SCCA Teen Street Survival School Today

[njsteve]

The daughter took the SCCA/BMWCCA/Tire Rack Teen Street Survival School today in PA. An incredible event. An entire day of one-on-one instruction and driving for a total of $75 (you bring the car).

She learned a hulluva lot about car control and driving at the limits...and beyond. It is an awesome tool for teaching kids what to do in various out of control situations and teaching them what the limit of adhesion is with their particular car.

Lots of little BMWs, Miatas, and Subarus in attendance. She brought her 5,000 mile 2009 Impala SS which we just got as part of the T/A sale/trade. Nothing like a transverse mounted, 303hp V8 driving the front wheels. The instructors were wondering out loud what the heck Chevrolet must have been thinking making that car! But by the end of the day they were quite impressed with her handling of the machine. She learned a lot about torque steer, understeer, and lack of traction, which is exactly what we wanted her to learn.

When the day started it was hard to get her to accelerate under full throttle. And just as hard to get her to use full ABS triggered braking. By the end of the day it was hard to get her out of the car and off the track! She loved it and is 100% more confident about car handling.

A lot of the instructors would good-naturedly comment to the parents that it was hard to get the kids to push the limits on the cars (i.e. the kids did not want to hit a cone or two). The instructors' opinion was if you aren't bumping some of the cones, you aren't pushing yourself beyond your safety zone. NOT a problem with our daughter. She did exceptionally well at the tasking. [img]<<GRAEMLIN_URL>>/grin.gif[/img] The interesting thing was that she was bumping the cones with the back end of the car, and in the process learning that a front drive car moves quite a bit differently than a rear drive car: you cant swing the back end out under throttle to clear the cones as you pass them. [img]<<GRAEMLIN_URL>>/scholar.gif[/img]

To say I recommend this school to anyone with a teen driver would be an understatement.

Here's the link:

http://streetsurvival.org/

Here's the skid pad action around a foam soaked circle, courtesy of the local fire department.

Cant get any oversteer out of a front drive V8!



And the high speed lane changing exercises: (No cones were injured during the filming of these shots)





At the end of the day they set up an SCCA autocross course and let the students make three runs each with the instructor in the car. I have a ton of videos from the entire day. Most of them have her younger brother yelling out the cone counts...which got lower and lower as the day wore on. (he's jealous)

Maybe the next step is pulling the Viper race car out of mothballs and teaching her how to drive with three pedals instead of two. And to think I retired that car from racing when the daughter was born, around 17 years ago. Boy how time flies....

[John Brown]

Nothing beats experience like driving and braking at the max in a parking lot, except maybe doing the same thing in a dirt field. My father taught me to drive in the summer time in a block square vacant field across the street from our house. That winter we went to an empty supermarket parking lot and did much the same thing. You don't know how your car is going to handle in those situations unless you experience them first hand.

Good for you Steve, and congrats to your daughter. She will be a better and safer driver for the experience. [img]<<GRAEMLIN_URL>>/biggthumpup.gif[/img]

[njsteve]

Two winters ago (early 2011) when we actually had snow in NJ, we took out the K2500 Suburban in 2wd mode and had her spin herself around and try to recover in several parking lots...til we got run off by &quot;The Man&quot;. [img]<<GRAEMLIN_URL>>/grin.gif[/img]

No snow this year!