- Joined
- Jun 13, 2008
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- Location
- Marietta, GA
- Display Name
- Drake the Outlaw
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- Cartersville, GA
SWMBO treated me to a one day Precision Driving course at the Barber Motorsports facility near Birmingham, Alabama. I attended last Friday and had a great time. The class was 32 people with about a dozen instructors. The session began with a half hour of classroom work explaining how the day would go, the course layout, the friction circle, and a few other things that don't come to mind immediately. Following that, we went out to the training ground (essentially 3 large parking lots) and began the driving exercises.
For the driving exercises, they broke the class up into 6 (?) groups. My group consisted of 6 individuals with varying levels of high performance experience. One guy seemed to be a bit of a hot shoe and it seemed like he'd done a bit of this before. He was the fastest in our group at most, maybe all of the day's activities. There were two couples in my group - one couple had a 911, the other couple were just enthusiasts like me.
Our first activity was a class on braking driving a mid-spec Cayman.. For performance driving (AKA track driving), they stressed two things. To slow the car (say at the end of the straight) you go immediately and HARD from full throttle to maximum braking. The other focus was modulating the brakes to stay right at the threshold of ABS, but not trigger it. I was decent at braking during the exercise, but definitely fell off during track time later - particularly at making the transition from throttle to braking very quickly and hard. Everyone got about 5 minutes of seat time and a dozen hard braking efforts with coaching.
Next, we moved to an autocross course where we took individual laps around a quarter mile-ish low speed handling circuit. They were encouraging you to keep your eyes outside the car and to watch for the "helping hints" located around the track - cones and signs for apexes, braking points, etc. A fun exercise. We were in a Boxster S. The fast guy was faster than me, but whacked quite a few cones.
Our third event was the skidpad. A low friction surface irrigated by sprinklers. The goal was to get the 911 (this time) up to about 15-20 mph while tracing an 80' (ish) diameter circle, then apply excess steering input to make the car understeer, followed by correcting the car without totally losing it. In the afternoon we had a similar session looking for oversteer - same setup, but once you were at the limit, you goosed the throttle and had to catch the incipient snap oversteer/spin. I wasn't as good at these low friction drills as I'd have liked to have been.
The last thing before lunch, we went to the track and drove the Cayman GTS 4.0. A nice 390+ hp model, which was the most fun car we drove all day, probably because it was the smallest of the bunch. We briefed on the car and were fitted with helmets for the ride - you wore a helmet at all times on the track. On track, an instructor in an equivalent car led a train of cars. The instructor had the bandwidth to "coach" whoever was immediately behind him via one way radio. The track is a roughly 2 mile road course with 3-4 high speed sections, plenty of curves, and a lot of elevation change. They had the course marked with multiple "keys" to help you pick braking points, turn in points, apexes, all to help you stay on the fast line. Our lap times during this first session were relatively slow, but they were enjoyable even though I was nervous. We swapped positions every couple of laps so a different driver was immediately behind the instructor, watching his line, his braking, and receiving instruction from the instructor by radio. Following directly behind the instructor made you faster than being further down the line because you got a better indication of the right lines, braking points, etc.
Lunch was next with good food and more commentary by the instructors.
After lunch, we did 3 more parking lot sessions - the oversteer/skidpad session I already mentioned, a lane change/change of direction session driving a Taycan, and a timed team run (swapping between the 6 drivers) on the autocross course in the Boxster. For what it is worth, the Taycan is gorgeous. The ones we drove were a dark metallic green. Lift the door handle and the entire car rises about 4" to help with entry. I'm sure that contributes to low long term maintenance costs. ;-) My team didn't fare well at the timed autocross.
Following the afternoon's parking lot sessions they re-grouped us. My sense was they grouped us with drivers of similar skill so the fast guys and gals wouldn't be too impeded by slower drivers in their group. The track follow-the leader thing works best if the group stays close together. I think I was put in the fastest group, although they didn't tell us that. I was still in a group with the hot-shoe from the morning's session. He was definitely faster than me. When the instructor opened it up with the fast guy immediately behind him they tended to walk away from the other two in our group. As a point of reference, each session on the track was 20 ish laps - probably 40 minutes or so.
