Bang for your buck in a track car

[Terry]

I run into Drew periodically on Rittenhouse Square where he lives and I work. He is still in school and, when last we spoke, was deeply involved in putting together a celebrity driver TV show of some sort. I never heard anything about instructor status being an issue and he said nothing of the sort to me. But if it happened, I do not think we should be second guessing decisions like this made by our appointed and elected leaders. These can be tough and unpleasant matters but they need to be done for all of our best interests, and no one is paying the chief instructor or track chair to take the heat. I can recall lots of bitching (including by me) about promotions (mainly why did he get it when any idiot can see that I'm a much better driver), politics (he only got promoted because he's friends with...), and fairness (why did I get black flagged and lectured for doing what the CI did, only worse?), but none of this amounted to a hill of beans in the long run. People who should be promoted get promoted, and if they have to stay in a run group for an extra event before the instructors are comfortable with a promotion, so what? And maybe a certain minimum amount of seat time, or events, or years, is desirable for instructors just so that they are more likely to have seen or experienced different things on the track which their students might encounter. Pure speed and driving skill are not the only qualifications for instructing. Anyway, I look forward to seeing Drew on the track again but suspect it will be with a new RSR or something similar.