Racing School vs HPDE

To all the guys that do Time Trials and Club Racing I have a question: For a guy trying to go from occasional autocrosser to Time Trial competitor would you recommend going through a HPDE ladder system like what NASA does or get an SCCA competition license from a racing school like Skip Barber? I am looking for kind of a Pro/Con debate. My goal is to compete in Time Trials, most likely with NASA because I like engineering race cars and think their open rule set in TT1-4 could be really fun. At the moment I am much more interested in Time Trials than Wheel-to-Wheel racing because I want to push my limits both as race car driver and race car engineer. This may sound like I am just trying to short-cut my way into racing Time Trials and in some sense that's not wrong because I would like to get into it sooner rather than later. However the thrill of motorsports for me is about learning how get the maximum performance out of myself and the car. I am in this to learn how to go fast and hopefully someday set some track lap records in a car I designed/built myself. So from those who have or haven't done a racing school and those who have gone through the HPDE ladder, what are your thoughts looking back and what advise would you give a guy trying to get into some Time Trial competition? THANKS!

If your plan is to run with NASA then that's where I would start. A skip Barber school is not a bad thing but it is not cheap and you can get quite a few track days for the cost of one school. NASA has a good rep for having good instruction.

^Yep.

GO start doing NASA HPDE events and work your way up the ladder. It's really the best way to lots of run time and instruction.

May also want to look into karting (even rental karting if there are decent tracks in your area) and sim racing.

I get about 30 minutes of seat time each and every week by taking advantage of the specials at my local rental kart facility. It's hard to get that kind of seat time through HDPEs/schools which tend to be more infrequent.

The NASA ladder is fantastic. A lot of getting approved for TT is about trust. The people you're driving around need to be able to trust that you know what you're doing and how to behave and you need to be able to trust them as well. I think the best way to do this is to do it. You'll make mistakes, but the ladder system limits you to small ones with low consequences at first. Are you not watching your mirrors? The guy behind you in HPDE1 is annoyed and your instructor tells you to pay attention. If you don't watch your mirrors in TT you run the risk of closing the door on someone who think you left it open and getting hurt. So you'll make mistakes, and you'll learn, and you'll get moved up a group and focus on different things and you'll build the skills and awareness you need through repetition. You'll also learn how to pay attention to individual drivers. Who in your group is watching and giving good point bys. Who gets the red mist and is to be avoided? Who always spins in the wet? Knowing individual drivers is useful and fun, and the comroderie of the group really is part of the fun.
I haven't done a race school because I haven't done, or wanted to do, wheel to wheel yet, but I would strongly advocate getting out there with NASA.

In reply to c0rbin9:

I do have a small Honda clone go-kart for practicing driving/racing because there is a small kart track 2 hours away that has open practice days. I haven't made it out there yet but that along with continuing autocross is definitely part of the plan to broaden and expand my driving skills.

In reply to mazdeuce:

How long have you been competing in TT with NASA? Out of curiosity how many track days did it take you to move up into TT? Part of why I am asking to try and put together a realistic plan for how many track days I should aim to squeeze into the calendar next year. Another question about NASA's HPDE ladder, I know track days with other groups won't help you sign off the passport but does the experience still help or is it worth to just stick with NASA HPDE events to get the most out of it?

Thanks Again for the Help!!

I'd attend a couple of HPDEs then use scca or nasa for a driver's school.

I had my TT license after five (I think) weekends, but that was a little quicker than usual. I really only competed in a couple of TT events before life reared it's head and cut off the time I had for track weekends. I still make it out to a couple a year as a spectator and to help friends that do it. If you're serious about it, I'd say plan on all of them in your region that you can reasonably make. Having said that, make a plan, attend a couple of weekends and prepare to revise your plan as needed. If you can only make three weekends a year, talk to the director of TT in your region and ask what the best track to a TT license is. They might suggest that a race school through NASA would move you forward quicker. They might suggest running with a sister organization that would give you more seat time. Generally, the guy who signs off on your license is the right guy to talk to about it.

^I did NASA's first HPDE "school" back in April driving a friend's WRL Miata. I started in the 2nd or 3rd group vs rookie because I have a bit of experience on 2 and 4 wheels at Hallett.

So I didn't have to bother with the inclass instruction. We didn't end up getting to do my check ride the next to move up a group because of the wet weather.

