Drivers Education Safety Issues, please read and remember Options

[VegasRacer]

The Las Vegas PCA / SCCA is having a Drivers Ed track weekend Sept 3 - 4.
All of us Instructors got this e-mail today. I thought it was worth sharing.

Hi folks,
As some of you are probably aware, much has been written and floating
around the internet about the 2 recent fatal accidents (California and
Watkins Glenn) during Driver Ed/open track sessions. With 2 of our own
events coming up soon it is certainly worthwhile to put some thought on the
subject. (Including open road events) The comments I'm forwarding are about
the best of the hundreds of thousands of words many of us have seen. Please
take a few minutes to read what this guy (no relation to me) has to say.
Thank you,
Carl

-----Original Message-----
From: Darren Young [mailto:artspeed@earthlink.net]


Having just read the Watkins Glen incident report from Bob Read, I feel
somewhat obligated to throw in my observations and reactions to the
situation. Truly a tragedy to hear about; my sincere condolences to the
man's family and friends, as well as to the local POC chapter affected by
this sad occurance.

My name is Darren Young, and, like many of you, I have been involved in
motorsports for a large part of my life; I actually am one of those
fortunate few who manage to make something of a living in the business,
having worked for several years now in what's known as the "ride & drive"
business -- mainly sales training for manufacturers, but also in many cases
involving driving on tracks and setting up programs for such events. I've
been racing in one form or another since somewhere in the late '70's, and
have managed to run a little bit of everything, both amateur and pro racing.
In addition, I do a tremendous amount of track instruction, both
professionally and as a member of the BMW CCA, the national marque club for
those cars -- I'm lead instructor for the Los Angeles chapter -- and also
for the BMW Club Racing and NASA licensing schools out here in California.
That all said, it's not so much to blow my personal horn as to certify my
"been there, seen that" credibility.

First of all, in all my instruction experience, one thing that has been
concerning me the last few years is the steep climb in performance levels of
road cars, i.e. it is very possible for the average driver to go out and
purchase a car that, even in the hands of an experienced driver, can be
quite a challenge to drive on track at speed. And the worst part to me is
that the majority of these cars are SO good that they impart a false sense
of security to these amateur drivers; a new BMW M3, for example, has
horsepower and cornering ability that exceed the levels of all but the best
race cars of twenty years ago. Now take this scenario: Joe Average shows up
at his local BMW Club driving school event with an automobile that makes him
feel like a hero -- it's so easy to drive fast, has tons of go-juice, etc.
etc. -- and we're going to turn him loose on a track where he can attain
speeds he's likely never experienced before (save for a short burst on an
open highway to "see what it'll
do") and he's now going to put a helmet on his head and "learn to drive like
a racecar driver". Add to that the fact that he got a set of these "R-type"
tires that stick like stink and make the car feel like the space shuttle on
wheels, and we have a potential recipe for disaster.

For what it's worth, when we get a new student at the BMW club schools, no
matter what their previous experience they will end up in a novice group. In
addition, they will have an instructor riding shotgun with them for the
entire time they are on the track -- the day, the weekend, whatever. With
only super-notable exceptions, a novice student is NEVER signed off to drive
solo; this has been our chapter's (and that of most BMW club schools) policy
forever, and I don't see it changing anytime soon. Novice students are also
required to spend considerable time in the classroom, both formal
instructional lectures and debriefings after each session; in addition, we
also schedule classroom sessions for the advanced students, many times
covering reviews of basics and fine-tuning them.

Over and over, we stress that safety is Job One out there, and we tell the
students that. Our schools are run with that concept in mind -- high-speed
driving can be dangerous, and each thing they are taught in class (and on
the track by their in-car instructors) is aiming at having a safe
experience. Our intent is to convince each participant that driving a car at
speed isn't a mere matter of stomping on the pedal, but rather a refined
art, a confluence of technique and good judgement that results in a good
lap. Vision technique, smoothness, thinking ahead, ramping up speed
gradually -- all the stuff that we as instructors/drivers/etc. almost take
for granted needs to be planted firmly in the brains of each student before
they even get onto pregrid. Of primary importance is an instructor's ability
to control the student -- when I teach instructors, my first axiom to them
is that "You are driving the car from the other seat". In other words, you
as a teacher also have to be attuned
to what's going on with the car and where it's going, just as if you were
actually driving the car yourself; in most cases, this allows the instructor
to see something "bad" coming long before it gets to the point of bad,
allowing the instructor to take action (verbally or physically) to diffuse
the potential situation and prevent a problem. And furthermore, the
instructor MUST be in control of the student's head -- be aware of his/her
attitude, level of anxiety, level of talent and ability to understand and
execute instructions.

I suppose I could go on forever, boring you all with the details of how I
believe in teaching high-performance driving, but the main point I'm hoping
to reveal here is that, while all the HANS devices and airbags in the world
can't prevent disasters from happening, good instruction and management at
the events is the first line of defense against incidents such as what
happened at the Glen. I am by NO means implying by this statement that the
event was mismanaged or that the instruction was sub-par; I've worked with
POC people in the past and have found them to be immensely talented folks,
and from everything I've heard about the incident, it was just one of those
unfortunate things that we never like to see happen. All I'm saying is
reminding everyone that how an event is set up and run dictates its success
both from a safety and from a fun-quotient standpoint. The unfortunate
incident a few weeks back at California Speedway is sad proof of the
aforementioned -- from what I
understand after hearing and reading several accounts of the hows and whats
of what went down there, my opinion is that the event was simply run way too
loosely, too much was assumed or taken for granted, and the students were
not reined in tightly enough. Again, my opinion -- and, had there not been a
"perfect storm" of coincidence on several layers, the incident would not
have occured and the event may have come off just fine. But the sad truth
is, it did not come off fine -- and therein lies the basis of my answer to
Bob's question: Controlling every factor of what happens at the event --
including the attitude of each participant -- is the key to a safe,
enjoyable day.

Obviously, we can't expect every participant in a DE to arrive with the
latest helmet, HANS device attached, all that; we CAN, however, create and
control an event to mitigate all but the most unforeseeable of
circumstances. I'm pleased to say that -- knocking on wood here! -- in all
the DE events I have participated/taught/managed, mainly for the BMW club
folks, we have not had anything more serious than a banged-up elbow and a
few minor cuts resulting from any of the incidents I've witnessed; in fact,
possibly the worst thing I've heard of is one of our instructors getting his
sunglasses frame mashed into his face by an airbag that went off when a car
in which he was instructing managed to tag a wall hard enough to trigger the
airbags (thru the helmet, no less!...). Fortunately, it looked far worse
than it was, but still -- I'm confident that the best piece of "equipment"
or whatever we can utilize for all our DE endeavours is good preparation.
Just like on our race cars, good
preparation is the best panacea against failure. Sure, "shit happens", as
the ol' bumper sticker sez; but the more one pays attention to the
preparation of his/her racecar -- or DE event -- the less chance there is
for disaster.

I hope I've been able to add some helpful information to the "operating
bags" you all bring to a driving event; and, while I've spent a lot of time
and introspection working on my personal instructional "chops" (as well as
my driving chops!) over the years, one thing I've managed to cram into my
pea-brain is that you never stop learning. To me, that's one of the
challenges -- and joys -- of doing this driving-like-a-bat-outta-hell
silliness we all love so much. Good luck and good driving to all of you, my
friends. As the Germans say (the BMW guys, anyway): Aus Freude am Fahren!*

----> Darren Young / ArtSpeed Racing, Los Angeles, CA

* For the Joy of Driving