i lost my self-confidence,

True that. Superman until that date with destiny. I will say the one line that, despite the eventual tragedy, does seems to make it all worth it some how:

"Greatness, no matter how brief, stays with a man."

 

I have not read the whole thread, in fact I've just read the first post and skim the first page. It is critical to have a good coach. One that can coach you at your level and raise the level slowly to suit your need. Everyone learn differently and at different speed. Not everyone's a match either. Going with multiple coach and choose which one fits you the best is probably prudent. Ive always tell my students//clients to take baby steps.

Everyone is teachable. Just need to find the correct way/pair/match.

 

i have lived long enough, been injured(not on track badly) and 2 track wall events, to pause and think. I still ride motorcyles, but on the road and differently.

Someone said if you're not afraid when strapping in then you're a fool and thats true. Best to have as safe a car as possible too. That being said once on track my fears melt away and I focus on the task at hand. If youre conciously afraid out on track time to hang up those spurs.

Not to say one should be fearless, bravado killed many a driver. Just as important if you lack enough inate skill, coaching and experince you simply shouldnt be there. Not everyone has the same ability, some can be coached and gain enough experience to be competant, others never will, just like I will never play the guitar even though I would love to.

 

a track day should be as safe as any other sport such as skiing or stick and ball sports, surfing, etc. very different from racing, a track day should be about having fun with sports car. NOT setting lap times, racing another car, never having to give a point by, etc. drive within your and the cars ability with a sufficient margin for error. those that want more thrills should do time trials or actual door to door racing, not hpde. multiple hpde accidents are indicative or wrong attitude, not lack of ability or technique, wrong car, or need for more coaching (unless that coach does an attitude adjustment). new season is almost here in northeast and I will be back in passenger seat again and would like to enjoy a fun and safe 2017!

 

I would put telemetry in the car, and analyze the prior drive to pick out where you can improve. Note: that the telemetry will show you where you are inconsistent, not necessarily slow. That is where your opportunity is. Develop one turn at a time until your skill consistency improves your times. You can't shed time by just running the same lap faster, because there will be areas where you are taking the car to it's limits consistently, and there is no opportunity for improvement on that turn. So remember consistent best laps beats fastest lap overtime. This method will always improve your slow points without exposing you to your fast turns at a faster speed. Also you need to spend some time on a skid pad getting accustomed to your car out of control. Mastering that will give you recovery skills that will pay off on this accident stuff. It's not as mush that you lost control but how you recover that determines if you hit something.

 

Adding to the above post, I am a firm believer in collecting objective measures using simple data acquisition devices that integrate seamlessly in most modern Ferraris and other cars. Telemetry is actually the "broadcast" of this data over the air via cell or radio packets and is not needed to do this sort of thing. Just an AiM Solo or a VBOX would work well.

A measure that can actually calculate and SHOW you how much grip is left is the gSum measure, basically how much forces are generated in all axis (braking and acceleration WHILE cornering) and show you how close you are to the "edge." By looking at WHERE you're doing well, and WHERE you have opportunities for improvement, you can make intelligent choices, rather than dangerous, uncalibrated guesses...

Having worked with drivers one-on-one for more than thirty years, I can tell you that most accidents are due to several factors, not just one. These factors accumulate and go unnoticed and uncorrected until it's too late.

Early entry line, coming off the brake too early and at too high a speed, jerking the steering wheel, mashing the gas pedal hard while the car is unstable, CONTINUING TO POWER ON AFTER LOSING CONTROL OF THE CAR... At EACH point, a driver MUST evaluate whether to go to the next input, or not... Crashing is NOT part of a proper playing of the game, I can assure you.

And, when you lose control of the car, DON'T do anything to make it worse! KNOW when to fold 'em. "when you spin, both feet in (on a three-pedal car)"-Brian Redman

The one SINGLE, most common factor that causes crashes at a track day or DE is a driver trying to do something MOMENTARILY completely different than they have before and hoping it sticks... You'd be surprised. This is very common. They think they'll make the breakthrough by adding ten miles an hour when two will do.

Work on corner exit rather than entry, then work on edging up mid-corner speed, ONLY THEN work on corner entry. A good coach should be helping with that, not just beating on and berating their client to "go faster..."

There's a lot to it, but if the OP has had multiple incidents in a short time without fully understanding every aspect of what happened before and how to prevent it, perhaps other sports beckon...

 

LOOK FARTHER AHEAD!
LOTS farther ahead.

The brain/body disconnect you describe is often caused by not having (or believing you have) enough "processing time."



I'd also advise a much slower car to start with.

 

Brake Failure Turns BMW Track Day Into A Total Disaster

 

Reminds me of my first intro to racing classes with Skip Barber. They used that phrase a lot, but went one further. There was always a big orange cone waaaay out in the runoff areas, notably at turn 16 at Sebring which can be treacherous if you put your outside wheels off and try to over correct, snapping back across the track and nose first into the inside wall.

