A review of the Skip Barber 3-day Racing School

Christmas did come early for me! As I said before I really think this was the most fun I have had in a long time and also one of the most learning periods I have had. I will attempt to give a short overview of the three days and my thoughts about what was good and bad.

Overview/Review of the Skip Barber 3-day school
Class Makeup: 16 total in the class with I would say 10 there to learn how to race or with previous racing experience, and the other 6 there to either have run or because they were interested in racing. Ages and experience were fairly wide. One guy had raced the Ferrari challenge for years, two were gokart prodigies and the rest were the HPDE/TT/Performance driving crowd. 15 men and one woman. Three total instructors (Bruce McInnes, Jonathon X, and Rich Beam) and three crew members.

Instructors Background:
Bruce McInnes is one of Skips main guys from my understanding. He was out lead instructor and has raced everything from Camel Lights to the Porsche 962. I think if there was anything with wheels on it Bruce raced it at one time or another. Great personality and excellent ability to give feedback.

Jonathon X (unsure of last name) is a guy about my age from Brazil who raced pretty much every type of formula car all over Europe. He was Scott Speed's roommate for Formula Renault I believe and ran all the way up to F3000.

Rich Beam is a guy with years of racing experience in SCCA and Solo competition and was a national champion.

Track Information:
http://www.trackpedia.com/wiki/Homestead_Miami_Speedway

Day One
Start the day by arriving at the track and thinking man it would have been nice to have a friend along. While I got along with the other folks there its always nice to have someone to relate to. I was the first one to arrive (seemed to become a trend) and walked over and talked to the mechanics for 15-20 minutes. Then headed over to the classroom. It was me and the three instructors until about 10 minutes before we started. Had a good deal of fun talking to them and they really made me feel good about the class. Got started with a quick introduction of everyone and their reasons for being at the school. The reasons varied widely. Bruce M. level set that we would be taking it easy for the first day and building speed...a comment that was met with groans from some, but one that I welcomed as I came to learn not just drive the track.

We started with getting fitted in the cars with our partners and then breaking up into two groups. I was first in the classroom where we talked about the line through basic type-1 corners (ie easy ones). After that it was into the cars for our turn. The car was uncomfortable for me at first as I was frankly just too big for it. By the end of the day I had figured out how to make myself fit but initally it was a pain. Auto-X around a course working first on just driving the line for 10-15 laps at a time. Then moving into trailing throttle and brake applications in the second session. Finally in the last session working on doing things wrong in to get a feel for what its like to have the car loose. Wrong things means abrupt lift of the brakes while trail braking, or snap off throttle while accelerating hard out of a turn. Obviously both snap rotate the car and you have to catch it. Fun FUN stuff....really works the neck!

Lunch

Double Clutch downshifting drills to get everyone familar with how to do it. This is where I first started to suspect something was wrong with my car as a good number of times (3-4 out of 15) the transmission would not come out of gear with the clutch in or out. I worked through it but it bugged the hell out of me cause I questioned if I was really this brutal on a gearbox as the mechanics swore everything was ok.

More classroom about finding the line through other turns and how to select the best line.

Two sessions of actual driving on the track. Rev limited however to 3300 RPMs. Here they really worked you hard with feed back each lap on your turn in points and apexes which was excellent as I found in more than one turn that required a late apex that I was actually turning in too late and could carry more speed if I was earlier. I really worked hard here even at low speeds to nail the turn in points and exit speeds which I think lead to me feeling a lot better by the end of the sessions. Funny thing here was a few guys complained about the 3300 RPM redline but it didn't effect the speed you carried in the corner at all. I see the magic now looking back. By limiting shifting you get people to focus on lines which is more critical.

Day Two
Today was focused on how to really get the brakes on and threshold stop a car both in a straight line and more importantly while trail braking. Basically setup a series of cones and had a competition on who could stop in the shortest distance. Since I had already been working on this in day ones line drills I was a little ahead of the curve. My group watched first and it was sweet to see people come flying into the turn in second gear and just light up all four tires in a big time lockup. Lets just say the mechanics were busy fixing tires at group 1. My group got in and was next. The drill was into turn 8 with us running the rest of the track at 3900 RPM red lines. Excellent fun. I learned that I really REALLY need to work on my trail braking technique as I am to abrupt with coming off the brake and moving to power causing the car to unsettle. When I can left foot brake in a gokart or the Stohr its a lot easier but this is an area I need to focus on big time! My last shot down the braking drill is when lucky car 4's clutch gave out. I limped it into the pits and got myself a new baby.

