Speed

Skip Barber - Intro to Racing

As I crested a hill and caught my first glimpse of Laguna Seca Raceway, I was struck by how different it looked from just a few short months ago. The CART series had been in town then for its annual race, but now the facility was all but empty.

Gone were the covered suites that ran the full length of pit road and blocked the view. Gone were the transporters and their crews. Gone were the covered work areas and the wide expanses of outdoor carpeting. Gone, too, the tall mobile tool carts, the race cars, the spare cars, and all the spare body parts. Gone were the crowds, the cars in the parking lot, the traffic, the food tents and all the infield vendor booths. The paddock area was now one large, open expanse of black asphalt. (Here are two pictures that show the difference.)

The only sign of life came from two large, red pickup trucks spinning and sliding around a makeshift skid pad at the rear of the paddock area. As I parked in front of the Skip Barber Racing School, one of the trucks spun slowly yet soundlessly, totally out of control. Looked like fun to me.

First a Few Basics

Before we climbed into the cars, a Barber instructor gave us a brief introduction to racing lines, shifting techniques and rules of the road. Since this was only a half-day class, there wasn't really a lot of time to teach any novices how to drive a racecar, but the instructor did a good job of covering the essentials. The transmissions in the Formula Dogdes had no synchro-mesh and the gears had square (versus rounded) corners, so shifting was going to be very difficult, unless we knew the heel and toe technique. There would be no time to practice shifting, so those who could heel and toe were encouraged to do so, and those who could not were encouraged to keep the car in third gear, which would work all the way around the track, even through the three turns where second gear would have been better.

After we got fitted for driving suits and helmets, we headed downstairs to where our instructor was standing by one of the cars for further instruction. Most injuries at the school, we were told, occurred getting in and out of the cars, so our instructor showed us the proper way to get in and out. When you're in the car, you're lying down, with just your head sticking up above the body of the car. A low roll bar behind protects your head. We walked over to pit road, where fourteen cars awaited the fourteen students, and we climbed in, buckled up and donned our helmets.

The plan was to go out onto the track in four small groups, with each group following an instructor who drove a Dodge Neon (which turned out to be surprisingly quick). The students would take turns following directly behind the instructor, who would pick up speed as the students became familiar with the cars and the tracks. Since the instructors would be taking the correct racing line through the turns, we were encouraged follow in their tracks exactly. We would turn laps for twenty minutes, then rest in the pits for a bit, then go back out for another twenty minutes, rest again in the pits, then go out for our third and final twenty minute lapping session.

We were told we would be shuffled around after the first session to place the students in matching skill groups. The slower students would drive together and not have to worry about about holding up the faster students, and the faster students would drive together without being held up by the slower students. This made my day extremely enjoyable, because I ended up in the fastest group, and throughout the sessions, we kept getting faster and faster. It was a perfect setup.

[I had planned on writing more, but time restraints prevented it. -Ron]

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