From: battan@sequent.com (Jim Battan)
Newsgroups: rec.autos
Subject: Skip Barber Advanced Driving School report
Date: 23 Aug 92 17:32:54 GMT
Organization: Sequent Computer Systems Inc.

I recently attended the two-day BMW/Skip Barber Advanced Driving
School (known as Skippy School to the cognoscenti) held at Sears
Point raceway in CA.  In a nutshell, it's an expensive ($880), but
thoroughly rewarding and fun, way to learn how to drive faster,
with better control, and more safely.  For another review of this
school, see the autos archive, which contains a review by Mark
Sirota.

My class had 12 students and 4 instructors.  The instructors have
all been doing auto racing of one form or another for 2 to 10 years,
including SCCA SOLO-II, GTU, Firehawk, Formula One, and some other
acronyms I couldn't recognize.  They were generally good at
instructing, some better than others.  All really knew their subject
matter, and made sure people weren't left behind in either the
lectures or in the sessions.

The 12 students were from CA mostly, with 2 from OR and two from
NC.  Their drives:  Previa Van, Taurus SHO, Mustang LX, Porsche
911, Lexus Coupe, Mercedes 300E, Corsica, BMW 525i, Volvo, Peugot,
Miata, RX7 convertible.  The ages ranged from 17 to mid 40s, with
most in their 20s.

The cars were 1992 4 door BMW 325i's with about 500 miles on the
odometer.  They had 8 sticks and 4 autos.  We used the manual ones.
I was surprised to see us start them up and immediately take them
out to the skidpad without warming them up.  The poor cars were
brutalized, not just during the braking, skidding, and turning,
but because of all the fidgeting the students did while waiting
their turns.  My hyper partner played with all the buttons, pushing
them as fast as he could.  The cars never had a mechanical problem.
We went through 1.5 sets of Goodyear Gatorback 205/VR60-15s on all
cars during the two days.  For some strange reason, tire wear was
mostly on the outside edges.  :-)

We had three classroom sessions, where we learned about vehicle
dynamics, turning, braking, skidding, shifting, lane changing,
sliding, tires, mirrors, lines, and helpful hints on avoiding speed
traps.

Most of the time was spent practicing these things.  We had sessions
on braking (with ABS, without ABS, threshold, while turning), skid
pad (in a circle, oval, and figure-8), heel-and-toeing, and lane
changing.  The lane changing was the hardest (heaving the car across
two lanes in a 10' distance, without hitting the cones), and
power-sliding around the figure-8 was the most fun.  30 times around
a skid pad at 40 MPH after lunch can be a real joy.  :-)  The people
not driving were encouraged to sit in the back seats (the instructor
was usually in the front passenger seat) to learn without doing.
Being tossed around in the back seat, especially if you're sitting
on the inside seat during the skidpad, and being out of control in
a 360 spin with the other car coming right at you (two cars shared
the two skidpads during the oval and figure-8 sessions), can also
be a great joy.

We typically got to do each exercise 10-30 times, plenty of time
to tell the difference between doing a maneuver correctly and
incorrectly.  There were no accidents, but an awful lot of close
calls (their skid pad is dangerously close to a building given how
little some of the students listened; fortunately the instructor
pulled the hand brake when appropriate).  You're not liable for
car damage.

The final instructional section was the autocross.  They laid out
a course with short cones, with two hairpin, one S, and one
compound turn, plus two straight-aways.  Two cars were stagger
started, and each driver got two sets of five laps around the
course.  This was my second most favorite event.  It was enlightening
when, after all the students had gone around the course thinking
they did a pretty good (fast) job, we piled into the cars and the
instructors showed us how fast the course could be taken.  They
also showed us how locking the brakes, having rough lines, and
flooring the throttle at all times didn't help lap times.

Then we broke into two teams of 6, and had a relay race.  The first
team's first driver would start the clock running, go around five
laps, then stop between two cones, jump out, run around and tag
the next driver, who would jump in the car (leaving the door open
to close by itself when the car sped away), do the laps, etc.  The
second team, mine, learned lots of time-wasting things the first
team did, so we won the rally by 15 seconds.  If the first team
hadn't knocked over 4 cones, we would have won by only 3.5 seconds.
I had the fastest lap time of anyone, 23.68 seconds, but only by
1/10th a second!

The last event of the class was the "proof of the pudding."  The
instructors had us pile into 4 cars and they took us on two screaming,
80-95 MPH, laps around Sears Point.  All the things they had
mentioned (shuffle steering, heel-and-toeing, holding your line,
power sliding, threshold braking, etc) were used to great effect
around the track.  My driver's comment, "a squealing tire is a
happy tire" was tres' apropos, since tires were squealing the whole
time.  And they called it an 8/10ths trip, not full-out like they'd
do by themselves.  What a blast, if a little terrifying.  We later
watched as the Formula Fords and Can-Ams took to the course, thinking
how much scarrier it would be at 130 MPH and with little protection
around you.

We got to take home a nice booklet that described everything we
had learned.  It also carried a four-page ad for BMWs, for which
we all had a lot more appreciation.

I'd highly recommend this school, obviously.  But before you go,
make sure you build up strength in your deltoids and hip abductors.
I can see why race car drivers are so properly pumped up; you really
use those muscles to brace yourself and fling that wheel around.
Practice heal-and-toeing too, if you have a stick-shift.

Skip Barber advertises in the back of most car magazines.  And no,
I don't get any renumeration by writing any of this.
-- 
Jim Battan - Sequent Computer Systems, Beaverton, OR
battan@sequent.com or uunet!sequent!battan
+1 503 578 5129