EDIT: They called it their Momentum Driving Academy/WRL HPDE. The point getting in front of Joey and the guys that run WRL to begin to work on getting the instruction, seat time, etc, you need to eventually get your WRL license.

I think you'll get more out of one of the schools if you've got some track time. The HPDE ladder is a great way to start and then when time and money allow spring for a school if you feel like you're progress has stagnated.

I strongly suggest the PCA HDPE program. It prepared me for my first wheel to wheel race from a skill standpoint.

One thing the HPDEs will not prepare you for is the physicality of longer sessions - a two-hour stint under full stress is substantially different than a 20 minute HDPE session with point bys.

Do a lemons or chump race if your a "thrown into the deep end kinda guy". You'll walk away with so much more, sooner, than just laddering up HPDEs.

Think about doing 4 stints in a car, with heavy traffic for 2 hours at a time in 1 weekend. Great way to build a foundation.

catapultkid wrote: Do a lemons or chump race if your a "thrown into the deep end kinda guy". You'll walk away with so much more, sooner, than just laddering up HPDEs. Think about doing 4 stints in a car, with heavy traffic for 2 hours at a time in 1 weekend. Great way to build a foundation.

I'm a big proponent of getting as much track time as possible but I advise using some caution with this approach. I've had a couple of HPDE students that did this and they both had some really bad habits that they struggled to break. They were perfectly willing to accept my input but the muscle memory was so ingrained that they struggled to overcome them.

catapultkid wrote: Do a lemons or chump race if your a "thrown into the deep end kinda guy". You'll walk away with so much more, sooner, than just laddering up HPDEs. Think about doing 4 stints in a car, with heavy traffic for 2 hours at a time in 1 weekend. Great way to build a foundation.

As mentioned, a new driver will have some real physical challenges to jumping right into a 2 hour endurance race at full speed with stress plus physics beating the shit out of his or her body.

APEowner wrote:

catapultkid wrote: Do a lemons or chump race if your a "thrown into the deep end kinda guy". You'll walk away with so much more, sooner, than just laddering up HPDEs. Think about doing 4 stints in a car, with heavy traffic for 2 hours at a time in 1 weekend. Great way to build a foundation.

I'm a big proponent of getting as much track time as possible but I advise using some caution with this approach. I've had a couple of HPDE students that did this and they both had some really bad habits that they struggled to break. They were perfectly willing to accept my input but the muscle memory was so ingrained that they struggled to overcome them.

This.

Bad habits die hard. Get the fundamentals for a couple of years and then go race once you get to the level of HPDE where other people are trying to "win" the gym class - you'll know it when you get there.

I would also recommend getting some track experience before going to race school - I've been tracking cars for about 10 years now and compete in Club Trials with my local SCCA chapter. Oh, and I'm also a PDX instructor...

After all of the above I went to Bondurant to do the course to get my full competition license. We had a couple of people in there with no experience and I think they made a lot more relative progress than I did, but I think in the end and for my purpose (get a competition license) it was better to have some experience.

What I would strongly recommend though is to have an instructor in the car with you as often as you can - when I was doing regular trackdays in the UK and then PDX over here, I tried to have instructors in the car at least once on every day. That helped with working out some of the kinks and prevented me from learning bad habits early on that would take forever to iron out. I just picked up some later .

I think it is worth mentioning that HPDE/PDX/instruction will help you become a fast driver, and is good prep for TT; it will not adequately prepare you for W2W racing. An actual racing school will prep you for W2W.

Thanks for all the advice guys! I'll focus on finishing making my 944 safe for the track and then hit up some HPDE with the NASA-SE region next year. Maybe I'll see some of you guys at Road Atlanta or Carolina Motorsports Park sometime!

One size doesn't fit all. Some people aren't natural drivers and excel through sheer determination, practice, and a methodical approach. Others make it look easy: car control and traffic management come more easily. Age and personality have some bearing on whether individuals can objectively self-assess where they fall in that spectrum.

Personally, I think that a solid car control foundation in Autocross and HPDE is the first step. It may be enough to scratch that itch and save you from potential poverty that comes with W2W competition.

You'll benefit much quicker, and learn better habits/get rid of bad habits by going to a professional school. Instructors at a professional school will get you up to speed much quicker than 99% of the HPDE instructors out there.

