Racing Schools: Skip Barber or Jim Russell?

Ouch! Thanks for all the pics, Mike!
-G.B.

 

I did the Skip 3 day then the Russel Advanced 3 day (Daytona/Infineon)

THe Russell guys are the best if you are wanting to go pro, or if you want to run with them. When I was there that week 4 TOP F Challenge guys were there to "learn the track" so they spent 5K for the
advanced course to do it. (I beat one of them - ok, just once, ok maybe he had other problems, ahem). As a group I found all the the ferrari challenge guys were arrogant *******s (and so did the instructors
at the school). Money doesn't buy style or class......

Awesome school and Awesome cars but take your balls with you because it is wide open and damn dangerous.!
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Then, you'll prolly want a proper racing program. No "driving experiences", no happy-go-lucky schools. Go to a serious school with serious instructors and learn properly the first time.

If you don't do a proper school, you'll be in for a rude awakening when it comes time to play Mr. Racing Driver.

 

awesome pic dmark1, do they let newbs on the slicks? I would think not ?

 

WOW! Great pic. Thanks for the great advice as well.

 

That's true...thanks for the inisight.

 

+1 for Skippy. I did the 3-day racing school and a lapping day. Absolute blast both times. Learned alot and had fun doing it.

 

Thanks for sharing.

 

My 2cents. I have my national SCCA license and just ran SMiata out at Laguna before I came back East. Great track, but if you have never been on a track, don't get too cocky. There are a few turns there (not the corkscrew) which can eat you up pretty quickly if you don't get them right. I loved the place but ended up pretty slow until the last race of the weekend.

In any case, Skip Barber runs a great school. Have had a few friends go and loved it and said plenty of time in the cars. Go for it, and enjoy. You will be stunned at how much you learn and how much you will all of a sudden appreciate about professional race car drivers.

As someone mentioned earlier, your balls will be required.

MB

 

Hey GB,

I just finished the research you are going through now. I settled on SB. My driving background is about 3 years in a Lotus Exige with 3 schools under my belt. Two local seattle programs and one Lotus program in the UK. I'll be at the SB 3-day and 2-day this Spring. I'm doing them both back to back. the is a 20% discount for doing so. There is also a $500 off thing floating around. If you need the info on that, pm me your email and I'll forward it along.

The insurance is very reasonable.

Best,

Trevor

 

A mere flesh wound!

 

Gotta do the SBRS 3-Day or the Russell intro to even DO the Russell Advanced. The Skippy Advanced is very serious, indeed!

Start out with the SBRS 3-day Racing School. Those pics are great, frefan! Looks like a GoPro on the roll bar.

Still, those Russell cars are just sex on wheels...

 

I second dat emotion. I took the Skippy MX-5 school with Randy. Great guy. Frankly, I don't know how he does it without a nervous breakdown, but he does.

Dale

 

Hmm...thanks for the info. I will be sending you a PM.

Thanks,
-G.B.

 

FreFan - let's show them what $5k in damage looks like!!!

 

what knuckle head that?

 

I'm a little late to this party but I would say Skip Barber is more of a performance driving school than a racing school and even their "advanced racing school" is IMO more "play with race cars for a few days" when compared to other schools.

I've done Skippy twice (maybe 3 times, I forget) but I did the 2-day and the 3-day. I also did the Panoz school which IMO is excellent and more of a "learn to RACE" school. I did the Corvette one in Pahrump which was more of a "play fast with Corvettes for a few days", IMO.

In my humble opinion, any school that calls itself a racing school MUST include multiple wheel-to-wheel hot lapping sessions. Because there is a gigantic, huge, immense, massive difference between going around a track with a guy telling you (either over radio or in the pits) about what you could have done better, vs. being on a track with 20+ other guys all charging into a turn... or fending someone off who is intent on passing you... or mustering up the balls to duck under someone under braking and force a pass. If you don't get any experience in those things, then you're really learning car control as opposed to learning to RACE.

My .02

 

Hmmm, don't know where to start, Mike. Folks HAVE to learn to WALK, before they RUN. Most have to learn to CRAWL before they WALK. The key to a pro school is learning the proper basic skills so you can do that cut and thrust, wheel to wheel action without suffering $2500 worth of damage (or more) by getting screwed up with your feet or hands (or eyes or butt or a million other distractions...).

First off, I am an unabashed advocate for ALL professional schools. 99 and 44/100% of the people who go to ANY of these programs comes away with something. SBRS, Roos, JRRS, Bondurant, Pahrump, Buck Baker, Frank Hawley, Panoz (now owned wholly by SBRS), all of them do a good job in getting people started on the right foot. The best marque club and psuedo pro (NASA, for example) schools are generally not half as good as the middling pro school experience, especially for those starting out.

SBRS runs over 800 separate, distinct and discrete programs from ride and drives to the High Performance Driving to the 5-day advanced racecraft schools to whole "race weeks."

That said, most folks who take the two-day Intro or Basic 3-day programs don't ever move on to anything else, just smile and say "glad I did that." Those who are serious move onto Advanced Lapping or the Race Series and are equipped with the skills and experience to do so. The level of experience present in the instuctor corps providing that feedback over the radio or pit side is priceless...

