Staying Alive...

[LodiWino]

Is there a good street driving school to attend for newbie Cobra owners?

[Got the Bug]

The Russel High performance driving school at Infineon ($995) might be a good place to learn some tips. Looks like you need a roll bar for both the driver and passenger to use your car. Their website indicates that your car has to be less than 10 years old. I'm not sure if a Cobra replica would meet their specs.

http://www.jimrussellusa.com/index.p...d=50&Itemid=56

[patrickt]

Originally Posted by LodiWino

Is there a good street driving school to attend for newbie Cobra owners?

If you drive your car slowly and gently, you won't have any problems. It's when you drive fast, and "not gently," that you get yourself in to trouble. Take your car to a really big, open parking lot that has no cement light stands, etc. (a ball stadium early on a Sunday morning is good). Drive in a circle as fast as you can until you're just about skidding and then lift off the throttle suddenly and touch the brakes -- see what happens. Pretend you're about 3/4's done with a medium-soft curve and then stomp the throttle really hard on your "pretend exit." While sitting at a complete stop, try turning your wheels just a little bit, so they're not straight, and then pretend you're at a stop light and you want to show off with a really good burnout -- you'll see how hard it is to keep control. Go real fast and then try and mark a sharp turn while standing on the brakes hard so that all your weight is on the nose. Try and speed shift and "chirp" the tires while driving in a circle. Again, please make sure there's nothing in the parking lot that you can hit, and make sure there's plenty of room on the tangent line from your circles and curves.

[tkb289]

Pat ... sounds like great advice and like fun too! Will have to try this out when I get my FIA.

LodiWino ... To Doug's point, a high performance driving school of some kind might be good. Another option is an organization called Hooked On Driving that might be what you are looking for. They have events at Thunderhill, which I understand has lots of runoff room.

http://www.hookedondriving.com/

I don't have any personal experience or affiliation with them, but I work with several people that have run with them many times and had a great time.

Don't know what the safety requirements are, but if you are interested, check them out.

Have fun with your car!

Regards,

- Tim

[Randy Rosenberg]

I took the 1 day course at Jim Russell - it was a gift from my Dad. I attended the course after taking the NorCal SAAC course @ Thunderhill and after driving at Sears Point with the NorCal SAAC (mini-nats), so I was already somewhat familiar with my car and with the track.

The good points about the JR course are:

1. It's close - much closer than T-Hill.
2. At the time they accepted my replica, with no question - maybe that's changed - no clue...
3. I enjoyed driving the "weight shift" car - the one with the extended wheels on a separate frame - it showed me a lot about balance.

What I didn't like about JR's course are:
1. During the "learn to heal'n toe" session, no one helped me in the car, and ultimately I learned how to "heal'n toe" much later on my own (can you say "practice"?).
2. The instruction on the track...

When driving on the track, we were divided into pairs, and I was paired with a corvette - each pair had one instructor, and the instructor sat in the lead car. So, off we go - I'm following the corvette with the instructor - I'm bored - I've driven this track, and the corvette dude is a real newbie. On the track, I notice no corner workers... Hmmm. Then it's my turn to lead, however since I only have 1 roll bar, the instructor drives, and he won't let me drive, 'cause he's too afraid of being a passenger without a roll bar. So, here's the "yuppie" instructor wearing shorts, top-siders, and a short-sleeved polo shirt with an open face helmet hopping behind the wheel of my cobra - I'm wearing my 1-piece nomex racing suit, nomex hi-top shoes, nomex gloves, full face helmet and donut ring. He's starts driving around slowly, 'cause he can't "loose" the corvette behind us, and while driving, he's talking to the other instructors on his walky-talky... All I can do is roll my eyes and be glad that I didn't pay $1k for this.

If I were to do it all over again, then I'd call the guys at Hooked on Driving - I've never attended their course, however a good & trusted friend of mine is an instructor, so I would never hesitate to recommend their course.

BTW, I would not recommend the Jim Russell course...

Good luck, have fun, and remember always drive like there's an egg under the loud pedal

Regards,
Randy...

[patrickt]

That's a funny story Randy.

[acmikee]

you could sign up for the www.cobraroundup.com on july 2 @ thunderhill there will be instructors there. then sign up for mini nats on fri-sun

[DAVID GAGNARD]

You might want to check around with the Porshe clubs. In my neck of the woods the local club puts on a 2 day driving school twice a year at our local road track. I attended 4 or 5 years ago and it was very well run and very reasonably priced.

You use your own car and each driver has an instructor with him/her everytime they get on the track. I think we had 4 or 5 track sessions per day with classroom instruction between sessions. We also had head sets in the cars to communicate with the instructor....

All-in-all, very well run, everything was on time and I learned I didn't know nearly as much about road racing as I thought I did.... I think it is very good for the novice to expirenced guys.....

David

[Jamo]

I've taken all kinds of schools over the years, and the one that directly carried over to the Cobra was at Spring Mountain in Pahrump near Vegas. Not cheap, but a much higher percentage of track time compared to others. They use C6 and C5 Vettes, including ZO6 versions of both...and the fuses are pulled for all electronic suspension controls. About as close to a Cobra as you're going to get short of a dedicated school. EVERYTHING is covered.

Make an extended Vegas weekend out of it with a significant other...fly in and out.