s4wood

I have had to leave a bit early on a rare occasion...but I am usually there to the very end.

InTTruder

with your peers, then 2 instructors ought to be able to make that decision. Yes?

InTTruder

BTW- I am student still, not advanced and certainly not an Instructor. But I have helped organize several HPDE and I note that Instructors ahve openly stated that students wered not ready to go solo or to advance.

InTTruder

"at 2X legal speeds."

Amen to that.

pointby

<center><img src="http://pictureposter.audiworld.com/3484/student_rankings.jpg"></center><p>This is for Glacier Lakes but its a general guideline for all the chapters. There is a similar table for instructors. More experienced instructors are paired with more advanced students.

NoahD

1) Pointing out flags before I have to

2) smooth, consistent -- I want to see 3 laps in a row -- not *perfect* (I'm not perfect either) but identical with a line that's at least justifiable

3) heel-toe use (or at least rev-matching) if a manual

4) neutral throttle, not trailing throttle, into turns except when the trailing throttle is intentional

5) good traffic awareness, handling point-bys well

6) can take a corner off-line with no issues

7) DOES NOT ASK TO SOLO (this is a big warning flag if it happens too early)

As for why people _should_ solo, the answer is that when you're alone with your thoughts you can work on different things -- particularly, it forces you to internalize things and not just react to what an instructor says. It also gives you the opportunity to work with other instructors who might have other feedback.

InTTruder

Great "teaching points" for any aspiring student, regardelss of classification.

Potomac-Greg

MUCH looser than Mid-Atlantic where you need 14 days to graduate to Intermediate (not 3 events!).

gh0st

in case I wanted to ask them a question. None of them left the event early

Silver Streakin'

the pass seat at some of the speeds that I was get up to, which I asked if it was something that I was doing. He said no. It was just being on the edge in some places and that he was not the one being in control of the car. I was even pointing out my own mistakes to him, as I was learning the track, namely in places where you need to give up a little to do better in the next turn to get out of the straight faster. For example, getting T4 right to get T5 right to wait for T5a to be fast out through the smaller esses. And, when I got that right, he had me braking before the Climbing Esses so that I could stay on-throttle all the way through the Esses, which makes sense, but I could do without the braking. He just didn't want me to push left out of the Esses to need to come back right to make the left at the T10 downhill. To me, I felt as if I wasn't using all of the track and using more of a student line.

Personally, I think he signed me off to just to get out of the car, once he knew that I knew the layout of the track -- since it was my first time at VIR. however, once I knew which turn(s) were coming up next and felt fine on the student line, I would've liked more intruction off of a student type line(s) and never got that. So, I had to experiment on my own namely by doing my own lead and follow of some of the better drivers in the Experienced run group. I thought about asking for another instructor, but I never did. I wasn't sure how to approach finding an instructor who would be willing to teach a race line and techniques.

I guess this is why I stay away from ACNA events and do HPDEs with other clubs as well as do Time Trials and Time Attacks for some competition. The ACNA events are great for the beginner to learn within a safe environment and they're great for the advanced guys to get track time (and maybe be an instructor to lower their price), but, imo or at least from my experience, it's not a great place for the good experienced classed drivers (or whatever the club classes drivers just below advanced/instructor) to better their driving skills to get to the level of the advanced drivers namely because most of the instructors won't teach you much beyond a student line and techniques. And, maybe that's what they're told to do as an instructor at a safety school.

Bottom line: I know that I have a lot to learn, but I think I'm beyond being taught student lines and I don't think the ACNA safey school events are the place to get that instruction.