Der Gasser

[jakp993]

A few of us were talking about this topic during the MAW event this past weekend.  One of the the issues here is that a novice student has no clue where the limit is, and has no idea of the consequences of his/her actions.  So you end up with a sequence of actions that can end up in an "incident".  For example, a student can be driving totally within themselves, say at 60%.  That would certainly not raise my concern as an instructor.  However, add to that a complete unawareness of the cause/effect relationship between driving inputs and their results , and you can get into trouble.  Apply the brake in the middle of that 60% corner and you probably have an issue on your hands.

So what do we do?  Have our students drive at a rate of speed that takes into consideration every possible mistake they could make?  I don't think that's the answer.  We'd all be driving at highway speeds and that's not what we are trying to teach.

Our little discussion group came up with an alternative.  Do a better job of letting students experience the cause/effect relationships in a safe environment.  We teach this stuff in the classroom, but a student needs to experience it first hand for it to really sink in.  In fact, some DE programs make a car control clinic a pre-requisite to getting on the track.

Here's an idea that was kicked around. 

A couple of tracks we visit have skidpad facilities, namely Jefferson and Shenandoah.  We used to use the Jefferson skidpad in the past but we got away from it in recent years.  The Shenandoah facility is much improved over the Jefferson pad.

What if we made a skidpad session available for all participants?  We determined that we could cycle everyone through the skidpad in a weekend, giving everyone 5-10 minutes on the pad.  That may not sound like much, but anyone that's been on a skidpad knows that's a ton of time.

The objective is to teach students what happens when you lift in a corner, what understeer feels like, how to correct oversteer, etc.  This would give the students an opportunity to experience these dynamics in a safe environment so they understand what they are feeling on the track at speed, and to know the consequences of their driving inputs.

Should we make this mandatory if we offer it at an event?  Should this be a prerequisite for driving solo? 

I'd love your views on this.

Take care,
Jack