SPS

The Event

The event responsible for such a fortunate opportunity was the First Annual Hikari Works Racing Driver’s School co-sponsored by The Wheel Source (www.wheel1.com) and Passen Motorsports (www.passenmotorsports.com.) As the name implies, this year marked the first of what is planned to be an ongoing annual event.

So what exactly is a "driver’s school?" Technically, a "driver’s school" can mean several things depending upon the context. For example, experienced drivers that are applying for a competition license must attend a "driver’s school" in order to get their license. But these events are normally focused upon the rules of competition and safety rather than how to pilot a vehicle at speed around a road-course.

However, in most cases – including ours – a "driver’s school" is an event in which a paying participant learns how to drive a road course at speed with the help of an instructor. They are usually semi-structured events with limited passing. Some schools offer rental cars to the participants, while others are "run what ya brung." Some may involve stationary classroom instruction, while others are pure on-track action. Most events will cost between $150 and $500.

The Hikari Racing school was a "run-what-ya-brung" event, so at any given time, my little SL2 was on the track with a wide variety of cars ranging from an annoyingly slow Honda CRX to an intoxicatingly fast Supra Turbo World Challenge racecar. Other than a brief 15-minute drivers’ meeting before the event, we had no structured "classroom" instruction. Instead, our group of 30 students split into two groups and shared 15 awesome instructors. The result was over 2 hours of 100mph personalized, one-on-one, on-track, behind-the-wheel instruction. But more about that later…

The Track

The venue for our school was the Putnam Park Road Course (http://www.putnampark.com), located just west of Indianapolis between Greencastle and Cloverdale, Indiana.

Our course configuration was called the 10 Turn Long Course, which meant that we skipped both The Loop and Times Square options. We were left with 10 turns, one long front straightaway, 2 intermediate straightaways, and a few short connections. The total course length was 1.766 miles. Corner workers and emergency crews were on duty during the entire day.

The rules of the day called for passing only along the front straight and between turns 4 and 5. And in all cases, the overtaking driver had to wait until being "pointed by" from the slower driver. Except for a few very fast cars (such as the World Challenge Supra), most cars were too evenly matched to make a move in the short distance between turns 4 and 5, so most of us waited until the front straight to attempt a pass.

Every turn was marked with cones that indicated turn-in points (the point at which the turn should begin,) apex points (the point at which you come the closest to the inside of the turn,) and track-out points (the point at the end of a turn in which you come closest to the outside edge of the track.) This made learning the course ALOT easier - just point and shoot. As a beginner, I greatly appreciated the "targets."

Most of the course was relatively flat – another good thing for a beginner like me. However, shortly before the end of the front straight-away, there was a subtle rise that peaked just beyond the 300 ft braking marker and then fell again to the turn-in point. Another short but steep rise presented itself after turn 3 and peaked right at the start of the left hander that positions the car to hit the apex properly at turn 4. And all of turn 8, nicknamed "Dead Bear Turn," was a valley that hit its deepest point in the center of the turn and rose again almost completely before the straight leading to turn 9.

Turn 9 normally would have been a fast wide sweeper to the right. However, repairs had been done to turn 9 the week prior, so in our case, most of the turn had been halved by a lane of cones. The experienced drivers were probably annoyed by this. But again, as a beginner, it was a blessing of sorts as it gave everyone a chance to slow down and "rest" before setting up for turn 10 and blasting down the front straight-away. And it made the exit to the pit lane – at the end of turn 9 – easier to find at a safe speed.