If you want to compete in NASA Time Trials you're going to have to work your way up through their system. You can't just show up and run Time Trials with them.

That said, while their instruction is good (I'm an instructor for them) the goal of said instruction isn't to teach you how to drive fast. It's to teach you how to be safe on track.

So I recommend starting your way up the NASA ladder and once you feel comfortable driving on track, go to a race school. Their goal is to teach you how to drive fast.

Then put it all together and get your TT license with NASA.

They're is kind of no wrong answer here; I've instructed with several groups and on occasion been employed as an instructor. The level of instructor will vary at HPDE but in general you'll you will learn a lot.

You will get out of it what you put into it. I've had students at a HPDE that just finished a 3 day professional school and when I questioned why they were doing what they were doing, the answer was "it's what the school taught me" I knew their instructor well and that there was no way they were told to do what they were doing. The long and short of it was they were merging their preconceived notions with what they were being taught, which gave birth to a bizarre technique / lines.

I'm a 27 yr SCCA member but for someone wanting to tinker / tune / engineer a car I'd go NASA time trials as mentioned the rule set is more open to this.

Finally Be aware there are different mindsets when it comes to driving (even between professional schools) none are wrong or right. Go with what ever feels most intuitive to you.

10 years ago I was a big proponent of the idea of HPDE's. My first two years I kept on getting teamed up with bad driver instructors. I had a friend of mine who was a national champ jump in my car. He agreed that my lines were on point and the instructors had no clue. I gave up on NASA and have run karts and chumpcar ever since.

So my main reason for thinking about the racing school was as a way to get into time trials faster. The 944 I have now is not likely to be competitive without more work, but I want to do the testing on track to determine where the opportunities for performance improvement are and work on them (including the areas of my own skill level first). Then using that information be able to start building a car specifically for time trial competition.

For me it seems like HPDE is a decent way to do this as it will allow me to work up the ladder to time trials while improving my driving skill. However I know that I will need to drive at 10/10ths to grow my driving skills and it's my impression that isn't something that is appreciated in HPDE, I could be wrong. So while a racing school (and preferably a competition license) won't give me all I need to successful at time trials, my hope is it might provide me a route to working in time trials where I can push myself and the car to work towards my goal of competing in time trials.

Here is the deal on driving true 10 10ths at HPDE events; the vast majority of people are driving cars without cages, fuel cells and fire systems so yes driving the way one would on a race weekend is not what you want to do.

With that said if you have a race prepped car with all of the safety gear there is nothing stopping you from driving as fast as you can go. Where people who run track events get antsy is with drivers crowding other cars and or repeatedly dropping two wheels off track etc. Besides people don't learn a thing hacking about.

In general the level of instruction at a professional school is going to be better but you need to do your homework; many schools will teach you the fundamentals that you can apply to any track you go to. There are also some schools that will teach you how to go fast on the track the school is held at but not necessarily others. The schools are very structured and do a good job of isolating each piece of the puzzle needed to go fast. Schools can have their downsides; instructors in general are experience racers but this doesn't always translate, you may end up with someone who doesn't quite brew things down to a level that someone who's never been on track fully understands. Things like lead follow sessions are good but very often when you take a new driver out of the controlled environment they quickly lose the plot. This isn't really a fault of the school but more of a case of being able to recognize you are slightly off line or a bit rough with your inputs. For example one of the most common issues new drivers have is abruptly letting off the brake pedal causing the front end to unload and resulting in understeer. Depending on the severity it would be impossible to spot observing from outside of the car, typically the car will start to run wide of the apex about a foot so and the driver will wind on more steering. They will actually hit the apex and the line will look fine but they're scrubbing speed on every corner. If you're going to a school pick one where the instructor spends a lot of time riding with students. Also if you're sticking with production cars go to a school where you spend all of your time in a production car.

Schools are great but for the price of one 3 day school you could do several weekend track days. So again if you are going to go to a school do your homework.

trigun7469 brings up a very valid point; HPDE events rely on volunteer instructors and so you may well get a instructor that doesn't work for you. So again do your homework. Go to an event and see what they are like. What's their approach to safety, how were the instructors etc.

Whichever path you decide the biggest advice I can offer is focus on the fundamentals and don't try to be fast. Get them right and the speed will be there.