I will always remember Terry Earwood telling us, a bunch of raw rookies "We call that the Aim Here cone. If you drop a wheel, don't try to correct. Man up, take the off, and shoot for the Aim Here cone." That way we could recover safely, drive back to the pits in one piece, and talk about what happened and what to change.

 

I saw news of this tragedy in another thread, and I felt compelled to post it here.

To the OP, this is an extreme example of what can happen when aggression exceeds skill level. Learn the art of driving at speed slowly and thoroughly before trying to maximize results or go 10/10's.

http://www.ferrarichat.com/forum/tracking-driver-education/545203-instructor-student-killed-fiery-lamborghini-track-experience-crash-las-vegas.html

 

Ugh what a horror!
Just registered to right seat instruct for another season and this really makes we wonder if its worth it

 

Jack B at Road & Track interviewed me a few years about this very subject, after a particularly grim period in the Mid-Atlantic and Southeast where four instructors lost their lives. One at a PCA DE (one of the tightest ships doing this sort of thing), one at a NASA HyperDrive "experience," and two at Road Atlanta. The title is a little fast and loose, but the subject is apt.

Remote Instructing - Track Day Safety

 

Thanks for sharing that Peter.
/Carm

 

I have stopped instructing after 21 years of it. It stopped being fun for me in the right seat when the cars became so fast. Back in the 90's, your average DE car might have been a BMW 325i putting out 200 hp. Nowadays it's nothing to see cars with twice that power show up - and the talent pool is the same! The more speed, the less time to correct, and the greater the consequences when your student crashes. With today's modern video cameras and technology, it won't be long until it can all be done remotely.

To the OP if he's still reading this thread. You're trying to run before you have learned to walk. Don't hang it up, but leave the Ferrari at home and go get a Spec Miata someone has already set up. They're cheap, handle great, are not too fast and you can learn the basics and control at a much lower speed - and that means less likely to crash.

 

Oy vey

maybe time to take up golf

 

Yes you can coach people to be better, and not everyone can reach the same level or has acess to the same experince. But there are some people who just should not be behind the wheel at speed, they lack for want of a better term the instinct/ability, just like I could never learn tennis, some people can never paint or hold a tune, or dance. The difference is in tennis you cant serve or hit the ball.

I remember in Hs when we all started driving. One guy crashed pretty much every car he got behind the wheel. He wasnt necessarily driving faster, he just had no clue/judgement or feel for the machine, had no idea what was going on, and never developed it, it wasnt in his wiring.

Take the lambo fiery crash. Imo putting anyone behind the wheel of a hyperfast car with no experience is a problem. Same as putting someone who rides mopeds on a yamaha r1. But some people have a feel for machines, and others none. The person with no feel, they see their friends going fast and say hey I can do the same thing too. Its not inexperince I am talking about here, (although thats clearly a factor in many crashes)

It analogous to some people are better lovers than others, some grow into it more over time and experience , and some, well they just dont have and will never have that "feel/touch" for another.

 

Amen.


Or drive with experienced people.

 

maybe its just the op 1st language not English but his posts make me think he will continue to treat track days as f1 qualifying. and doing that in a fast, difficult race car with out skills will lead to tragedy.

other sports beckon is the term I learned at instructors school few yrs ago...

 

Putting langauge aside to me he just dont get it.
When in single seaters many years ago I remember someone saying of another, he is going to learn on the sheets. ie form a hospital bed.

 

Ummm, no.

 

I just did the same.

 

Interesting. I got into racing by doing track days in my '87 Carrera. Had a couple of close calls, so I built up a Spec Miata and went racing. Did it for 3 years but didn't have the passion for the car necessary to keep it in top condition to remain competitive. That, and I also took the rules too seriously and didn't cheat enough.

So I sold the Miata and bought something reasonable cheap that I actually liked. A vintage Alfa. It started cheap, but eventually became kind of expensive. Still an order of magnitude cheaper than racing a Porsche. And I love the car enough to keep developing it and remaining competitive.

 

I haven't read other posts so not sure if posters already addressed the fact cars are just getting too fast especially for certain tracks like Lime Rock CT close to where I live. Some DE Drivers also tend to 'buy' talent rather than hone their skills. Both situations making track says less fun and sometimes downright scary. I've experienced a newby drive by me very late at the bus stop at Watkins Glen only to run out of talent, plow into the gravel and straight to the barrier. I was doing close to 150mph in a GT3 at the time and thought if his knucklehead turned into my car I could have been caught too and I didn't have the skill to manage that situation. Months later I stopped going to tracks after many years. You can drive a slower car as some suggest but there are missles out there and many unguided with little experienced drivers going beyond their capability. I progressed my driving from slower early P cars and took my time to learn but that's not how others think.

 

Miata Is Always The Answer.

Funny how that works out. Most students get to a level and ask, "ok, what next?" I hate to say it, but turn in the GT3 for a Miata is always the best step.