Driving School Part II (in which many pylons gave their lives...)
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Allright... So the classroom in question is actually a small cafeteria / cafe. As I find a chair to perch on and check out the books that were handed to me upon entering I also check out my fellow classmates. Wow, I'm not the only girl! In fact there seems to be a grand total of four out of a group of roughly 60. While there are some young guys who are into racing, at least half the class is made up of older guys who have purchased the really nice sportscars and want to drive / race without killing themselves or the car. I already start to feel my eyes glaze over as I am immersed in a sea of car talk.
We are given a brief introduction before group A is sent back down to the oval. Basically there are only so many volunteer instructors so the groups will alternate class and track time. Our group is then split in half again as there are two different excersizes set up and this gives everyone a little more time at each one.
The first excersize I get to do is the serpentine - weaving in and out of pylons. At the begining and end of the straight there are a few instructors to debrief me. Hand position, objective and speed are discussed and pointers are given each time. If you hit any pylons you pull into the "penalty box" for a little chat. For those asking, I sat in the penalty box twice. :D On one of those occasions I was greeted with "What the hell happened?!?", after decimating most of the line of pylons. :D But on the bright side I was gradually increasing my speed and improving my line - slowly - throughout. Later on in the afternoon we repeated the excersize with a small twist, there was an instructor at the end with a cone directing us to skip certain cones. And we were supposed to go a bit faster!
The next excersize involved navigating a sea of cones laid out in the infield (for lack of a better word). I had to drive two circles, one 48 ft and the other 36 ft in diameter. Then I switched direction into a couple different turns before ending up on the oval to get back in line. Let me be blunt at this point - the Dakota I was driving does not turn as nicely as many of the sportscars. Many more cones were sent flying! But by this point I was starting to get used to the idea of hitting them so I wasnt cringing so much. Laugh all you want but when the boyfriend is this picky about every pothole or curb we ever find, the thought of hitting anything at all is not pleasant! After all, this is not my truck. For these runs the instructors were jumping in and out of vehicles so you had a different person each time. I particularily appreciate the rotation since some are more communicative than others.
The main points behind the excersizes are as follows:
LOOK AHEAD - use your periphiral vision to avoid the pylons, and this way you are anticipating what to do next as opposed to reacting to it.
WEIGHT TRANSFER - also known as observing physics with your butt, the idea is to better feel how the weight of the vehicle is moving and why - this way you learn to work with the physics of the vehicle and you have more control.
SMOOTHNESS - to excecute your input into the car smoothly, going hand in hand with weight transfer and get through the line efficiently.
We had a third course in the afternoon that involved another sea of cones in the infield with the drivers now comming in at gradually higher speed off the oval and navigating the turns to get back out. The emphasis for that one was in learning the different strategies for increasing and decreasing radius turns. At what points do you enter and exit to maximize your overall acceleration? Where is the apex of the turn and how does it change? The earlier points still had to be put into practice of course. Again I had a different instructor each time.
Suffice to say it was a lot to take in along with the in class time. They tell you up front that they have two goals for the weekend. 1.Help us be better drivers and have fun. 2.Send us all home exhausted!
We are given a brief introduction before group A is sent back down to the oval. Basically there are only so many volunteer instructors so the groups will alternate class and track time. Our group is then split in half again as there are two different excersizes set up and this gives everyone a little more time at each one.
The first excersize I get to do is the serpentine - weaving in and out of pylons. At the begining and end of the straight there are a few instructors to debrief me. Hand position, objective and speed are discussed and pointers are given each time. If you hit any pylons you pull into the "penalty box" for a little chat. For those asking, I sat in the penalty box twice. :D On one of those occasions I was greeted with "What the hell happened?!?", after decimating most of the line of pylons. :D But on the bright side I was gradually increasing my speed and improving my line - slowly - throughout. Later on in the afternoon we repeated the excersize with a small twist, there was an instructor at the end with a cone directing us to skip certain cones. And we were supposed to go a bit faster!
The next excersize involved navigating a sea of cones laid out in the infield (for lack of a better word). I had to drive two circles, one 48 ft and the other 36 ft in diameter. Then I switched direction into a couple different turns before ending up on the oval to get back in line. Let me be blunt at this point - the Dakota I was driving does not turn as nicely as many of the sportscars. Many more cones were sent flying! But by this point I was starting to get used to the idea of hitting them so I wasnt cringing so much. Laugh all you want but when the boyfriend is this picky about every pothole or curb we ever find, the thought of hitting anything at all is not pleasant! After all, this is not my truck. For these runs the instructors were jumping in and out of vehicles so you had a different person each time. I particularily appreciate the rotation since some are more communicative than others.
The main points behind the excersizes are as follows:
LOOK AHEAD - use your periphiral vision to avoid the pylons, and this way you are anticipating what to do next as opposed to reacting to it.
WEIGHT TRANSFER - also known as observing physics with your butt, the idea is to better feel how the weight of the vehicle is moving and why - this way you learn to work with the physics of the vehicle and you have more control.
SMOOTHNESS - to excecute your input into the car smoothly, going hand in hand with weight transfer and get through the line efficiently.
We had a third course in the afternoon that involved another sea of cones in the infield with the drivers now comming in at gradually higher speed off the oval and navigating the turns to get back out. The emphasis for that one was in learning the different strategies for increasing and decreasing radius turns. At what points do you enter and exit to maximize your overall acceleration? Where is the apex of the turn and how does it change? The earlier points still had to be put into practice of course. Again I had a different instructor each time.
Suffice to say it was a lot to take in along with the in class time. They tell you up front that they have two goals for the weekend. 1.Help us be better drivers and have fun. 2.Send us all home exhausted!
