The LazyAssGeek’s

After a drive across the desert on Highway 160 (last gas for 40 miles!) that had gorgeous scenery we arrived at Spring Mountain Motorsports Ranch.  Wouldn’t it have been cool if that picture had been taken just as we arrived? Well since I forgot my camera back at the time share that wasn’t possible (ok, you done now? Good, let’s move on).  You cross the front straight as you pull into the facility, which is kinda strange the first time when you haven’t seen how they work their gate system.  We parked out front and headed inside to sign our lives away, pretty much literally, and acknowledge the $8000 damage deductible on the insurance included with the school package. You can pony up another $200 to take care of most of that, but we were feeling confident so opted against that.  The course we were taking is the Level 1 3-Day Corvette Program.

After meeting the group, 7 of us on the first day, our instructor Jordan gave us an overview of what we’d be doing over the 3 days.  2 of the folks in the group were there for only the 1 day “Corvette Performance Highlights” class.  One guy (Sal) had been riding a motorcyle at a track day there over the weekend and since he was thinking about buying a Vette decided to hang around and take the 1 day.  The other 1 day guy (Danny) was in Vegas with his wife and while she was at a conference he decided to head on down to Pahrump. An employee of the facility, Mitch, was also taking the 1 day because he had some projects coming up for the company and needed some first hand experience.

After that introduction it was right to the cars! My first ride was a silver Z06, though for the upcoming exercise I really didn’t get to take advantage of the differences between it and a standard C6, that would come on Wednesday(cue the dramatic music) and frankly at that moment I wouldn’t have been able to appreciate the differences anyway. If I remember correctly Joe got a yellow C6. They took us over to the skid pad where they had a braking exercise setup. They start you off with the ABS fuse pulled, which disables ALL of the computer assists so we had raw, 430-505hp rides under us. The first exercise was to get the car to 35mph and when you got to a pair of cones hit the brakes and bring the car to a stop.  Here’s where it gets interesting though – the skid pad has a special, very slippery sealer on it, and they were standing there with a fire hose and had wet down the braking zone. The idea was to “threshold” brake, get the wheels up to lock and then release, modulating them to keep them as close to lock as you could but not keep them locked and bring the car to a halt. OK, so we did that a couple of times, and then they wanted us to come down at 35 again and this time just pound on the brakes and lock ‘em up, trying to get a 4-wheel lock immediately.  Joe got it first time, took me a second try as instinct kept me from really hammering on them the first time.  Even on a wet, slippery surface with the wheels locked down the Vettes come to a stop very quickly. I took this lousy cell phone camera pic while waiting my turn, since I neglected to bring along the real thing(would you PLEASE let it go).

They got us out of the cars and after a quick break they explained what they wanted us to do next. This time we’d again come down at 35 and hit 4 wheel lock, but when we hit the brakes we were also to put in a quarter turn of steering to the right, then when instinct told us it was time, release the brakes, let the car catch and make the lane change between the rows of cones and then bring the car to a complete stop in the right lane. This was VERY cool and again it was amazing how quickly the Vettes would catch and turn on that surface after you released the brakes, make the lane change and then come to a controlled stop. After a few shots at that, all of them successful on Joe’s and my parts I’ll have you know, we pulled the cars back over and this time they put in the fuses and life became much easier as we had full ABS, traction control and active handling on our sides. The next time through the cones was lane change again, but no preset steering input, no release of the brakes and you wouldn’t know whether to turn left, right or keep straight on until you got to the cones when Victor (another instructor) standing at the far end would point you where to go.  The purpose of the pointing was to begin to hammer in their visual scanning technique – get your head up and eyes off the road directly in front of the car, you know where you are, look where you’re going next.  We did this one quite a few times and they would have us bump up the speed until on the last runs we were doing 50 when we stomped on the brakes.

<The LazyAssGeek Steps up onto the soapbox>On the debrief for this exercise they were quite forceful in suggesting we show this exercise to other people.  ABS is great, but if you don’t use it properly it can’t help you.  The purpose behind 4 wheel locking was to teach us to give the ABS a “high initial impact” so the system would immediately know you need help.  From there the key is to KEEP YOUR FOOT ON THE BRAKE as long as you need to, do NOT let off the brake if you have ABS and you feel that hammering.  Removing your foot tells the computer you don’t need it any more, and when you put your foot back on the computer starts the process over. A lot of us were taught to pump the brakes if you felt the wheels lock, but ABS is way better at it, so use it!! </soapbox>

