In a previous post, I talked about some possible plans for the off-season, and by that I mean more ways to spend money on a hobby you aren’t even actively doing. I settled on going to a Skip Barber racing school. This was something of a bucket list item for me, so I was willing to accept the high cost to participate. Plus, I took the school at Laguna Seca Raceway, which was another bucket list item. So that made it downright cheap…
Skip Barber, the man, has an interesting background. He had a successful racing career, but also realized racing could be taught, and that’s what he focused on during his retirement. He founded the school as well as an associated racing series that was a feeder into many professional leagues. A couple years ago, however, the racing school filed for bankruptcy.
A group of investors pooled resources to buy the Skip Barber name and take over the school. During the introduction on day 1, the current CEO talked about this history and his goal to stay true to the fundamentals of the Skip Barber program. I thought it was a nice touch. Skip Barber, the school, is something of an institution in the racing world, and the current owners seem to take that seriously.
Day 1
Day 1 was nerve-wracking for me. I had no idea what to expect. Luckily, the entrance to the park is pretty self-explanatory, so I could at least find my way to where I needed to be. I was directed to the garage area, where they had all the Mustangs lined up ready for the day’s activities. That was pretty exciting.
Due to the cost of the course, I expected to have some plush classroom accommodations, but I was led into one of the garages, where there were some fold-down tables, folding chairs, and a whiteboard.
Sidebar: Weathertech Laguna Seca Raceway is in Monterey, California, which is basically halfway up along the coast. I had the impression it would be warm here, even in December, but it was not. Each morning, it was around 35 degrees Fahrenheit and got up to maybe 60 degrees during the day. It was partly cloudy the whole time, but pretty windy, too, so it was generally chilly. If you ever attend this December class, don’t expect it to double as a tropical escape from the winter doldrums.
All this is to say the garage classroom was freezing! And, for me, nerves and cold are not a comfortable mix. Once I signed in, I grabbed something to eat from the continental-style breakfast selection. This was another area I would have expected to be more upscale. Bagels, pastries, and fruit are fine, but I expected more for the price, especially since I figured you should be loaded up on protein before embarking on a day of racing. These are quibbles, though. You obviously don’t attend Skip Barber for the accommodations and amenities.
After breakfast, I got fitted for a helmet and a racing suit. I’ve never worn a racing suit before, so putting it on made me feel legit. You can bring all your own attire if you have it, but, as I was traveling from Virginia, I opted to only bring my racing shoes and head sock. Luckily, the racing suit helped to insulate my body somewhat – good for the cold weather, probably terrible for the hot.
Once everybody got situated, we gathered in the front for the class session. I signed up for the 3-day Skip Barber racing school. They also offer a 1-day school and a 2-day advanced school. Day 1 is the same for the 3-day students and the 1-day students. The first class session consisted of the introduction to the program, instructors, and students and a lecture to go along with the morning’s upcoming activities: skidpad and autocross. They also told us to look out for those “aha moments.” They firmly believed that anyone of any skill level would have a moment where something finally clicks.
They used the skidpad exercise to teach us the concepts of oversteer, understeer, and how to correct them. An instructor got in the car with you and told you start driving around a circle in the pavement, which was hosed down with water. Once he told you to increase the speed, you could feel the car pushing wider around the circle – understeer. Then, he would tell you to stab the gas pedal, which would cause the back end of the car to swing around – oversteer. The objective was not to maintain a steady drift.
The Skip Barber racing school teaches the concept of CPR – Correct, Pause, Recover. Once you feel a slide starting, you:
- Correct by countersteering and letting off the gas slightly
- Pause briefly to allow the car to settle into the new motion you’re asking for
- Recover by slowly returning the car to the intended path with steering and throttle.
The goal was to induce oversteer and then use CPR to bring the car back.
I’ve heard the skidpad is an essential tool for racing education, and I can see why. This is the only place you can experience the dynamics of oversteer in a low-risk setting and practice correcting it. Even just feeling the sensation of oversteer is extremely helpful before you set out on the track. That way, if it ever happens for real, you won’t be totally overwhelmed.
The autocross course was a rather simple design – basically a peanut shape with some kinks in it. Unlike the type of autocross I’m used to, this wasn’t a course designed to test your maneuverability at speed with a lot of tight turns. This exercise was made so that the instructor could teach you how to look ahead. Having done several HPDE’s and autocrosses, I had learned the importance of looking ahead. However, it seems I wasn’t looking ahead enough.
The instructor could immediately tell where my eyes were looking based on how I was taking a turn. My steering input and brake and throttle application told him everything he needed to know, so he would tell me how to fix it the next time around, and the answer was always look farther. Admittedly, it’s hard to look ahead on an autocross course, because all you see is a bunch of cones, which can be disorienting. It gets easier as you become more familiar with the course layout.
My second time out on the autocross, I had my first “aha moment.” The instructor kept telling me I needed to look farther ahead, as usual. This time he said something that made it click. He explained my problem was that I would start braking for a turn before looking at the apex. That’s how he knew I wasn’t looking far enough ahead. He asked, if you don’t know where the apex is, how can you know when and how hard to brake?
This made a lot of sense to me. It might seem obvious, but it’s extremely important. Once you’ve identified the reference point – the apex in this case – you start to realize how fast you’re approaching and from where on the line you’re approaching. Together, these variables will dictate where and how hard you start braking. I was relying too much on muscle memory to find the braking points. While that’s certainly an element of it, looking far enough ahead is how you add smoothness to your line, which is the name of the game. Plus, that will allow you to adjust as necessary when you start introducing more variables, like other drivers and changing track conditions.
After that moment, the instructor saw immediate improvement in my autocross performance, and I could feel the difference. I think this was the most important lesson I took away from the whole school. Again, my HPDE instructors told me the importance of looking ahead, but nobody explained it so succinctly and in an environment where I could practice it and experience the noticeable impact it has.
After the morning sessions, we had lunch. The Skip Barber racing school definitely stepped it up for lunch. It was delicious every day. This was also a good time to meet your classmates. There was a wide diversity of people and experiences across both the 1-day and 3-day students. There was a mother and son pair who had never been on a track before. There was a young guy who had won 2 i-Racing championships and lived in Europe for a year doing real racing. There were guys like me with normal jobs and normal incomes they try to stretch into the hobby. Then there were people I met like the guy who was a partner at an ad agency in New York and the guy who owned and operated a cannabis farm in Canada. But everyone was there to learn and enjoy the sport.
In the afternoon, we had another class lecture about racing lines, but then we got out on track. First, we all piled into a van and an instructor drove around the track, pointing out the line, explaining each turn, and even stopping at some points to get out and show us the elevation changes and track surfaces. It was a great way to get acclimated to the track and start to think about applying the day’s lessons.
Finally, we strapped into our Mustang GT’s for paced lead-follow laps. We broke into groups of 3 and lined up behind an instructor-led “pace car” (i.e., cars like a Ford Focus). The idea was for us to follow the pace car around the track. Naturally, the pace was slow so that we could focus on driving the correct line. Each lap or two, the instructor would signal for an order change where the first student would move to the side and drop to the back. We drove like this for 20 minutes or so. If the instructor felt his group was driving the line well, he would pick up the pace; if we were getting out of sorts, he would slow it down. It was a very ordered and structured way to learn Laguna Seca the right way.
That was it for Day 1! I may have missed some small details here and there, but this is definitely the meat of the day. Just like any track day, I was exhausted. I went out to eat with a couple guys, but turned in early to get ready for Day 2.
