This is a must! all that need be said. If you want to be competitive, pull the trigger. Its worth it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2tiz5cBzcfQ

 

Is Sip barber the school where you go and learn how to drink all day while watching cars drive around a track? If so SIGN me up! =P

I've been considering this school. How much did it cost?

 

Care to elaborate? When I did the Skip Barber three day school, there was no attempt to teach racecraft, and little attempt to teach speed -- in fact, I was yelled at for exceeding the arbitrarily set rpm limit.

I learned much more at my local SCCA licensing school...

 

This was my experience as well. If you have track day or time trial experience and want to do a Skippy school, try to get into their 2-day advanced school. The formula cars are about as fast as a 1.8 Miata due to the street tires, and are very softly sprung. Fun to drive, though.

 

Repost from another board on my impressions:

Rob sums it up a lot better than I would with regard to the class structure. I was in a class of 6, in the formula car school. There was a kid that had karted a lot who was new to cars running around the same lap times as me, but otherwise it was an assortment of 'track day in expensive car' and 'I always wanted to drive a race car' types.

The formula cars themselves are really strange to drive. They have typical formula car driving position, quick steering, and sequential transmissions, good shocks (Penskes) but they're very non-formula car like in a lot of ways. They have extremely soft suspensions - lean on the nose of the car and easily make it hit the bumpstops soft. They're on 400 treadwear all-season tires. Looking at the data available, they corner at around 1.3 sustained lateral G. The majority of the instructors' comments to me were things like 'slow down your inputs', 'this isn't a downforce car', 'you're slamming it onto the bump stops', since I was still thinking 'race tires' and 'stiff suspension'.

Oh, and they have a bone stock (including flywheel/clutch) Neon single cam motor. Blipping the throttle was less a blip and more a blaaaaaaaah. You couldn't do clutchless downshifts, because the steering shaft was between the clutch and brake, so left foot braking was more or less impossible unless you got in the car that way, and they were checking that you didn't just bump the starter while in gear to leave the pits.

They were fun cars to drive, though. You could really hang them out, very forgiving.

The rev and gearing limits that they gave us until the middle of the 3rd day were frustrating, since it resulted in lugging the car everywhere. They kind of did a informal "it's ok if you ignore the limits" conversation when I pointed out I was just keeping in 5th the entire way from the corkscrew to 11 and watching the tach (instead of the track) to keep it at 4000 rpm, since none of those turns were corners at that speed.

The lack of racing is what surprised me the most, and what surprises me that SCCA and other organizations accept this in lieu of their normal driver's/racers schools. Passing other people for position was covered only in the classroom, not on track. Mostly it amounts to a few track days worth of experience albeit with better than average instruction. I feel like I learned a lot more about *racing* from running a 24 Hours of Lemons race, honestly.

You can actually get a letter for your National license from one of these, BTW. I think I would have been frustrated had I paid for the school, but given the opportunity it was a great experience to drive on a world class track like Laguna Seca.

 

"Care to elaborate?" Haha NOPE, not gonna spoil it for you, just go and do it but go to road atlanta. The instructers are great guys. They were pretty laid back on revs with me. The hole point of limiting it is so you can work on threshold and trail braking. Coming from drifting I think I showed good car contol and being able to catch the car before spinning unlike others.. I think thats why they were not down my throat. But others had to be reminded because they were missing their braking points. Touching curbs was bone jarring and i never touched the bump stops so im guessing they were sprung pretty hard. Down shifting with the rocking of the foot was easy for me because of pedal setup though alot of people had a hard time with it. Im not sure why that dude above was so neutral about his experience but i can tell you there was never a dull moment and everyone in our class had experience on track. I didnt once see an instructer grill anyone. And if its the price your worried about then get out of motorsports. I got tons of seat time for 3800.
I dont want to go into detail because it will take away from the experience.

 

I think you missed my point, which I'll be blunter about -- I've taken the course before, and found it an extremely expensive waste of time. As MattP pointed out, my class was mostly made up of (and targeted towards) adventure-seeking novices -- this week they were driving a race car at 3/10ths, next week they might be bungie jumping or swimming with sharks.

I'm happy that you enjoyed the class, but people with significant track day or autocross experience won't learn much from a Skip Barber three day school. Your money is much better spent taking an SCCA licensing school.

 

While Skip Barber is a Great school I don't see how they can give you the same kind of instruction in a single seater as you can get from someone riding front seat with you. I bought my Mom a 1 day skip barber defensive driving school a number of years ago and that was fantastic for her.

I recently did a 3 day rally school with Dirt Fish and I'd hold that 2nd to none for driving instruction and making you quicker.

 

How would you do that from talking about it? It's not a movie... or is it? If I'm gonna pony up $3800+ from what amounts to HPDE with a little bit more seat time, then I think I'll pass. More details = better informed decision.

If your talking about the details takes away from the experience, then it already sounds like it isn't worth it... I wanna drive cars, not talk about them.

Anyway, not knocking it since I haven't done it, but MattP's write up is what I'm looking for with regards to making an informed decision - it's even more relevant for me since I'm in SoCal and would do it at Laguna Seca if I did go. Thanks

 

There are instructors at every corner and a stop box that you pull up to on the back straight. They radio to you and give you feedback as you go. Lap by lap i was able to pick at eachcorner from the feedback given untill i could get perfect and consistent laps.