In our 2nd session on the track, we drove the fastest car of the day. I don't remember the exact model number (it was a 911, and may have been a 2024 model ) - the spec's look like this year's 911 turbo S, but I'm not sure. AWD, wide as heck, and 620 hp. $230K list price. Tons of grip, and a rocket ship if you punched the throttle. Even though I wasn't pushing extremely hard, I saw 125 mph on the straights a couple of times. I wish we'd driven that car last, because I'd have been able to go faster given more opportunity to learn the course and gain confidence. Again, this session was follow the leader behind one of the instructors.
There were 5 minute debriefing sessions with the instructor after the track periods. Probably to wind down and also to check everyone's comfort level.
For the third session, we downshifted (as it were) to a Carrera GTS. "Only" 478 HP and about $165K if you wanna buy one. All of the cars we drove on Friday were automatic's. I had been hoping for a manual transmission but I think the automatic made things much easier. In sport mode or sport plus mode, all of the cars shifted up and down at near-perfect times and places. Nothing like most of the automatics I've driven. As we drove this session we started pushing harder. I saw 120 mph several times in the Carerra GTS and became more comfortable with its adhesion limits. Speaking of adhesion limits, the car recorded maximum G levels. The most I saw was about 1.6 lateral G's, which had to be at a dip in the road where the car was experiencing more than one vertical G. I saw about 1.4 G's under braking and .9G's accelerating. Holding 1+ G's in a corner resulted in audible tire squeal. When I got off-line, the tires picked up scrubbed off rubber "marbles" which temporarily ruined wheel balance until they (loudly) slung off into the wheel wells.
The fourth driving session was also in the Carrera GTS. We reached the limit of my comfort level in the high speed braking segments. We were pushing harder and harder and some of the sections coming down from 120 MPH were over the top of hills. They were a bit blind and the car lost traction going over the crest. Several times, I felt the rear of the car starting to wiggle, but it never tried to swap ends. Those sections were uncomfortable for me. I could have done a better job on those and carried more speed through the subsequent corners. On some of the other sections, some S-turns, the "corkscrew", etc., I felt like there was a lot more speed available than I was achieving, but I was pretty comfortable with what the car was doing. Where the track was cresting hills you had no visibility of what was beyond the crest of the hill, and it was an exercise of faith praying that there were no water buffalos or XO's (old Georgia Tech sorority joke, sorry) on the track after the crest. I think self-preservation instincts slowed me on the blind segments of the track.
I didn't mention it before, but all of the groups were on the track at the same time - 5-6 cars in a group with each group playing follow the leader. If a faster group caught a slower group, the slower group edged to the side and slowed allowing the faster group to go through. In our afternoon sessions our group (only 4 of us) passed the other groups multiple times and was never caught. We even passed the folks driving the 620HP AWD car.. My conclusion was that the slowest driver in our group was faster than the slowest driver in the other groups - the slowest driver in the group is the pace setter. It felt like I was about on par with the other non-hot shoe driver in our group. Talking between sessions, we seemed to have similar comfort levels and thought we were going about as fast as our egos and talents wanted to go. I will admit to being the only driver in the group to take out a cone - lost concentration on a cool-down lap and was way offline. Tried to split a couple of cones, but no luck! Only got one of 'em, though.
In the final debrief, the instructor was very complimentary and opined that our group was going pretty quickly in the later sessions. Probably fair, although I doubt the other instructors told their groups they were hopeless slugs. Being nice to clients helps reviews and brings people back for advanced classes.
So, I had a really good time, drove fast cars on a beautiful track (truthfully, the Barber Motorsports campus is incredible) and got probably a half hour of coaching during the parking lot sessions and about 3 hours (!)of track time pushing various Porsches around the track at high speed. I was pretty beat by the end of the day.
The final event of the day was riding with one of the instructors on a hot lap. Dude didn't spook me at all, but was scorching fast. Probably 20 mph faster than me at most points on the track and used every inch of the track width. When he nailed the brakes, it was binary - immediately from accelerating to full braking. Wow!
