On being a Novice Instructor

Personally, I feel that those with many years of experience in the complicated sport of autocrossing should strive to pass on what they know to newcomers. It can be a very frustrating sport to break into, as you can make many mistakes without being aware that you're making them. All you know is that you're a lot slower than everyone else, but with no clue how to change that. It's too easy to fall into the trap of "Everyone else must be cheating..."

I start out the day with an instructed walkthrough. Here I am leading a group of about 30 people, explaining the tricky spots and gesticulating wildly.

During the event, I do "Ride and Drive" runs. I ride along with the novice first, spot the places where I think he or she can improve their lines, then talk about it with them after the run, using the course map as a visual guide. Then I switch places with them and drive them through the course at speed, pointing out areas where my line is different than theirs. The most common error I see is early apexing.

This frequently turns out to be a huge help to the novices. I often see them dropping 2 to 4 seconds off of their times on the next runs, as well as making it easier for them to stay on course. Many times, I see novices equalling the times that I set in their cars, which is rewarding for them as well as making it much more likely that they will return for more fun at the next events.

Everybody has something to learn and something to teach. Even after a couple seasons of autox, attending the 'novice school' offered by my local SCCA chapter was a breakthrough. The learning curve is steep when you only get 4-6 <1min runs without instruction at a regional event. At a novice school, you get about 5 years worth of experience in a Saturday.

Ross Bentley just published a free ebook. You can download it and read it (you will get on his mailing list, and he does sent emails, but they are not frequent and apply to our sport so I am mostly ok with them), and possibly point others too it.

http://learn.speedsecrets.com/ebook

I have not read mine yet but I downloaded and scanned through it. Looks like a lot of the great pictures are drawn for you. Might be nice to keep a printed copy in the autox/track day box or on a phone/tablet for quick reference.

Also, a lot of being a good instructor is making people feel welcome. We aren't all the fastest driver out there, but we often go to hang with our friends.

p.s. I find that USUALLY early apexing comes from not looking far enough ahead

In the Indy Region, we have the novice program for newbs, and the "X class" to be instructors/guides etc. WE also have a Novice chief that does guided walk throughs in the morning to help new people.

THe fun side of our x-class program is everyone in it does not get class trophies, we run on hte index against one another for an x-class trophy. This helps A.) not rob trophies from the rest of the class, 2.) lets us compete against other serious minded individuals and iii.) our passenger seat is always open for ridealongs to anyone wanting it.

One of the bennies of being an instructor is the chance to drive a huge variety of vehicles at speed. In fact, the reason I picked my last 3 cars was because I was impressed with the way a novice's ran. At the last event, my nearest competitor in HS let me drive his car (same kind as mine) so I could see what it felt like on RE-71R's.

Danny Shields (one of the Challenge pro drivers) does the novice walk-through for most of the Porsche Club autocrosses I attend. He does a great job! Even though I'm not really a novice anymore, I always try to join the walk. Thanks Danny!

I love doing this for my club. It's great to see them get excited when they go faster. The tip I find that gets the most bang for the buck is "leave it in second'. Amazing how people like to be in the power band in first gear and jerking the chassis all over the place. Getting into second and staying there allows them to be much smoother.

trucke wrote: I love doing this for my club. It's great to see them get excited when they go faster. The tip I find that gets the most bang for the buck is "leave it in second'. Amazing how people like to be in the power band in first gear and jerking the chassis all over the place. Getting into second and staying there allows them to be much smoother.

"Stop shifting. Get to second and leave it there." Its amazing how many people will shift 2-3-4-5 times a run for no reason because they think it has to be in the peak power etc.

Its funny, because I have NEVER been in a car that actually liked shifting from 2nd to 1st. I guess I've always left er in 2nd mostly because I just feel like that shift is SOOO hard on the car.

This is what I do. I'm the backup rookie chief and give 2-3 walks a year for the SCCA when the regular elected rookie chief can't make the events. I'm also the go-to newb guy for the SCCA and the PCA. Apparently I'm nice and enthusiastic and I have a very high rate of returning drivers. Because of this I have built up a sort of 'client base' of people that want me to ride with them or their new friends or whomever at events and I spend most of the time hustling from car to car all day.
Honestly, teaching and getting people excited about autocross is my favorite part. If I had to choose driving or teaching, I'd hang up my race gloves and do nothing but introduce people to the sport.

