Have I mentioned I love my job?

[rabbit]

I had to work on Sunday. As much as I wanted to take the day off and watch the Browns/Eagles game, I had some "research" I had to do for a story. So I spent the day at Mid-Ohio's High Performance Driving School.

It's a tough job, but somebody has to do it. ;)

The morning was spent in a classroom-type setting where head instructor Scott Harrington (insert IRL joke here and get it out of the way) discussed the basic physics of weight-transfer and car control.

The last part of the morning and the early afternoon were spent at four different skill stations. The school cars (http://www.midohio.com/school/cars/) are Acura RSX S Types. There was an autocross track were we practiced finding the racing line, a station for practicing braking techniques, a slalom course, and a skid-pad car.

After everyone had hit the four stations we had an autocross relay race. Brian Till was my team captain. I drove the anchor leg. But after a nearly 22-second driver change as I tried to shoehorn my 6-foot-8, 260-pound frame into the car, we finished last. :(

At this point I had put just 11.2 miles on my car and hadn't got it past second gear, but I was grinning ear-to-ear. Then we got to take our cars onto the track. We followed an instructor in groups of five. The speeds were up over 100 mph on the long straights. As many times as I have seen Mid-Ohio on tv or driven it on my Playstation, it was so much faster behind the wheel. The straights seemed a little slow, but from the esses to the carousel was non-stop action. Turns come up on you so fast. And the elevation changes are so much more noticable.

I am embarassed to admit this last part, but I had to pull off after just 10 laps because I was this close to filling my helmet. (If you are the least bit prone to motion sickness, I would recommend taking some Dramamine before you go, seriously.) http://www.weddingchat.com/images/smilies/puke.gif

I am still sore two days later. I have a bruise on my left knee from banging against the door and a bruise on my right collar bone from the safety harness. I have regained strength in my arms, which felt like Jello yesterday.

I have always regarded racecar drivers as athletes. But I came away from this with a whole new appreciation for their skills and their athleticism.

I also came away from it with a strong desire to do it again sometime soon.
:cool: :thumbup:

[chop456]

The morning was spent in a classroom-type setting where head instructor Scott Harrington (insert IRL joke here and get it out of the way) discussed the basic physics of weight-transfer and car control.


"If you're experiencing understeer, move the kegs from the back seat into the trunk!"


How can the M-O school have a multi-convicted drunk driver teaching driving school? That's beyond ridiculous and approaching negligent. :shakehead

[Dirty Sanchez]

Sounds sweet. :thumbup:

I very much want to drive Mid-Ohio some day. Thanks for sharing.

I believe that you get a new found appreciation for motorsports as a spectator after spending some time behind the wheel like this... that was my experience anyway. :)

[devilmaster]

"If you're experiencing understeer, move the kegs from the back seat into the trunk!"


How can the M-O school have a multi-convicted drunk driver teaching driving school? That's beyond ridiculous and approaching negligent. :shakehead

To be fair, they do have a good group of trainers.... Perhaps harrington was the lead instructor for the day, and they rotate through that position. Till was there(to make up for harrington, no doubt ;) )

This is their list of instructors from the website:


Led by Chief Instructor Calvin Fish, The Mid-Ohio School instructor corps includes Aaron Bambach, Beaux Barfield, Mike Borkowski, Tommy Byrne, Ross Cheever, Paul Dallenbach, Scott Harrington, Ian James, Kenny Johnson, John Jones, Tony Kester, Chris Kneifel, Andy Lally, Anthony Lazzaro, Howie Liebengood, Johnny O'Connell, Johnny Rutherford, Orlam Sonora, Jochen Tartak, Brian Till and Adam Wright.

Steve

[Winston Wolfe]

Rabbit,

I did the same High Performance Driving School class you did with many of the same instructors back in July. I was lucky enough to win an incentive contest for my company, based on my May \ June sales performance. Needless to say, it is a blast spending time with a slightly modified street car on a road course that you have seen on TV with various forms of race cars on it, since you were much younger.

The track is awesome, especially the keyhole and carousel. The cars are very impressive, and on the autocross course, you never even take it out of 1st gear, and just do the left foot braking thing, and hit the VTEC as many times as you can.

The RSXs impressed me alot. Always thought of it as an overpriced Civic with too much sound deadening material and leather seats, but I'll tell you what... with some bigger sway bars, upgraded brake pads, slightly bigger Goodyear street tires (shaved), an air induction system, and a 5 pt roll cage, stiffer shocks, and that is about it... the car was tight, steered well, and came off the corners pretty well. Still had the leather seats, radio and A\C installed in all of the cars, and even had the factory wheels. I learned more about fwd performance handling in the 1\2 day on the track than I every would have thought. The skid pad, autocross, and wet braking \ turning exercises were cool, as well, but the laps on the track were a blast !

The following the instructor \ lapping deal on the "real" track was most fun.... I was in a class with some folks who really should not have been out there (read: some "older" folks, and some girls, who clearly were **not** race car drivers, wanna-be's, or even enthusiastic about driving "fast"). We also hit about 110-115 MPH on the back straight, before braking like hell, to slow down for the turns, and the elevation changes were much more dramatic that you realize on TV. The whole time, I'm thinking what it must be like to be going 2xs as fast, with someone else trying to pass you, and doing it for close to two hours.... Obviously, a lot of respect to the guys who do it at the top level of the sport !