My biggest scare of the day came on the return drive to Atlanta. Inattentive driver made a lane change right into me on I-20. I was kinda zoned, but successfully evaded his attempt on my life.
For the driving exercises, they broke the class up into 6 (?) groups. My group consisted of 6 individuals with varying levels of high performance experience. One guy seemed to be a bit of a hot shoe and it seemed like he'd done a bit of this before. He was the fastest in our group at most, maybe all of the day's activities. There were two couples in my group - one couple had a 911, the other couple were just enthusiasts like me.
Our first activity was a class on braking driving a mid-spec Cayman.. For performance driving (AKA track driving), they stressed two things. To slow the car (say at the end of the straight) you go immediately and HARD from full throttle to maximum braking. The other focus was modulating the brakes to stay right at the threshold of ABS, but not trigger it. I was decent at braking during the exercise, but definitely fell off during track time later - particularly at making the transition from throttle to braking very quickly and hard. Everyone got about 5 minutes of seat time and a dozen hard braking efforts with coaching.
Next, we moved to an autocross course where we took individual laps around a quarter mile-ish low speed handling circuit. They were encouraging you to keep your eyes outside the car and to watch for the "helping hints" located around the track - cones and signs for apexes, braking points, etc. A fun exercise. We were in a Boxster S. The fast guy was faster than me, but whacked quite a few cones.
Our third event was the skidpad. A low friction surface irrigated by sprinklers. The goal was to get the 911 (this time) up to about 15-20 mph while tracing an 80' (ish) diameter circle, then apply excess steering input to make the car understeer, followed by correcting the car without totally losing it. In the afternoon we had a similar session looking for oversteer - same setup, but once you were at the limit, you goosed the throttle and had to catch the incipient snap oversteer/spin. I wasn't as good at these low friction drills as I'd have liked to have been.
The last thing before lunch, we went to the track and drove the Cayman GTS 4.0. A nice 390+ hp model, which was the most fun car we drove all day, probably because it was the smallest of the bunch. We briefed on the car and were fitted with helmets for the ride - you wore a helmet at all times on the track. On track, an instructor in an equivalent car led a train of cars. The instructor had the bandwidth to "coach" whoever was immediately behind him via one way radio. The track is a roughly 2 mile road course with 3-4 high speed sections, plenty of curves, and a lot of elevation change. They had the course marked with multiple "keys" to help you pick braking points, turn in points, apexes, all to help you stay on the fast line. Our lap times during this first session were relatively slow, but they were enjoyable even though I was nervous. We swapped positions every couple of laps so a different driver was immediately behind the instructor, watching his line, his braking, and receiving instruction from the instructor by radio. Following directly behind the instructor made you faster than being further down the line because you got a better indication of the right lines, braking points, etc.
Lunch was next with good food and more commentary by the instructors.
After lunch, we did 3 more parking lot sessions - the oversteer/skidpad session I already mentioned, a lane change/change of direction session driving a Taycan, and a timed team run (swapping between the 6 drivers) on the autocross course in the Boxster. For what it is worth, the Taycan is gorgeous. The ones we drove were a dark metallic green. Lift the door handle and the entire car rises about 4" to help with entry. I'm sure that contributes to low long term maintenance costs. ;-) My team didn't fare well at the timed autocross.
Following the afternoon's parking lot sessions they re-grouped us. My sense was they grouped us with drivers of similar skill so the fast guys and gals wouldn't be too impeded by slower drivers in their group. The track follow-the leader thing works best if the group stays close together. I think I was put in the fastest group, although they didn't tell us that. I was still in a group with the hot-shoe from the morning's session. He was definitely faster than me. When the instructor opened it up with the fast guy immediately behind him they tended to walk away from the other two in our group. As a point of reference, each session on the track was 20 ish laps - probably 40 minutes or so.