The courses we set up in CFR are most often flowing enough that we never need anything but second gear.

https://youtu.be/_D0wiz65Z8Y

And I STILL can't figure out how to imbed a video.

Bobzilla wrote:

trucke wrote: I love doing this for my club. It's great to see them get excited when they go faster. The tip I find that gets the most bang for the buck is "leave it in second'. Amazing how people like to be in the power band in first gear and jerking the chassis all over the place. Getting into second and staying there allows them to be much smoother.

"Stop shifting. Get to second and leave it there." Its amazing how many people will shift 2-3-4-5 times a run for no reason because they think it has to be in the peak power etc.

So much this. We had a gent with a M3 show up to a autocross. He shifted every corner. It sure sounded fast. Between runs I strolled over to talk to him. He was wondering why he was so much slower than everyone. 4 words, knocked 4.5 seconds off his next run. "Leave it in second."

Depending on what the first element is and how far away it is from start, I will launch in second and slip the clutch to keep the wheel spin to a minimum. First is too short to be worth anything and it means once less shift.

Most courses I've been on, including the 3 nationals trips there's almost always a good shift point out of the gate. Spin the fronts a little off the line for some initial heat, get through first turn into the course and shift. I've downshifted 1 time successfuly in all my years of auto-x'ing and it was a super tight pin turn that was about 10mph exit speed. One of the worst course designs I've driven.

I ran in the NR class that day actually. One thing I love about this sport is how welcoming the veterans are to newcomers to get involved. I really appreciated the walk through but I never got a chance to have any of y'all drive our car. Maybe next time, thanks again.

I'm glad this came up because I was about to start a thread, sorry to threadjack but.....

How does one become an "instructor"? I have been doing some form of racing since I was old enough to remember things, and of late I've been getting a lot of requests for instruction (and lots of people wanting to pay me), I want to take it to the next level and have it be a legitimate deal. Is there licensure that I should be persuing?

Please learn me.

In reply to sesto elemento:

Walk up to whomever is running the show and ask if they need help. The answer is almost always a resounding yes.

In our area, there is no license required for anything except safety steward. Like Toyman says, just volunteer. I'm sure they'll be happy to get help.

So if a club wants to have me as an instructor, I just show up and do it? The track wont require credentials or anything?

sesto elemento wrote: So if a club wants to have me as an instructor, I just show up and do it? The track wont require credentials or anything?

Yes and no. Usually the club running the track day wants to get to know you before they toss you on track as an instructor. Commonly, they ask that you attend their track days in an instructor run group and they then use their own method to sign people off as instructors.

For autox, it is generally much more lenient, but they still probably want to be familiar with you and your car.

Plenty of ways to help even as not an instructor though, and most of those ways you can jump right in.

EDIT: for racing, the sanctioning bodies I do believe have instructor licenses, but I am less familiar with that. I'm sure you would have to have the racing license first.

I just volunteered as an instructor for the local TSCC novice school a few weeks ago.

The way instructors were chosen was they basically asked all the board members and chiefs who've been doing it a bit. I'm the timing and scoring chief this year(also a first) so I volunteered.

In a nutshell it was a great experience for everyone.

We started off the drivers meeting with some basic info for safety and stuff to expect when driving and tips(look ahead, how you induce oversteer or understeer, etc).

Then broke off to our runs. My student had never auto-xed before, but had some gokart experience, and he did REALLY quite well. I had him run a few times, let him know where he can get closer to cones, how to properly weave through a slalom, where he can be more aggressive, etc. He was running like 31-32sec times or so, doing really better than I expected after 6-8 runs.

Then all the instructors took 1-2 runs in their student's car.

So I hopped into his 02 GTI(which I've never driven) and ran a 29.0 maybe driving 8/10. After that I let him drive again, I think feeling the rear end come around a bit on corner entry and seeing how I used the brakes to induce rotation really helped things click for him.

After that within about 3 runs he was crushing 28.7, 28.6, 28.5, etc. He was solidly knocking down low low 29 sec to mid 28 sec runs, the 28.5 being his fastest. He was doing VERY well compared to some of the other novices(who many had much harder-to-drive-fast cars... S2000s, CTS-Vs, etc).