After the braking debrief it was onto learning heel-toe shifting.  Wow, ya know when people say that something isn’t as it seem?  Heel-toe is every bit as hard as it seems.  You’re working 3 pedals with 2 feet.  I won’t go into a long description as there’s tons of stuff on the web about it. If you have no idea what I’m talking about, watch this vid and at about the 13 second and 28 second marks you’ll see the driver pivot his foot from the brake to clip the throttle with his heel while he’s holding the clutch in.  The idea of doing this is to bring the RPM’s up so that when you release the clutch you get a smooth shift so you don’t get braking to the rear wheels induced by engine compression.  If you don’t do this and you release the clutch when the car ain’t in a straight line it’s very easy to spin the car!  So after giving us the theory we went out to the 5/8 mile long backstretch where they have cones setup.  From there we ran a loop back & forth, using cones at the far ends as markers for where to begin braking.  First just braking to get a feel for how much brake pressure we needed to bring the car down to 20mph by the last cone, then try to get that “blip” of the throttle.  Mind you, a “blip” is anything over 3000 and under 5500rpm so it’s a damn hard blip.  Anything under 3000 is a blurp.  We all did a lot of blurping but started to get the feel.  I struggled more with this than Joe seemed to, but then he has those clown feet so I’m pretty sure he could work all 3 pedals with one foot if he needed to!  After that exercise and a short debrief they let us go have some lunch.  They include the lunches and lay out a pretty nice spread each day, Monday was the typical deli tray, but not bad at all.

After lunch we got a tour of the clubhouse.  Everything there is practically new and the clubhouse is less than a year old.  It’s VERY nice, though much more relaxed than your typical Philly country club.  They have a great pool and grill area and an observation tower where members can watch races, complete with misters for the hot Nevada racedays.  Quite a few pics in the full gallery, but here are a couple of highlights.

After the tour we got a briefing on Lead/Follow sessions.  They run as a train and everybody gets a turn behind the instructor.  We broke into 2 groups so it wasn’t very difficult when they called a change on the back straight to count the number of cars and fall to the back of the group. The laps were in 4th gear, no shifts and at a fairly easy pace.  The idea was to show us the proper line around the track, see where the instructor uses the brakes and keep thinking about what we’d been taught, using visual scanning, etc. It was fun finding the line and beginning to feel like you were running the track.

After that session we headed up to another big patch of asphalt over by the skid pad.  On this pad were a paperclip oval on one end and on the other was a rather modified Dodge Stratus.  Victor had us for the oval, riding shotgun while we drove.  The oval was to teach cornering, each end having different shapes and really it was more of a tri-oval so you were setting up for 3 corners every time around.  Victor would have you pick up speed bit by bit until you finally were getting the car a little sideways(TC off again). It was a good exercise in picking up corner entries & exits.  That Dodge Stratus however.. that’s a bizarre little thing.  Mounted at each corner are hydraulically controlled wheels that can be raised & lowered from controls in the passenger seat to induce under- or oversteer. They referred to it as the “Vomit Comet” as the back seat ride is a recipe for motion sickness. I was first up with Joe & Renee riding in the back.  You just do a figure 8 around cones placed at each end.  The whole time Jordan is preaching visual scanning, get your eyes out from in front of the car and look where you want to go, not where you are.  A couple of circuits around to get a feel and then he starts pressing buttons.  First up is understeer, push in NASCAR terms. Turns out that is very counter-intuitive to get out of.  As you turn and the car stops wanting to go the way you do you have to turn INTO the understeer and come OFF the brakes(without ABS anyway). Oversteer is more natural to correct for, countersteer and gas it.  It’s also a wild ride when that back end starts to come around and Joe & I both did manage to lose it and spin it completely around – give up on it as Jordan said. After riding my turn behind the wheel I went for the ride with Joe behind the wheel and started to feel just dizzy enough that I decided one ride back there was enough. Renee was comfy as could be and claimed to be about ready to take a nap while we drove!  Both exercises were very instructive and a lot of fun.

The Vomit Comet

To end the day we did one more Lead/Follow session.  This wasn’t much different than the first one, maybe just a bit faster.  Their program is definitely based on building blocks and they make sure you build skills before you move to the next phase.  After that we had a bit more sales schtick back in the classroom with the folks responsible for different segments (the club, the school, corporate events) taking a minute to make a pitch.  Then certificates were given to the 2 guys that would not be with us the rest of the way. Instead of a certificate, Mitch the employee got to leave to head to Detroit along with Anthony (sales guy who we booked our class through) to pick up the 2 ZR-1′s they managed to get their hands on and drive them back to Pahrump.  Poor guy, I’m sure he would have preferred a certificate.

That was it for Day 1 and wow were we tired! Joe & I chatted back & forth about the day the whole way home, and it really helped to try to absorb everything that had been tossed our way. We had a few beers when we got back to the room and decided we were too tired to face the idea of getting on the shuttle to head into town.  The alarms were set for 5:30am so Papa John’s sounded like a good way to refuel for the next day.  Some pizza, a couple more beers, handled some e-mail and off to sleep to get ready for more on Day 2!