I just checked the SCCA site and my status has changed to regional license so thats cool. So Bondurant gets you a regional license. I'm waiting now for it to show up in the mail and then I'll apply for the PCA license.
So,
It's done, I completed the 4 days on Friday and it was pretty good. I learned a lot and hopefully am a little smoother and faster now. The total cost was 4200 for the 3 day school which I extended to 4 days at 4800 USD. I paid 300 dollars for insurance (still a 6k deductible!). Hotel was the Wild Horse Pass Sheraton at a Bondurant rate of 130 a night and this is a nice hotel. Looks like Disney designed it. I flew there on Sun Country for 340 bucks return.
Day 1:
Day 1 was class room, braking drills, lane change drills and heel and toe drills. No track time but drills. This was annoying me at the time because it looked like no track time till after lunch on day 2 and that didn't strike me as a lot of track time. The drills were basically illustrating steering the car with brake and throttle inputs, spin recovery in the special Caddy and getting used to the car. They also have an oval with an increasing radius turn and a constant radius turn for practising heel and toe and trail braking. Bondurant is huge into trail braking and when you see the instructors do the oval then it's pretty impressive.
The cars were 08 C6 vettes with < 100 miles on the clock. Very fast (430bhp) but almost completely stock except for corbeau seats, a 4pt harness, performance friction high temp pads and good year eagle tires. The stock pedal position meant I couldn't heel and toe at all well in them. The throttle pedal is in a different zip code than the brake and is 'high' when you're on the brake. I had a lot of trouble down shifting as a result. Most people were managing just fine so I think this was just me as far as pedals go but I'd use sneakers rather than racing shoes no matter what.
Day 2:
Skid car day and this was fun. Driving in an oval pattern, and a figure of 8 as the instructor using the outboard wheels to induce varying degrees of oversteer and understeer. The importance of vision and smooth pedal inputs were pretty clear here and it was fun all around.
We went to the oval in the morning but I almost wrecked the car in a tire wall basically because I over focused on downshifting and given my difficulties and having the instructor in the car with me, I brain farted and was lucky to escape with just a dusting. I switched to my clogs (Keens, I kid you not) in the afternoon and shifting was much easier than in my racing shoes.
We went to the track in the afternoon on the medium circuit with the carosel and the lake loop and now it becomes a lot more fun. The racing suits that are provided are kart suits which were uncomfortable in the heat. I used my Sparco XL suit on the following days and it's a TON better and for the money, I guess it should be.
The afternoon sessions are where the drills before started to make sense. I needed to smooth the pedal inputs and trail brake more. I was focusing on my turn in point rather than looking through to the apex. This meant I was overslowing the car and then was unable to trail the brakes most of the way around to the apex. I improved at this steadily but I'm no where near as good as the instructors who drive the vette like a momentum car in to the turns. Pretty cool
Day 3:
They did some skid car again and then ran the same circuit as the day before. They opened the full track in the afternoon which is pretty manic. Couple of elevation changes and you can almost get to 4th gear. The vette is a pretty powerful car and you can definitely start to feel the whole car under your right foot exiting corners. I got better at vision, lighter braking into turns for higher entry speeds and extending trail braking times. I got better opening up the steering at apex and then using the throttle to push the car out to track out etc. This became a lot of fun after a while. We got around 5 hours of track time this day. I was doing a lot better towards the end and was hanging with a PCA instructor doing laps so it was fun seeing where he was catching me and where I was pulling away and it evened out of course as the laps piled on.
Day 4.
Switched to a Formula Ford 1600 (1200lbs, 110bhp) and then just did laps again for the whole day. Maybe 6 hours of track time on day 4. Cars were very fast through the corners and you can use all the gears on the full track but I didn't try to grab 4th and just worked on better trail braking, carrying more speed in to the turns and going faster out of turns with gas. The instructor again was wicked fast, sometimes a gear higher than even the fast guys in the class. We did two race starts and a restart in the afternoon to do all the SCCA stuff.
Class wise, I was in the middle part of it I think. There were 3 guys from Bridgestone (tire test drivers) who were very fast. Then there was an older guy who could hang with them. Then there was myself and 2 or 3 others and we were about the same. The class was 12 people altogether.
Results
My grade as the end was a 3.5/5.0. Darl Jr and kart guys have the highest rating ever which was 4.5/5.0 so I'll take a 3.5. The course qualifies me for an SCCA regional license which I'm about to send the paperwork to Topeka for so I could be able to race NASA, PCA and SCCA now.
Is it worth it? I think so. I was frustrated on day 1 but once we started hitting the track then it became a lot more fun and I found myself remembering the drills on track as I tried more stuff to go faster/smoother. So in hindsight, the drills were frustrating but they were valuable.
What didn't I like?
I didn't like the 4 pt harnesses in the vettes. I don't feel safe in them. The Formula cars also were 4pt and I found myself having to push myself up periodically because you slide down. 6pt belts would be appreciated. Windows are down but there are no window nets. There isn't a lot of runoff on some places on the track. You need to be careful. I'd prefer more runoff just so you can try stuff out and not destroy a car.
The car
The vettes are a very fast car. 430bhp and the thing just pulls like a son of a gun out of turns. An eye opener for a 60k car. The car has full stability management enabled. This works well. I'm a fan of these on the track, keeps people of out trouble. If it's coming on then mostly it's the driver screwing up. Most people that turn these systems off end up in the wall. I think with a high enough skill level it becomes an issue but the instructors can throw these cars around the track with no issues so when a student can drive at the same level with it on then look to turn it off. The advanced racing school allows it to be changed by the student to competition mode and finally all off.
What did I learn?
Vision is huge. Look where you want to go. Looking further ahead lets you go faster, smoother. Trail braking is a very fast way to enter a corner and keep the car balanced even in a car that understeers like the vette. Opening up the wheel lets you use the gas to position the car out to track out. Using the pedals to 'steer' the car became more natural as the school progressed. Vision is actually the biggest deal. I'm looking further ahead and hitting apexs, entering corners faster becomes a lot easier once you look out to the next point. I need to be smoother releasing the clutch downshifting and smoother getting on the gas at apex. But, it's not 944 spec car, right? Of course it isn't but it is a front engined rear transaxle car so it's similar to a 944, more similar than a 911. The school has a heavy emphasis on momentum driving so I'm happy what I learned can be applied in the 944.
I think I'll head back in the fall for the 4 day post grad course so it must have been alright