Lunch

Open lapping at increasing speeds per session during the afternoon with one session focused on passing and another drafting. Four sessions of open lapping with stopping on the front straight to practice heel/toe and receive feedback from the instructors positioned around the course. This was the first time you really got to start to pull everything together under the watchful eye of the instructors as they watched from different vantage points on the track. Got some excellent feedback about needing to brake later and carry more speed into turns by extending my trail braking points. I felt I was doing good but after listening and applying their advice I could easily feel I was carrying 5-10 mph more into and out of the turns. No real way to explain it but it feels damn good when it clicks in your head and you can tell big time with how long it takes you to have to up shift to the next gear. My last session on day two also introduced me to my first spin of the school in turn 8 when I just over cooked it into the turn tying to move my braking point deeper and ended up snap over steering the rear coming off the brakes turning in. Both feet in, one loop, select first and then back on my way. Two more laps and then it was Miller time.

Day Three
Today was the day to pull it all together and learn how to start a race. We talked about how to start a race at length and how the mantra of "You can't win a race in the first lap but you can loose it" applies. They also were quick to point out how much each car costs. Into the cars and off to practice two rolling starts and a single file restart. Lets just say my group didn't understand what was said. I was on pole and coming into the chicane onto the front straight I select 1st and get ready to turn in...well the guys next to me just went to full throttle mid chicane and blasted out of the turn down the straight away before the flag was waved and had a good 5 car lead. This repeated itself the next time through as well...it basically was a race from the second the pace car went into the pit. Finally in the single file restart I was able to dictate the pace better. Here is also where I learned that my car got walked by with me on pole and getting a good jump by three other cars. No way is drafting that big of a deal and its only one shift from 1st to 2nd before shut down so its pure horse power differences. Other cars performed the same when we watched the second group do their drills. It was fairly easy to pick out the good cars.

Lunch

The afternoon was filled with flat out, unrestricted long sessions with feedback once again after each session. My feedback was once again not carrying enough speed into the corners under trail braking (Did I mention I need to work on that) and not hitting turn 11 with enough speed. So thats what I set to work on getting right. Well I got the braking improved so last session out I went to work on getting through 11 faster. Coming off the banking at 5800 RPMs into 10 is a lot of fun as the car is carrying about 120 at that time. You then track out hammer the brakes to downshift to 3rd and turn in for 11 carrying about 90-100mph. Well I carried a little to much the second to last lap and looped here twice around. Almost had it caught but just to much rotation, both in and around twice. Select gear one and continue.

Graduation followed.

Pluses of the school

1. For the money it is the most I have ever improved my driving skills. I could have done 30 DE's and never learned as much as I did here as the instruction and attention to detail was just extremely great. We talked at length about things such as car placement on the track at turn in, crabbing towards the turn instead of braking in a straight line, etc. All things I was guilty of and never knew it because I did not have an outside view of the car from a critical observer.
2. More seat time than you can shake a stick at. I was in the car for probably 10 hours out of the three days which is just excellent and something you can't get anywhere else.
3. The ability to get instant feedback on what your doing wrong, and positive reenforcement when you do it right really helps speed the learning process.
4. The classroom discussion was very informative and I learned more than I thought I would about racing theory and concepts.
5. Mechanics to fix your problems and give you a new car...something you cannot do yourself in most cases easily at the track.
6. The nice understanding that if you crash a car the worst you owe is 2k makes it a lot easier to try and find those last few tenths.
7. Understanding what you really need to work on to get faster and more consistent around a track. This is probably the biggest benefit.


Minuses of the school/class

1. Up selling of next level of courses. I really didn't like being told that there was all this other cool stuff to learn if you just signed up for the next level. I don't mind a sales pitch, just not a repetitive one ever 10 minutes.
2. Consistent ripping on of how it was stupid to join the SCCA and instead you were better off racing in the Barber series. Same type of up sell as above but for those of us who already had our own cars I think we were all a little offended.
3. Frankly students in the class that believed they were more important than others in the classroom were the worst part. We had multiple that consistently took cell phone calls in the middle of classroom time and talked in the same room the class was going on in. I found it very rude and I think others did as well.
4. Not staying on schedule due to students wandering...as adults I really expected more.


Final thoughts
The class I think would be excellent for both a beginner or advanced driver with years of experience. What I liked most was they they broke out everything into a series of drills to force you to work on your weak points and expand on your strong ones. This is impossible at an HPDE day or just driving around the neighborhood. They also started everyone slow and forced them to work on technique which annoyed a lot of people at first but to me was great because it once again focused your concentration on the task at hand. For me it allowed me to for once forget about stringing together a whole lap and instead just work on a segment at a time. For a new driver it would give them the break from the stress of driving a race car being overwhelming to being fun and allow them to work up in little bits. On my flight back I was thinking to myself about how to explain how worth while this was for me. I can only tell you I have been smiling ear to ear about it for a good two days now and just can't wait to hop in the Stohr and set to work on honing the skills even more.

Here is a few teaser pictures. The rest can be found here