11-08-2006, 08:27 AM
(This post was last modified: 11-08-2006, 08:31 AM by Mike Andrews.)
Hank,
I'm going to jump around your post a little.
You comment on getting promoted as a badge of honor. Well, I guess in a way it is. Being human we all have some form of competitive spirit. And you are correct, they are not yet ready to run with the faster cars. Which is what I interpret from your comment even though you don't use the word faster. It all about progression though the ranks and as you spend time in these groups you gain experience. What to do in certain situations. How to handle the speed difference between cars and so on. For example, if you were to come to one of our events and we put you out in the red run group I'm assuming you would have your hands full watching your mirrors and trying to keep track (no pun intended) of everyone around you. Add to that where you are on the track and it ends up not being fun for you. The more advanced guys can deal with you (and will most certainly comment to me later about the "slow" guy out there) and once they around you they will be on their merry way. Until they catch you again some laps later.
Let me back up a little and say there are no political factors at play in our program. Having dealt with running the program for as many years as I have I'm pretty good with that and I don't get intimidated too easily. By the way, "not ready" does not mean not safe or safe enough, it means not ready. If we felt they weren't safe they wouldn't be out there. Now, with that said, we do on occasion combine groups toward the end of the weekend or have advanced days where the groups get to learn/drive together. If you talk to some of the people that participate in those sessions then you will see that they are all safe and you pay attention to what's going on around you. The slower cars let the faster cars go by and the faster cars are aware of the slower cars. It's a good fit. The difference is in the red group the drivers are much better at their surroundings. There are many drivers out there that never have someone behind them waiting for a signal. They are aware when someone is catching them and the signal is there before the approaching car gets there so there is very little disruption to the flow of cars. The faster cars and the slower cars (and that is controlled by the driver) can peacefully co-exist on the track at the same time.
Ok, back to your opening comment "range of safety". Again, if someone is unsafe, they go home. Now, I hope we can agree that this activity is not as safe as watching it on TV. We have to manage that. And that's what we do with the assignment into run groups. We start students with instructors in the car and once the instructor feels they are aware of their surroundings and has reached a point where seat time is what the student needs then they are allowed to solo. We believe there is only so much you can teach in one day and trying to keep piling on more and more information tends to overload the student. Some are better than others and it's the call of the instructor in the car as too how much they want to teach. Green students are required to know where the corners are, where the brake points are, where the apexes are, where the passing zones are and so on. Blue students start to learn some of the finer details. They should be able to push the car to feel it move under them. They should be able to deal with traffic. Some instructors believe they should be able to heal-toe. Again, it varies slightly by instructor as we all have our differences. Some instructors spend more time in the car with their students. Some instructors feel their students learn better with more solo seat time. As a result some students love an instructor that the last guys didn't like. It's a fine line between teaching style and learning style.
Car classification. While that sounds good it doesn't really work. I recall back to my first ever track event, I was driving my 930 and I was staged behind some kid in a Honda CRV. My thoughts were that I would pass him before the first turn. Well, I'm just happy he didn't lap me...... The cars capability isn't the question, it's the drivers' abilities that we use. Car classification works well for club racing where you are looking for the best driver and you are trying to put all of the comparable cars into one group.
In your second paragraph you talk about the 20 second variance and how it's startling to the slower cars. That's exactly why they are in the lower groups. Because they get startled. The higher run groups have had to deal with that and aren't caught off guard. We put instructors out in those lower run groups to see who is paying attention and who isn't. When we see/find a problem we address it.
With all that said, if you have a suggestion to improve the program by all means lets sit down and discuss the idea and the finer points of said idea. We aren't afraid to listen and we are always willing to improve our program.
I'm going to jump around your post a little.
You comment on getting promoted as a badge of honor. Well, I guess in a way it is. Being human we all have some form of competitive spirit. And you are correct, they are not yet ready to run with the faster cars. Which is what I interpret from your comment even though you don't use the word faster. It all about progression though the ranks and as you spend time in these groups you gain experience. What to do in certain situations. How to handle the speed difference between cars and so on. For example, if you were to come to one of our events and we put you out in the red run group I'm assuming you would have your hands full watching your mirrors and trying to keep track (no pun intended) of everyone around you. Add to that where you are on the track and it ends up not being fun for you. The more advanced guys can deal with you (and will most certainly comment to me later about the "slow" guy out there) and once they around you they will be on their merry way. Until they catch you again some laps later.
Let me back up a little and say there are no political factors at play in our program. Having dealt with running the program for as many years as I have I'm pretty good with that and I don't get intimidated too easily. By the way, "not ready" does not mean not safe or safe enough, it means not ready. If we felt they weren't safe they wouldn't be out there. Now, with that said, we do on occasion combine groups toward the end of the weekend or have advanced days where the groups get to learn/drive together. If you talk to some of the people that participate in those sessions then you will see that they are all safe and you pay attention to what's going on around you. The slower cars let the faster cars go by and the faster cars are aware of the slower cars. It's a good fit. The difference is in the red group the drivers are much better at their surroundings. There are many drivers out there that never have someone behind them waiting for a signal. They are aware when someone is catching them and the signal is there before the approaching car gets there so there is very little disruption to the flow of cars. The faster cars and the slower cars (and that is controlled by the driver) can peacefully co-exist on the track at the same time.
Ok, back to your opening comment "range of safety". Again, if someone is unsafe, they go home. Now, I hope we can agree that this activity is not as safe as watching it on TV. We have to manage that. And that's what we do with the assignment into run groups. We start students with instructors in the car and once the instructor feels they are aware of their surroundings and has reached a point where seat time is what the student needs then they are allowed to solo. We believe there is only so much you can teach in one day and trying to keep piling on more and more information tends to overload the student. Some are better than others and it's the call of the instructor in the car as too how much they want to teach. Green students are required to know where the corners are, where the brake points are, where the apexes are, where the passing zones are and so on. Blue students start to learn some of the finer details. They should be able to push the car to feel it move under them. They should be able to deal with traffic. Some instructors believe they should be able to heal-toe. Again, it varies slightly by instructor as we all have our differences. Some instructors spend more time in the car with their students. Some instructors feel their students learn better with more solo seat time. As a result some students love an instructor that the last guys didn't like. It's a fine line between teaching style and learning style.
Car classification. While that sounds good it doesn't really work. I recall back to my first ever track event, I was driving my 930 and I was staged behind some kid in a Honda CRV. My thoughts were that I would pass him before the first turn. Well, I'm just happy he didn't lap me...... The cars capability isn't the question, it's the drivers' abilities that we use. Car classification works well for club racing where you are looking for the best driver and you are trying to put all of the comparable cars into one group.
In your second paragraph you talk about the 20 second variance and how it's startling to the slower cars. That's exactly why they are in the lower groups. Because they get startled. The higher run groups have had to deal with that and aren't caught off guard. We put instructors out in those lower run groups to see who is paying attention and who isn't. When we see/find a problem we address it.
With all that said, if you have a suggestion to improve the program by all means lets sit down and discuss the idea and the finer points of said idea. We aren't afraid to listen and we are always willing to improve our program.
Michael Andrews