Can anybody suggest a good autocross style driving school in the greater metro NY area, or at least the north east?

 

Join the BMWCCA.

 

I second the bmwcca...I don't know about your region but the Boston Chapter is excellent.

 

Skip Barber is up on CT

 

Don't think they do auto-x there

 

It's a hike, but our three levels of schools get rave reviews from everyone that's been. They're three years old now with some top National drivers as instructors. Conveniently, many of them are very experienced in MINI's. To give you an idea of the popularity, we did 25 schools last year, every one of them filled to capacity with a waitlist.

http://solo.wdcr-scca.org/noviceSchool.php

Brian Garfield

 

Think it would hurt to go to a autocross event without going to a novice school first? ISee an event near me for the 27th but no schedule for a school right now. I know I read of school earlier in the season.

 

NER does a novice school every year, usually in April-May:
http://www.ner.org/Solo/solo.htm

 

It should be fine to just go to a regular event w/o going to a school first.

I never went to a school until my 2nd season of autocrossing. It is very helpful, and it would have been nice to have done it sooner, but not every region has 25 schools a year! Our region only runs 9 events all year, including 1 novice school in the spring.... From my experience that is a more typical schedule than Garfield's region

 

Cool! I will look for the next event to sign up :smile:

 

Oh, our region is definitely unusual in that respect, heck, we only have 8 autocrosses in a season. But the schools is what helps allow us to run so many cars since we educate the drivers on what to do. We actually have people who have never been to a competition but have done 4+ schools.

See you soon!

Brian

 

How about Florida?

 

Anyone else in NAM land signed up for the Advanced driving skills course at NH International Speedway this coming Saturday? (It's a BMW-CCA Boston chapter event.)

Rockymt98

 

Jean Kinser runs Evolution Performance Autocross Schools all over the country - they're staged by local SCCA autocross clubs and others ... they're taught be SCCA National Champion drivers - this is NOT for road racing, not for track days - it's AUTOCROSSING ONLY .... don't get messed up by BMW or Porsche schools ....
Look at Jean's website ... talk to others ... and make your decision. There's a schedule on the Evolution site - although it's getting late in the season, you can probably find a school.
Personally, I'd wait til nexty year .. but that's your decision.
www.autocross.com/evolution/

good luck ....

 

I tried, but got wait-listed. I was at NHIS last weekend for the track event, and I'm accepted for the ADSS on the 20th.

 

This last weekend, the 30-31st?
Great that your are doing the skid pad. Push your car hard and try and make it loose controle. You'll really feel much more confident after that day.

 

Yup... it's Jason / snid. I've got a different userid on here and haven't found a way to change it.

 

 

The ADSS isn't a track or race school. From what I know of it, it's more of intro level performance driving course with some car handling theory classroom. (I'll know better after after going through it.)

I have no interest in autocross at the moment and probably won't.

Have you attended one of the BMW or Porsche classes? What made you dislike them? What do they do that "messes you up"?

Rockymt98

 

Update:

This past Saturday I attended the ADSS at NHIS put on by the Boston chapter of the BMW-CCA it was blast! Very organized. Seemed to present technically correct information. Instructors were all very friendly, helpful and went out of their way make the experience a good one.

Around 25 drivers attended. The cars ranged from a 4door GM sedan, 3 MINI's, M5's, M3's, 325's, 2 Porsches, Subaru STI, Mustang etc. I had my bone stock 05 MCS with runflats.

The day consisted of:

Classroom on weight transfer/effects, contact patch, throttle steer, over/understeer etc.

Threshold braking exercises, 40mph hard right and left 2-3 lane changes with a controlled stop.

Wetted skid pad where we experienced over and oversteer situations and how to "correct, pause and recover". Then we tied two skid pads together for a figure 8 exercise to really get a feel for oversteer and understeer. (E brake induced in the MINI by the instructor in the car)

The day ended with an autoX course where we got to try some of the stuff we learned and have some fun

Definetly came away from the course feeling more confident about my own driving skills, the ability of the MINI and what the car feels like just before and at the point of "no return" . I'd highly recommend this course to anyone who drives a car.

Kudo's to Sean Silva who runs this course for the Boston Chapter and his instructors. Great job!

Rockymt98