I find it stunning the amount of experienced people doing track days or grassroots amateur racing who don't follow even the most basic car control rules. Skid control, crisis management and the most BASIC skill of threshold braking is NOT practiced on a wide scale. I just came back from two days at VIR working with private clients who are desparate for correct, proper and authoritative information. They have all been to pro schools, and have an inkling of what is right and what is wrong, but as I always say, there is no place easier to get "free information" than the race track paddock, often with the addendum of "it's worth what you pay for it."

I think the OP can be well served by either JRRS or SBRS, better than Pahrump and Bondurant. The skills learned at either will be the proper foundation for building on, as far as they want to go.

My .02

 

Those look like the old Champ Car DP01 chassis.

 

I came up in the skip barber program, did the 3-day, 2-day, number of lapping days, and then their racing series. its one of the greatest programs in the world. a lot of the guys I raced with at skip, I ended up racing in other series, star mazda, grand am, and other series.
I cant speak for the JR school, but if its like skip then their advance school is really focused on open wheel driving. and its really meant for someone who is going to stick with open wheel racing. if your not planning on doing open wheels, it may not be for you.
if your wanting to go pro, any school is going to be good until your ready to get into an entry series, and what ever your first series is your going to need a private instructor to help you.

 

I don't disagree with you at all.

I don't think someone should jump right into some sort of training without knowing the basics... but I also don't think a 3-day 'race school' where all you do is learn the very basics, and then go out and do a few solo laps being told where you could improve is anywhere close to legitimate preparation to actually enter a race. Racing wheel to wheel is a pretty huge jump up the chain from "well, I did a Skippy 3-day 'race' school!"

I took to racing like a duck to water.. the first Skippy class seemed kind of mundane... things like explanations of countersteering and weight transfer... we spent hours on these topics and IMO it felt to me like we just spent waaaay too long on them. The instructor ride alongs were "ok" but certainly no more than just OK. The instructors were (I guess rightly so) more focused on good form even if you were slow as molasses. I don't disagree with that method, but, it's one thing to have good form when you're slow and another to have good form when you're fast. I sort of disagree with the "first you get smooth, then you get fast" mantra, because if you get a ride with a real pro driver, their inputs to the car are anything but smooth. Very controlled, yes, but not that smooth. It's one thing to have a nice track-out when you're carrying 20mph less than you could/should be And there's nothing wrong with learning slowly, but, many (IMO most) of the schools I went to don't really *want* you to kick it up to that 10/10ths level to explore the limits of your performance... and IMO that's what makes most of them "play with race cars for a day" vs. "learn to be a real racing driver".

I am with you 100% on the lack of talent and ability in many racing series. I was frankly SHOCKED at how bad some name drivers were at some of the race classes. It's like being an athlete... you could be really short on natural ability, but given the best equipment and lots and lots of training, one could probably be a decent golfer. But with natural talent, someone with less experience could be a GREAT golfer. The problem is it's so expensive that most people with natural ability don't have the means to get experience in real racing, and most of the guys who can't afford it aren't usually very good drivers in terms of natural talent. There are guys I raced against at schools who were "pro" (always self-funded) guys running in big name televised series who just had no business being on a track... they were just clueless!

But I digress...

I agree with you that one needs to learn the basics... but I am not a fan of "you will always take something away from the school, ergo it is worthwhile". I think it's worthwhile to start with a 3-day "racing" program, and given that the person has shown to have some talent and ability and grasped the concepts and is able to utilize them, the next step is to go to a real racing school, not to continue doing 3-day "race schools" without ever running wheel-to-wheel in anger.

I think most folks are either going to have the natural talent to be a good driver, or not. If they are, they would be wasting time and money (two things a serious driver is always short of) in going to too many "race schools" that end up being more like 'introduction to racing' schools where you are just rehashing the same concepts over and over.

 

I did a more "boutique" program - Bertil Roos in Pennsylvania - and I was extremely pleased. Some of my instructors included Guy Cosmo and Andrew Prendeville, no slouches. Dennis Macchio, who runs the program, was formerly the manager of Bridgehampton and an all around good guy.

There was at least one person in my class that did Skip previously, and he thought Roos was better. Teaches more "in slow out fast" (do all your braking prior to turn in, blitz the turn, NO trail braking) - than what I'm told Skip does. Prices are reasonable compared to the other schools and you do get SCCA license sign-off upon completion of the 5-day school.

 

Cool. I agree. I think there may have been more variation in the level of material presented at the time you went than there is now, but I agree with the desire to "get to the meat" if you are truly showing a natural flair (which you obviously were ).

It's interesting that you point out the "smooth above all else" dichotomy. My clients Monday both asked why their in-car video (in their car) looked "slow as molasses, but smooth" whereas mine (in their car) looked like I was working the car hard. Not gobs of lock, but a lot quicker motions and double-time throttle, brake and steering applications... Then we looked at the stop watch and I was going six seconds faster over the lap, on average.

I responded that the fundamental difference was that they were still at a point where they were asking the car what to do, while I was comfortable telling the car what to do! Sort of like "throwing it in there and letting God sort it out."

Agree with rdefabri that the Roos program run by Dennis is terrific. I've worked with him before and he's great (as are Cosmo and Prendeville). I think Cosmo is going to be one of the truly great instructors over the course of his career, like MacInnes and Earwood.

I think that the OP was looking Left Coast and Roos is all on the Right Coast.

 

trail braking is a very important technique, thats just something you have to know how to do when passing while entering a corner, and thats why they tech it at skip.

 

Yes, but just something they don't teach there. It's been awhile, but I swear that it was something Bertil Roos himself didn't believe in - just can't remember...