and all. Before the first session, I approached the grid marshall and CDI asking to be moved up. Big frowns. They moved me up to the 2nd group then, the 3rd group after the 1st session and offered me a check ride for their "fast" group after lunch. The guy they put in the car with me, Glen Gatlin, is a seriously fast racer, pretty damn nice guy, and an excellent instructor. He's pushing me hard and I'm going faster than ever, having an excellent run, but no matter how fast I go, he's urging me to get on the power earlier and earlier. Turns out he had a bet with the CDI that he could get me to spin. (A 996 emptied his LF radiator tank on the curbing at Big Bend right in front of me, allowing Glen to cash in on his bet.)

[Chrome Horn]

You guys have some great stories! Allow me to add a few more:

-first time instructing for PCA in Dallas, I had a Green student who had just bought a fully track-prepped mid 80's 911, beautiful black with red leather interior, suspension, roll bar, etc. Saturday he was fine, easily controlled. Saturday night it rained, and the old 1.7 MSR course flooded, so we started very late Sunday morning after the track began to dry a bit. Our first session on Sunday, the track was still damp & it was overcast, but no rain. But there were still a couple of rivers running across the track. I told him to be very smooth, and not surprise the car at all. He was fune, until we entered Ricochet (downhill heavily off camber left hander). I told him to keep steady throttle, and not add ANY more throttle until the car was absolutely straight (remember, he was on Hoosiers....as a Green). Well, the car was 95% straight, and he began adding more gas. And we began a slow counter clockwise pirouette at track out that began to then take us to the inside of the track, despite his good instinct to countersteer & both feet in (I was also telling him to do both in our communicator). I looked out my window to see where we were headed, and what did I see? An enormous mud puddle that was at one ond of one of the rivers flowing across the track. Of course, we hit it broadside with the RR tire, whereupon 400 gallons of mud flew up and over the car....and all over me and my half of the interior. He kept the engine running, we got back on track, and, shaken, he began to drive back to the pits. At that moment, the sun came out & began to bake all thatmud onto the beautiful black paint. We went to black flag, and before we even came to a halt, the gaggle of indigent instructors hanging out at the hot pit wall started laughing hysterically. I figured there must have been a lot of mud on the car, but had no idea. After the car checked out, I advised him to drive to the main building & hose off the car before the mud got fully baked on. As I climbed out when he parked next to a hose, I began to realize what was so funny: my entire right side was covered in solid mud. 1/2 my helmet, sweatshirt, right hand, and 1/2 my jeans were solid mud, along with a good portion of his red interior. And the exterior of the car looked like a mocha Oreo: black car with the right side covered in light tan drying mud. Happy ending: by afternoon, he had cleaned the entire exterior & interior of the car, and we finished the weekend strong.

-instructing at Barber last year, some folks wanted to play a prank on a new instructor, so beacuse I was from out of town, and many of the instructors did not really know me, I got asked to play the foil. For Sunday, I was asked to not wear instructor garb, and I would be introduced to the "victim" as a Sunday-only first-timer student. I was to drive one of the organizers' cars. The plan was to be REALLY bad--other sports beckon bad--until the session after lunch, and then the light was supposed to go on, and I was supposed to drive like I normally do (not as bad). Well, needless to say, the "victim" was speechless when I suddenly "got it" in my 3rd on track session. Literally speechless. All he said when we pulled in was "I need to see about getting you moved up." So we went to the CDI, who had put me up to this, and he revealed all. It was good for 10 minutes of laughter among the gathered instructors.

-instructing first time for PCA at TWS, I was assigned a husband and wife, both in their own GT3's. Husband, in Blue, really needed to go back to Green and cut out the caffeine, but his ego & wallet precluded that. Wife, however, in Yellow, had The Gift. She was probably THE most naturally gifted driver I have ever ridden with. She was doing truly remarkable driving in her new GT3, despite the fact the the rear toe was obviously WAY out of bounds, and the car even wanted to oversteer on the straightaways. Fast forward, they both eventually went SM racing, and she regularly kicked his (and many others') butt handily. He did not like this. He is still racing. Sadly, she is not. She would have gone far.

