PBOC, brief review

For those of you who haven't heard of or tried this group, and are looking for track time, a race series/driver's ed group in the southeast, Sebring, Atlanta, Homestead, etc.

http://www.pbocflorida.com/mainmenu.html

Very friendly, none of the hassles you find routinely in SCCA. Registration took two minutes, no line. Tech went quickly, performed by a serious but not OCD guy. The weekend stayed on schedule. Format was three 30 minute sessions a day, so 3 hours of track time for the two day weekend, compared to roughly 1:15 at an SCCA national.

Lots of heavy metal, very nicely prepared Porsches, Vipers, Vettes and the like. No rustbuckets. Roughly 35 cars in the race group.

Drivers were very heads up IMO. Ran two wide a few times down 12, up 1, three wide at times on the straights, all aggressive but incredibly clean. I hope the Ferrari club racing driver pool has the experience and judgment needed to do the sort of dance the PBOC guys clearly could do.

We were there playing with shocks, so I didn't race - started one race and ran about two thirds of it. Interesting, the Ferrari was a bit down on straight line speed to the fastest of the GT cars, but was superb in the corners and under braking. A bit like fighting a slow Atlantic in an F2000, for those of you who've fought that battle. As a formula car/sports racer guy, I felt like a JV player working out with the varsity; sitting on the grid in the 430, everybody else seemed huge.

Well run, safe, fun, friendly, heads up drivers in well prepared and in some cases very fast cars. The one pole time I saw was about a 1:20, if I recall correctly.

I'd recommend PBOC.

 

+1
I raced at Barber with them last fall and they were great, just as you described.
Mark

 

I've heard good things about PBOC from others as well. I'll look for a chance to join the fun. I agree about the importance of heads-up driving. A lot can happen in 0.5 seconds when you're sharing an apex.

 

Event I attended was at Road Atlanta, forgot to mention that.

 

I have raced with PBOC at Sebring. Good guys, very clean.

 

My boys have been involved with them for years on and off as racers and instructors. Great group of people. They like to keep things on schedule which is always to everyones advantage.