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Originally Posted by lucid
Consolidated, I guess if you think you have learned what you can from DE type of instruction, this might be useful. Does the $700/day fee cover track time? When you say "day" what is the context? How much seat time together with the coach and how much non-driving instruction/discussion each day? Thanks.
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The track fee was small in my case because I'm a member at the track we used. Usually the coach will be a member at his/her local track and you pay a member guest fee to use the track on an open lapping day, renting a track is another option, an expensive one.
I know some drivers that will rent a track for instruction or a test and tune day and invite a small group of known drivers to offset the cost.
A "day" started at 8:30am and went to 5:30, we only broke for lunch. We were either in the car, reviewing his notes, looking at data, comparing his data to mine or setting a small list of goals or experiments for the next session.
I drove for about 4 hours, him about 30 minutes. Some of the most useful time was spent looking at Traqmate data...less about lap times and more about line, throttle position, braking zones, entry/exit speeds, etc...which lead into working on trail braking, rotation but not overdoing it, throttle oversteer, learning to pitch a car, catching a loose entry and getting more comfortable with "hustling" a car with corrections, predicting spins, pushing to the point of possible offs but having an escape route planned.
More about learning skills, getting comfortable with a faster pace and gaining confidence and understanding of what's going on rather than lap times, though my times did drop 2.5 seconds on a 90 second track.
I'd like to race in the future so we also talked about racecraft, passing techniques and he helped me with car set-up, adjusting damper and sway bar setting, alignment changes...which alone was very very helpful.
This route is not for everyone, it's expensive compared to a DE, I'd say one would need to be running with the top groups to get their money's worth. It's hard to beat the seat time and free instruction at any good DE, we have a very good instructor pool in Texas, I don't know how those guys do it session after session.
However, I think it's more useful and perhaps cheaper than flying to a dedicated race school, like Skippy or Bondurant. But then, driving an open wheel racecar at Laguna Seca was worth every penny.