Anyone else been to this deal ? I liked it so much I would like to pay for the two day class, but once I came out of the ether, and got my expense reports reimbursed at work, I realize how much it REALLY costs to do it....
Airfare, hotel, transportation to and from the event from California really adds up.

Anyone had experience at a local track out on the west coast that gives you the same kind of fun.

[Sean O'Gorman]

"If you're experiencing understeer, move the kegs from the back seat into the trunk!"


How can the M-O school have a multi-convicted drunk driver teaching driving school? That's beyond ridiculous and approaching negligent. :shakehead

I was going to say this a few months ago. There was an article in the Cleveland PD about the teen driving school written by a high schooler, and it mentioned Harrington as the kid's instructor. The kid was talking about how great Scott was. Man I would've loved to let that kid know the history behind Scott. :shakehead :flame:

[rabbit]

Pics courtesy of toymaker(left)'s brother-in-law...
http://raceweather.homestead.com/files/MO_school_1.jpg
Me on the slalom... (I ran a 17.20 on the slalom, second fastest in our group. 17.14 was the fastest.)
http://raceweather.homestead.com/files/MO_school_2.jpg

[rabbit]

Harrington did the classroom instruction. Tommy Byrne, Tony Kester, Orlam Sonora, Brian Till and Kenny Johnson were the station instructors.

(BTW - How about we keep this on topic and save the "Scott Harrington is an evil man" posts for another thread.)

[oddlycalm]

Great post rabbit. :thumbup: No doubt about it, skid pad, autocross and turning hot laps is hard work for the body, but it's serious fun. It's certainly not hard to understand why this has become such a booming business.

oc

[RichK]

chop, you seriously crack me up. :laugh:


Led by Chief Instructor Calvin Fish, The Mid-Ohio School instructor corps includes Aaron Bambach, Beaux Barfield, Mike Borkowski, Tommy Byrne, Ross Cheever, Paul Dallenbach, Scott Harrington, Ian James, Kenny Johnson, John Jones, Tony Kester, Chris Kneifel, Andy Lally, Anthony Lazzaro, Howie Liebengood, Johnny O'Connell, Johnny Rutherford, Orlam Sonora, Jochen Tartak, Brian Till and Adam Wright.

Chris Kneifel: "Turn left! NO! I mean right! Oh God, I meant left! Oh jeez my rubber nose fell off, STOP! I mean GO!!!"

[Sean O'Gorman]

Oh yeah, for those of you who are interested in driving on Mid-Ohio in your own car but don't want to spend $600 to do so with the Mid-Ohio School, you should consider NASA's HPDE program. They are generally under $300 for two days worth of driving at Mid-Ohio. Sometimes you can run for even less money with a BMW, Porsche, Corvette, etc. club.

[RacinM3]

Funny thing about being beat up while high performance driving - for all the different race cars I've driven, nothing beats me up as much as a street car with a normal three point belt. Legs flailing, arms steering AND trying to keep me upright, leg muscles straining to keep in in the seat correctly.....it's almost as bad as driving a kart!

[Winston Wolfe]

Funny thing about being beat up while high performance driving - for all the different race cars I've driven, nothing beats me up as much as a street car with a normal three point belt. Legs flailing, arms steering AND trying to keep me upright, leg muscles straining to keep in in the seat correctly.....it's almost as bad as driving a kart!


Hey RM3, I am a SoCal as well.... can you recommend a driving school around here on the left coast, where I might be able to bring my own rig, or at least save a ton on airfare and meals, if I want to save a bit ?
I know about Danny MCkeever at Buttonwillow (they do the LBGP Celeb cars), but are there any others that you can recommend?

On the physical side of things, I think that it is because we try so hard and are so tensed up while we are on the track, knowing that we only get 1.5-2.0 hrs of lap time, that we want to make a lifetime of expreiences out of it, while we are doing it, that we keep ourselves so keyed up for it, that we done realize until later how truly jacked up we are while we are doing it.

Rabbit can prolly testify to this as well..... When you are leading your group, and driving as fast as you possibly can, and think you are catching up to the instructors, and keeping pace with them.... the class ends, and they decide to take you out for some hot laps.... and that is when you realize how good THEY are... they are pounding off of the curbs, downshifting to 8000 RPMs, drifting the car sideways thru turns, redlining every shift, and passing each other, or driving just inches off of each others bumper the whole way around the track, talking with you, sitting as a co-pilot all the way around, with an ear to ear grin.,... laughing your ass off at how good you thought YOU were doing when you were out there in the identical car, chasing down one of these pros, who were just toying with you the ENTIRE time you were going balls out....

I recognize some of the instructors that I had based on names from above.... Tommy Byrne, Brian Till and Adam Wright were there when I was out there in July. All great guys and very even tempered with all of the varying degrees of "talent" that we had at our corporate event. These guys have ALOT of patience !!!!

[RacinM3]

WW - isn't McKeever at Willow Springs?

As far as schools, the BMW CCA runs a lot of schools, and they're open to non-BMW's when they're not full - which is common. The LA Chapter's website is www.bmwclubla.org.

Another good one is the High Performance Driver Education (HPDE) events run by NASA. They run 4 groups, and the most advanced offers open passing. They run the events in conjunction with NASA race weekends, so they're pretty fun events. More info: http://www.nasaproracing.com/hpde/index.html

I instruct for both groups. The BMW schools are a bit more conservative and really stress safety. While NASA does the same, BMW doesn't allow open passing in any of their 4 run groups.