I found these folks and registered for a class in September. Its not too far from me and thought I would share the link. Has anyone else ever taken the classes? I will be sure to post a review after we are come back...Looks awesome!

http://www.bemilesahead.net/

 

This is the first year of the MINI Performance Driving School at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. First class is in June. I’m signed up to attend the July 6th class and will work to get a review posted.

 

I look forward to reading it. We are scheduled for the Sept 14th class.

 

Spent Saturday morning in 3 different sections. 1)Running the F1 course at the Indianapolis Speedway. You do not run the whole course but do run back and forth around the nice twisty turny part. Group of 4cars with the instructor in front and we took turns being the car behind the instructor. Over the course of 45min we got faster and faster. 2) Breaking practice.I now know how good the 4 piston Brembo breaks on my JCW are. We lined up in pairs to drag race….ran the cars up to about 85 mph and then laid on the breaks hard! The goal was to end up in ‘the stopping box’. Also got to practice breaking to a stop at about 75 mph while coming to the apex of a left-hand turn. 3) Autocross practice!!! And some time in ‘the skid car’ learning how to control skids.

The afternoon was a lot of the same with even faster runs on the F1 course. It seemed that they re-ordered our groups and clearly got people sorted by how fast they felt commutable driving. I was in a group that was moving FAST (Well…it seemed fast to me but maybe there were other groups that were going faster….wait…maybe I was in the slow group) Just as we were nearing the end of the day and we were feeling like pro’s on the course, we all went for a ride along ‘Hot Lap’ with a race driver in control of the MINI….then we felt like amateurs again

I must say, despite the wet weather, the day was very worthwhile. The instructors at Miles Ahead were great to work with and of course all the MINI owners were a simple joy to be around. The class is to teach / give experience in performance driving and not a race-school…but it was not advertised as a race school.

All in all, I had a great day!!!!

 

I went to the July 7th class courtesy of our local MINI dealer Dreyer & Reinbold. The day at the track was a gift from them for my years of being president of our car club.

As mmeskill said our days format was the same. We had great weather, hot and no rain though. It is a great school! I am not one that is big on driving the really curvy roads, it really intimidates me. I do think since school I have had more confidence in my abilities driving the twisties. Even more I think I might feel a bit easier about driving in the snow.

For the autocross section they had us practice in the morning session and then asked us to do 4 laps as consistent as we could. Our group had a driver that had 3 identical laps with the last lap being 1 second faster. I am proud to say that driver, surprisingly, was me! I couldn't believe it and even with that I wasn't the most consistent. They provided us with a catered lunch that was very good too.

This is a school I would highly recommend. I know it has done a great deal for driving skills! The staff are top notch and know their stuff!

Cheryl

 

Top notch instruction and tons of track time!

 

What a great class! Top notch instructors and plenty of track time!