Sounds great conevadr. This particular school is close to me, about 2.5 hours and is coming up soon, schedule and location worked out well. Hopefully it is as good as they make it sound. I'll look into your link too.

 

I attended the school this weekend. It was nice meeting Thomas and Eric, fellow EVO owners there.

Since others gave their thoughts on the school I'd like to also.

The registration/tech was from 8-8:30, which basically consisted of signing a clipboard and waiver in the parking lot. Easy enough. The event was held at the Chrysler Proving Grounds so there was security and a bunch of rules about cameras and such not being allowed. No problem there either.

Once inside the gate we had to wait until 10 am to get started, I believe because of noise rules at the proving grounds. There was a brief drivers meeting before hand where you got your sheet to tell you when you ran and when you worked the course.

I have been lucky enough to never have worked an autocross course. I have attened three autocrosses in my life and they all had their own workers to chase cones.

The course was a 30 second course. Our instructors were one guy with 20 years of experience and has come close to a national title but not quite got it and one other guy with 10 years experience and 4 championships.

I went with an open mind as I always try to do. I went with a street/drag alignment on the car. 1.4 degrees negative in the front, 1/16" toe in, rear was 0 and 0. I set the Potenza's at 35 psi the day before the event. I left all my tools, adjustment tools and even tire gauge in the trailer so I would concentrate on driving only.

We got 3 runs in a row at the beginning of the day. This was to get a baseline on your skill level. I had a 31.60 second run. It was one of the faster times of the approximate 24 people in the class. The car is a handful and 1st gear is out of control when the boost comes in, makes for a great show! haha

After everyone got their 3 base runs you came back for about 20 minutes of one on one instructor time.

My first run went well and when it was finished the instructor was chuckling pretty good and said, "Well lack of aggression is definetely not your problem!" I told him that is one thing I was never accussed of, lack of aggression. He told me I had great car control but needed calm down quite a bit and not go at it so hard. His suggestion was to use 2nd gear because 1st was rediculous. I told him there was no way in hell the car could do the course in 1st gear, too much lag from low rpm. He told me, "Just try it." I told him I was there to learn and would do what he said. I have it a shot and while the run was as fast as one of my others the car was much easier to control and worked better than I thought. Over the next few runs as I improved the times dropped. The instructor then took the wheel to show me how to do it for 2 runs. His fastest run was as good as my fastest but each of his runs he nailed a cone. (In the school there is NO emphasis on the importance of NOT hitting cones, which to me is odd) Personally hitting one cone and taking a 2 second penalty is 2 seconds you can not make up, so it was odd to me that it wasn't covered at all...........anyway on with the day.

We all broke for lunch, pizza/salad/drinks were provided. After lunch you switch instructors. One instructor and 3 students got in a car and drove slowly around the course. I was now being instructed by the 4 time champ. He was talking about the back side of the cone, 3, 6, 9 oclock etc., stuff I had no idea what he was talking about. I paid my money and asked the questions Someone has to ask because most guys will stand around lost rather than look stupid, I admit to being stupid, so I asked. This was probably the most enlightening part of the school for me. The 3-6-9 oclock was simply a reference to looking around and looking at the next part of the course before you get to it, in other words like they teach in the NASA HPDE schools, KEEP YOUR EYES UP, LOOK UP. I knew this already but was no practicing it the way I should be in autocrossing.

OK, so after everyone gets the drive around you get 20 minutes with the opposite instructor you had in the morning. I made my first run and after each run you get a quick tutorial on what you did wrong or right. My instructor told me, "You have excellent car control and you are not going to gain a lot of time, your gains will be in small tenth of second increases and you will have to work on different parts of the track to get those." I was happy to hear it but also disapointed because I wanted to be told, "You are in idiot, I can make you seconds faster!" I made a few more runs worked on a few points he told me to work on and then he took the wheel. Again, my best time was pretty good as his was just a little slower than my best. Granted it's a new car to him and I don't know how hard they really push but judging from the cones that were flying when the instructors drove the students car I'd say they were atleast trying 95%.

BTW, after each of your runs you work the course. The schedule says you run your session, skip the next session and then work the next two and then you can relax again. It sounds good. If everyone did what they were suppose to it would work out great. It seemed to me though that the course was a little short of workers so the first time I went out I was out from the time I finished my run until everyone run. The 2nd time I was out 1 extra session. The 3rd time I was pissed off and just did my two sessions of work and the last time I did 3 sessions. There were some guys who were real sports and I swear were out there every minute they were not driving. The truth is, you were only required to work 2 sessions and that seemed very fair to me.

OK, so now you've had 3 sessions on the track and it's near the end of the day. Everyone then gets 3 more runs back-to-back to run again and see how you improved from the start of the day.

The fastest clean run of the entire day was from the 4 time champ in a super nice 2007 GT Mustang that was set up really good, coil overs, sway bars, alignment and Hoosier slicks. He ran a 29.90 second run.

I went up for my 1st of the last three runs and had been going over everything in my head. I decided to launch the car hard on the two step. It built a lot more speed than I expected and threw me off a little going into the slalom. I knew it messed me up. I ran a 31.xx, slow as I had a 30.43, clean, earlier in the day. I was mad at myself but determined I could run a 29 second run.

Next run was very good, it felt slow because it was so smooth so I figured it would be good, 30.012. I could see the instructors talking and grinning when I crossed the finish. They were both very happy. They told me, you only need .013 to go 29, you can do it. I told them, "I am going to prove to you that 1st gear will make the car faster on this one." They told me, "Don't do it, it won't work, just do what you did and get that 29!" I said, "I can only learn by proving something doesn't work, I am going a 29 with 1st gear." They laughed. They were right. The run felt faster, spinning, turning sideways, out of control, no cones hit but I ran a 30.6. I admitted I was wrong but had to find out for myself. It was a good laugh.

I enjoyed the course, definetely worth the money as I feel we got quite a bit of seat time and some good tips. Some guys gained 7+ seconds from their first runs to their last. I gained 1.6 and the knowledge I think to help me go faster next time much quicker rather than improving greatly over many runs.

I left with the fastest clean time of any student and with my lack of experience I was pretty happy about that. Everyone at the school was very cool and friendly too, so it was nice hanging out there for the day.

I'd be interested in Phase 2 some time down the road.

I'd recommend the school to anyone who can afford the fee and time to take it.