In our 2nd session on the track, we drove the fastest car of the day. I don't remember the exact model number (it was a 911, and may have been a 2024 model ) - the spec's look like this year's 911 turbo S, but I'm not sure. AWD, wide as heck, and 620 hp. $230K list price. Tons of grip, and a rocket ship if you punched the throttle. Even though I wasn't pushing extremely hard, I saw 125 mph on the straights a couple of times. I wish we'd driven that car last, because I'd have been able to go faster given more opportunity to learn the course and gain confidence. Again, this session was follow the leader behind one of the instructors.
There were 5 minute debriefing sessions with the instructor after the track periods. Probably to wind down and also to check everyone's comfort level.
For the third session, we downshifted (as it were) to a Carrera GTS. "Only" 478 HP and about $165K if you wanna buy one. All of the cars we drove on Friday were automatic's. I had been hoping for a manual transmission but I think the automatic made things much easier. In sport mode or sport plus mode, all of the cars shifted up and down at near-perfect times and places. Nothing like most of the automatics I've driven. As we drove this session we started pushing harder. I saw 120 mph several times in the Carerra GTS and became more comfortable with its adhesion limits. Speaking of adhesion limits, the car recorded maximum G levels. The most I saw was about 1.6 lateral G's, which had to be at a dip in the road where the car was experiencing more than one vertical G. I saw about 1.4 G's under braking and .9G's accelerating. Holding 1+ G's in a corner resulted in audible tire squeal. When I got off-line, the tires picked up scrubbed off rubber "marbles" which temporarily ruined wheel balance until they (loudly) slung off into the wheel wells.
The fourth driving session was also in the Carrera GTS. We reached the limit of my comfort level in the high speed braking segments. We were pushing harder and harder and some of the sections coming down from 120 MPH were over the top of hills. They were a bit blind and the car lost traction going over the crest. Several times, I felt the rear of the car starting to wiggle, but it never tried to swap ends. Those sections were uncomfortable for me. I could have done a better job on those and carried more speed through the subsequent corners. On some of the other sections, some S-turns, the "corkscrew", etc., I felt like there was a lot more speed available than I was achieving, but I was pretty comfortable with what the car was doing. Where the track was cresting hills you had no visibility of what was beyond the crest of the hill, and it was an exercise of faith praying that there were no water buffalos or XO's (old Georgia Tech sorority joke, sorry) on the track after the crest. I think self-preservation instincts slowed me on the blind segments of the track.
I didn't mention it before, but all of the groups were on the track at the same time - 5-6 cars in a group with each group playing follow the leader. If a faster group caught a slower group, the slower group edged to the side and slowed allowing the faster group to go through. In our afternoon sessions our group (only 4 of us) passed the other groups multiple times and was never caught. We even passed the folks driving the 620HP AWD car.. My conclusion was that the slowest driver in our group was faster than the slowest driver in the other groups - the slowest driver in the group is the pace setter. It felt like I was about on par with the other non-hot shoe driver in our group. Talking between sessions, we seemed to have similar comfort levels and thought we were going about as fast as our egos and talents wanted to go. I will admit to being the only driver in the group to take out a cone - lost concentration on a cool-down lap and was way offline. Tried to split a couple of cones, but no luck! Only got one of 'em, though.
In the final debrief, the instructor was very complimentary and opined that our group was going pretty quickly in the later sessions. Probably fair, although I doubt the other instructors told their groups they were hopeless slugs. Being nice to clients helps reviews and brings people back for advanced classes.
So, I had a really good time, drove fast cars on a beautiful track (truthfully, the Barber Motorsports campus is incredible) and got probably a half hour of coaching during the parking lot sessions and about 3 hours (!)of track time pushing various Porsches around the track at high speed. I was pretty beat by the end of the day.
The final event of the day was riding with one of the instructors on a hot lap. Dude didn't spook me at all, but was scorching fast. Probably 20 mph faster than me at most points on the track and used every inch of the track width. When he nailed the brakes, it was binary - immediately from accelerating to full braking. Wow!
My biggest scare of the day came on the return drive to Atlanta. Inattentive driver made a lane change right into me on I-20. I was kinda zoned, but successfully evaded his attempt on my life.