-rode recently with a 911 driver, who received a point by on the main straight of TWS from a heavily worked S2000. We made the pass early & cleanly on the S2000's left, whereupon the S2000 suddenly appeared on OUR left while braking for T2. I mean, he was so close, my guy could have touched him out his window. And then he went by, in the middle of the corner, as if he had simply forgotten to brake. At track out, he pointed us by again. We never saw him again, and he never even came over to say "sorry" or explain.

--at Road Atlanta a couple of years ago, I had an advanced student in an E36 M3. Decent driver, great guy, great attitude. We made huge progress on Saturday in some key areas. Sunday he said he wasn't feeling well, thought he had the flu or food poisoning or something, but insisted on doing his sessions. First session, he pulled into hot pits on our 4th lap, and proceded to barf in his own helmet as he struggled to get it off. Poor guy.

[Chrome Horn]

One more:

-a certain fellow regularly showed up to events in his fully prepared old 911 race car, along with the company that built/supported it. His intent was to race, and he made that known by ALWAYS wearing his nomex suit at all times in the paddock, regardless of weather. He was a horrendous driver, but compensated for it by being extremely rich and exceedingly arrogant.

Somehow (cough cough politics cough cough) he was promoted to Yellow (this organization's 2nd most advanced group), despite being suited for little better than Green. I mean, this guy SUCKED, but he thought he was GREAT. I was the lucky soul who was the Yellow classroom instructor at the time, so he would show up occasioanlly for class in fully-zipped up nomex, arms crossed, clearly resentful he was required to be there. His body language shouted "I should be negotiating my Ferrari F1 contract right now, not here in this worthless class."

Somehow (cough cough) he was granted a racing license, despite NO instructors wanting to ride with him any more, and numerous complaints from other students about his on track behavior. At that point, he stopped coming to class altogether. He also started racing, and was involved in more on track contact incidents in his first couple of races than any racer in recent memory. Eventually, politics or not, his license was revoked by this organization.

Whereupon he bought a Cup Car (because CLEARLY it was his car, not his lack of talent, that was holding him back) & now races with NASA.

[BobWright]

....anybody else have their instructor DEMOLISH his car in the first session.....then get in with you about an hour later and teach you HOW TO drive the same track....?.....

These things all seem to happen at Mid-Oh...?

I was scared to death...first time with the M3 on a track ....and he totally his M3 just before....I guess this falls under the "Do as I say, not as I do" category.....

[Lateral G]

I was "re-assigned" once because my instructor was asked to leave. While giving someone a hot lap in his ITB car he tagged a student's car in the carousel at Sears Point. His response: "That's racing." Um. no.

Before he got booted, he did teach me how to carry way more speed through that corner.

[kishg]

I was "re-assigned" once because my instructor was asked to leave. While giving someone a hot lap in his ITB car he tagged a student's car in the carousel at Sears Point. His response: "That's racing." Um. no.

Before he got booted, he did teach me how to carry way more speed through that corner.

that reminds me that at the last nasa event at njmp, an instructor was asked to leave for overdriving a student's lotus exige.. the student was pretty upset about it..

[AMFTime]

[quote=BobWright;13874492]....anybody else have their instructor DEMOLISH his car in the first session.....then get in with you about an hour later and teach you HOW TO drive the same track....?.....

First time at Streets of Willow, a very twisty-turny track. I've brought a ridiculous built-out Audi S4 turning ~535 rwhp. Getting the car off the trailer, another student says, "Man, that car is sick!" Not just the car. My Instructor has a strong need to "drive this monster to show me the line." Two laps later, after he had put down what proved to be about the fastest lap of the day by anybody, we're in the pits and I'm puking by the wall. End of session. Next session, I'm still feeling a little woozy as I strap into the driver's seat. There's a point on the track where the course drops down a hill. On the first hot lap, I'm looking out to the horizon toward an apex that's out of view, feel the car get light, and puke in my helmet. End of that session. Took me a couple more hours for my head to feel right enough to drive.

[JClark]

Anyone else REALLY get a kick out of making your passengers sick? Not necessarily puking, but when people get out and hit the ground on all fours, I always get a good laugh.