HI,

It's my understanding that the Evolution Performance Driving School (E.P.D.S.) instructors are the ones that the SCCA hires to instruct at their Starting Line School (S.L.S.). Correct?

In Ayers, MA on Sat., July 12th there is a Starting Line School event. I signed up for that event. But I also saw that Evolution Performance Driving School is holding separate events at the same location on Sat. 12th and Sun. 13th. Including their Phase 1 and 2 courses.

Would it be a good idea to do the SCCA S.L.S. on Saturday and then sign up for E.P.D.S.'s Phase 2 class on Sunday? Or would that be redundant? Reading E.P.D.S.'s website, my understanding is that Phase 1 and S.L.S. are essentially the same thing.

Thanks for the help in advance.
-John

 

Here's the links to the Starting Line School and the Evolution Performance Driving School if anybody is interested in knowing more about the two.

http://www.sccastartingline.com/

http://evoschool.com/

 

Im signed up too. The local guys said the starting line school is the same as phase 1 and they'd all recommend the phase 2 the next day. I cant stay for sunday.

Looking forward to it!

 

As far as I know, E.P.D.S. used to be the same as phase I when it started. But, they soon realized things could be improved upon it and this year those two are different. I would call/email Mike Junior and ask for more specifics differences between those two.

I guess it all depends on your autocrossing level. If you are pure novice, perhaps doing E.P.D.S. first would be great to start with. Than, I would still recommend doing phase I for the next day. If you have been autocrossing, you might be able to skip E.P.D.S. and just do phase I and II.

 

Gotcha. Thanks for the replies. I ended up signing up for starting line on Saturday and phase 2 on Sunday (before I read your post MrAWD). So hopefully I won't be totally overwhelmed on Sunday. I've done 2 autox days so far.

 

Looking forward to this tomorrow! There are 3 or 4 of us from my local club coming down. After reading the explanation of EPDS above, Im wishing I had just signed up for Phase 1. Ive got a couple seasons worth of experience, but I guess its not a bad idea to step back to getting some Novice instruction. My driving some times feels like a novice! lol

Really wishing I had my meaty tires on for this. <sigh> Suppose killing the current set of tires is going to have to be good enough.

I can hear the advice already..."Youre going too fast!" "Slow down!" "SQUEEZE on the throttle!"

 

Actually, having worn tires have no effect to what you are going to learn over there! Maximum amount of grip will be far down and importance and your ability to see things the right way and do what you can with given car will be much more important!

So, just have fun and enjoy it!

Any chance you will come next weekend for NER event, so you could see how much improvement there is?

 

My bud signed up for phase 2 on Sunday. I'm thinking about joining him. Just got to find the best delivery of the news to wifey.

We got to chatting with an instructor at our "sweet" hotel and hes talking it up.

We have a big local event next weekend.

 

i've done both, found both to be extremely worth it - even for non-novices, starting line is a huge value

 

Had a BLAST today. Super good advice and definitely felt some improvement throughout the day. Biggest thing for me is get slower on entry and unwind earlier. Plus positioning before pace.

Boost NY looked good out there.

Looking forward to phase 2 tomorrow.

 

Thanks man! Yeah I had a blast too.

What Charlie didn't tell you is he had the fastest time of the day at starting line. So he well represented the evo community out there.

I'm glad I ended up doing Phase 1 on Sunday. I think that was more my speed and where I was at in terms of skill. They pack in a lot of runs in one day. 24 runs for 260 bucks is not a bad deal in my opinion.

And the other evo 9 that participated in Phase 1 on Sunday had the fastest time of the day. So it was a solid weekend for evo drivers for sure.

 

Nice job!

I did phase 2 on Sunday. Unfortunately no timing. The biggest point they were trying to make was think way ahead, look way ahead, and be able to visualize it all before getting in the car. They explained the course in the meeting. Gave us one walk. Then we were on course. They made us talk about where we were going while driving. Then proceeded to reverse the course with no pointer cone changes and no walks. Did the same in the afternoon after some small changes.

Whole weekend was a lot of fun. At least 4-5 local events worth of seat time for me. Felt like I learned some things and hope that I can at least hold on to most of it.