Three Day Road Racing class

The class was taught by Pitarresi Pro Drive Racing School at the Portland International Raceway in Oregon.

I was very impressed the class. The instructors were not only great drivers but also excellent teachers. The class progressed through the skills and then helped put them all together. There were more instructors than students so we got plenty of one-on-one time and excellent feedback on what we were doing right and wrong.

The morning of the first day starting with a short lecture on car dynamics - weight transfer, oversteer, understeer, then we spent a couple hours in a skid car (three students and one instructor) on an autocross course set up in the parking lot. The skid car was a Toyota Camray with a set of hydraulically actuated wheels that can spin in any direction (see their website) that lift the car up off the tires reducing traction. Even at low speed, the dynamics of the car are exaggerated, so it's like driving on ice but the behavior is more consistent. This was somewhat humbling but very educational. If any of you have kids that are new drivers, I strongly suggest they consider a safety driving class in these cars. They'll never slam their brakes on in a curve again :-).
After lunch on the first day, we got in the race cars. Pro Drive uses Spec Racer Fords. These are single seat, open cockpit, closed wheel race cars that are a little underpowered but have excellent braking and handling. A good lap time at PIR with the festival curves is 1:30 (I never broke 1:40 though), which is as fast as a Viper GTS. The Spec Racer Fords are very light (under 1500 pounds without driver) so they're incredibly nimble.

Getting ready.

    
The class of seven was split into two groups - one group was in the cars while the other was in the classroom for more instruction. This worked out great since it was very tiring driving the cars so the classroom break was a welcome relief (although I always looked forward to getting back in the car).

We first exercise in the car was a slalom drill, where we could get a feel for the cars dynamic transition behavior and learn how one turn's line affects the next.

The second drill was threshold braking - how to slow the car down in the minimum space without locking the wheels.

The second day starting with a heel-toe exercise. I have to say that this was the hardest for me since I had never been able to master this. At the end of the three days, I was starting to get the hang of it, but I could use a lot more practice.

We then did a drill on one of the toughest two corners on the track - the festival curves. The long front straight ends in a 90 degree right hander, followed almost immediately by a 135 degree left hander. We had to brake hard from about 85mph 

    

A little coaching.

(we didn't use the full straightaway) and downshift into third, then make the first turn, immediately brake and downshift to second for the second turn. Heel-toe downshifting while braking as hard as you can is quite a challenge if you haven't tried it - by the end of the third day, I started to get reasonably comfortable on these two curves although I never really nailed the second curve.
The afternoon started with our first drive around the whole track following a pace car at about 70% peak speed. It was a good way to get a feel for the right lines through the course. Pro Drive set up cones at the correct turn-in, apex, and turn-out points so we could get a better idea of a good line through the track.

Finally, we got to drive the cars flat-out on our own and try to put all the skills together. While we were doing this, Pro Drive had an instructor watching every curve so that 

That's me in the grass after a spin.
when we went in, we got thorough feedback on everything we were doing right and wrong. If we did something really egregious, we were called in immediately so that we could discuss how to avoid the same mistake again.

On the third day (today), we spent the whole day in lapping sessions. On the second morning session, Pro Drive set up some cones at the end of the straight simulating where another car would be during a pass so we had to take a tighter line through turn one (the first curve on the festival curves). In the afternoon, these cones were removed, but so where the turn-in and turn-out cones on all the curves, so we had to find our own lines through the course. All our laps on the final day were timed so we could see how much better (or worse) they got.

The track record for these cars is 1:28 on race tires. The tires we were running are about 3 seconds slower. My best lap was around 1:40, but most of my laps toward the end of the day were 1:42.

My wife also attended the class with me and enjoyed herself. Her lap times increased dramatically during the course of the day to the point where she was within a second or two of my times. We both learned a tremendous amount which I'm sure will be very valuable when we get our Cobra done.

Pro Drive isn't very well known, but I have to say that they are a very well organized and competent driving school. Highly recommended.