[DanElam]

Most of the 'hoop' roll-bars don't offer enough protection to safe in a roll-over. A lot of the ones I see on the street don't have enough bracing to even stand up if you really turn the car over.

I have sent a note to the imp-auto folks about playing instructor with them for the Watkins Glen event. But I am not going to get into the car as an instructor unless I have at least the same protection as the driver. In any case, if I don't feel safe, I am just not going. Period. Safety just has to come first. If I get hurt instructing in a car without adequate protection, there is no way that my wife is going to let me instruct any more. She might even stop me from racing for showing such poor judgement as to be in the car.

Having done lead-follow with Cobra guys in the past, I am not sure I agree with Cranky's assessment that you can't do lead-follow at the Glen. I agree that lead-follow is a poor substitute for an instructor, but I think it can be safely. You don't have to go fast to learn how to drive. In fact, if my students are itching to drive fast, I know they are going to be slow learners.

Even though I think lead-follow can work, I think the responsibility lies with the instructors. Last year I was doing a lead-follow session for a Cobra at VIR for Speedtrial. We took it easy: I let him go fast in the safe places and made him artificially slow in the more dangerous places. There was another instructor leading another Cobra and he took things too hot, the student tried to follow, and a crane had to be used to put the (pieces) back into the guy's trailer. (The car is back on the road.) We assume the students don't know any better. This was the instructor's fault.

Finally, on the issue of costs.... First, I did some research on what you guys are paying for these time trials and I can see how it eats into your budgets. When we race, it is basically just $175 or so for the whole weekend. That is normal SCCA or NASA pricing. You guys spend a lot of time to drive without actually getting to race. Second, don't get caught up on saying 'I need this'. You don't need more horsepower. You do need to be safe. Always do the safety things first and worry about the performance issues second. You can't be choosing between a roll-bar to save your life and an extra 40HP. For performance, there will always be someone with more money than you have and you will make yourself crazy and broke if you think you have to spend like someone else does.

One thing we like about running the FFR Spec Racer is that it is safe and pretty inexpensive. The cars are about the same price as a competition Pro RX-7 and have comparable times. But I get to drive my car on the street, look/sound a whole lot better, and my costs are _much_ less to operate. FFR has done a nice job making things cheap from a maintenance perspective. We could certainly get more performance out of the cars, but costs would go up. My racing budget is way below even the guys running GT-Pinto --- and the GT-Pinto guys don't have people hanging around them to take a picture!

My $0.03.