I COULD have taken another run in his car but opted to let him drive more as he didn't have much left to improve on other than get more seat time.

Afterwards the instructors took fun runs in their own cars with the novices. The look on my student's face was priceless after a 27.2 run in my Mazda2.

It was a lot of fun, probably the most fun event I've been at since I started autocrossing. My student ended up finishing 2nd in our novice index at the event we held the day after, even though it was a DSP classed car that was NOWHERE near prepped for it. Basically a tune bumped him up, with crappy tires and lower end coilovers.

I always try to find out what other sports people have been involved in or what they do for a living and use parallels that will make sense to them.

Look ahead and early apex are indeed common issues, the other main is a nag of mine......how you come off the brakes, I find so many novices stand it on the nose then abruptly pop off the brake pedal leading to driver induced understeer and if the have adjustable dampers the owner has some goofy set up to compensate.

Overall like many of you I try to keep fun; I also remind students "this is really hard, so it takes time. I also try to limit my instruction to working on the one or two issues that will net the biggest result long term.

Tom

I'm in that novice walk through! Look for the pale legs sticking up from a blue shirt and that's me! Your novice walk was more informative than the previous day. As a novice I was hoping for more technical advice on what to do at each section of the course. You did that. The other instructor just talked about common mistakes and what not to do, but not how to succeed. I ended up having the fastest time of the NS and NR classes in my 91 Miata! Before getting an instructor I could tell my weaknesses were the sweepers and 90 degree turns. Despite aiming for late apexes, I often hit early apexes. I gotta get used to such great steering response. I also need to grow a pair and realize most of the time if I can put in 50% throttle, I can put in 100% with all that horsepower . I also noticed myself not looking as far ahead as I should have, spending too much time thinking about backsiding cones. Also, I need to brake smoother. A combo of bad lines, sudden braking and sudden throttle caused my two spins. The instructor as a passenger wasn't overly insightful. Him driving my car WAS.

Our chapter has some really good Pro drivers who love helping out. The one showed me how to tackle the first corner on Cherry Valley and also pointed out that you should rarely being coasting or maintaining a constant speed, you should always be accelerating or decelerating. Shaved easily a second and a half off my runs.

I did an out-of-chapter event with the Finger Lakes Region and was appalled by the guy they had doing novice instruction. The course walk was just the guy going "Yeah, you turn here. Then turn left here, etc. etc. etc." No special insight to what line to take or anything. Also got really irritated because, seeing as how I was running Novice, the same guy kept insisting he had to ride with me. Now I don't mind getting some instruction but he kept getting in my passenger seat, riding along and offering no guidance afterwards. He would just go "Okay" and then get out afterwards and walk away, essentially serving as ballast. The third time he tried this stunt, I told him in no uncertain terms to get lost.

I really really hope the novice instructors in my region are as helpful as you guys are. Considering the only forum I've even found members of the region on has had registration issues for YEARS, it's hard to talk to anyone involved.

Watch early apex, don't stand on the brakes, slow is smooth and smooth is fast. Useful advice I'm picking up for sure, but a ride along would help things click much better in my head. I'll find out the 30th when they have test n tune I guess.

I_Love_Curves wrote: I'm in that novice walk through! Look for the pale legs sticking up from a blue shirt and that's me! Your novice walk was more informative than the previous day. As a novice I was hoping for more technical advice on what to do at each section of the course. You did that. The other instructor just talked about common mistakes and what not to do, but not how to succeed. I ended up having the fastest time of the NS and NR classes in my 91 Miata! Before getting an instructor I could tell my weaknesses were the sweepers and 90 degree turns. Despite aiming for late apexes, I often hit early apexes. I gotta get used to such great steering response. I also need to grow a pair and realize most of the time if I can put in 50% throttle, I can put in 100% with all that horsepower . I also noticed myself not looking as far ahead as I should have, spending too much time thinking about backsiding cones. Also, I need to brake smoother. A combo of bad lines, sudden braking and sudden throttle caused my two spins. The instructor as a passenger wasn't overly insightful. Him driving my car WAS.

Yeah, Kelly doesn't go into technical details as much as I do; he thinks that there's too much information for one to absorb in a short walk-through. I used to do even more when it was just me, like aligning torque and launch techniques. If you catch me at the next event, I can go over those with you.