Teaching a 16 year old the fine art of auto-x and HPDE

We are close to wrapping up the list of things to do to prep our 1999 Miata for track duty. My 16 year old daughter cannot wait to get to drive it in a closed course environment. Her daily driver is an older GTI, so she is now fully confident with a manual transmission. The next step is helping her learn how to auto-x and HPDE. I certainly want to proceed cautiously and would love to brush up on my skills alongside her.

We live in north Florida (Gainesville), not a hotbed of automotive enthusiasm. We have the track at the FIRM near by, but no auto-x opportunities without traveling (which is fine, as we have a truck and trailer if need be). Given all of the experts here on the board, I would love some advice on how to help her learn (and to instill a lifelong love of motorsports).

Alan Mcrispin - if you see this, you've obviously done a good job with your wonderful daughter. Any thoughts? I don't have a tenth of your talent, so I can't coach her much myself.

Here she is making racing noises in the driveway!

I've seen local groups use the little Gainesville raceway road course for autocross events.

Also, the "FAST" autocross group hosts lots of beginner-oriented events at the Brooksville airport, which isn't too far from Gville.

Dont let her do what I did when I was a few years older than her. I got so competitive about racing it took all the fun out of it. Only now that I'm older I remember this is all for FUN. Keep the fun in mind and the love of motorsports will take care of itself.

I'm watching this with great interest. My oldest is just about to get her permit and AX is in her future.

Buccaneer Region SCCA holds events in Jacksonville:

http://www.buccaneerregion.com/soloevents.html

And my region, Central Florida, holds events in Brooksville:

http://www.cfrsolo2.com/

In fact, there's one there this weekend.

Jacksonville scca is running at the firm at the end of February. Double check which forms you need to have a minor run. I believe the form needs to be notarized as well.

For autocrossing, if a local sanctioning body is having a novice school, then register and attend it. Great bang for the buck and you get a whole bunch of practice and seat time for just one day and get drilled on the basics. Usualy limited in number of entries to keep teacher:student ratio in a good range.

Beyond novice school and some autocross events, the next progression would be the Evolution Performance Driving School (http://www.evoschool.com) to learn more about autocrossing. I took the Phase I and II courses many years ago - very highly recommended if you are into bettering your autocrossing skills and wanting to know what really needs to be worked on.

And for HPDE/tracking, don't discount sim racing as practice for basic techniques and helping get familiar with track layout. It is a great tool for learning the basics of a track and in helping be consistency in driving technique. Real track and car handling traits will vary from the sim somewhat, but still is very useful tool to help get acquainted with running on a track. Will also give a good idea of what gears you should be using, depending on how much you want to push it.

+1 on the evoschool. Learned more in one day than the whole previous season of figuring it out on my own.

Lof8 wrote: I've seen local groups use the little Gainesville raceway road course for autocross events. Also, the "FAST" autocross group hosts lots of beginner-oriented events at the Brooksville airport, which isn't too far from Gville.

The use of the little road course/track out behind the drag strip seems to have died off completely. I used to hear of occasional events out there - mostly privately organized but there have been none in forever. Thanks for the FAST recommendation...I'll check that out.

jstein77 wrote: Buccaneer Region SCCA holds events in Jacksonville: http://www.buccaneerregion.com/soloevents.html And my region, Central Florida, holds events in Brooksville: http://www.cfrsolo2.com/ In fact, there's one there this weekend.

Any idea if your region offers novice introductions? She literally has zero experience doing any driving like this.

EDIT: Just found this on the CFRsolo2 page -

Novice Information

If you are new to Solo, have done just a few events in the past, or it’s been a long time since you’ve done it, you should register as a novice and take advantage of our novice driver program. All novice program benefits are free of charge.

At the beginning of each event, there is an instructed novice walk-through of the course. This is mandatory for all drivers registered in a novice class, but all are welcome to come along and listen to what the instructor has to say. During this walk through, the instructor will give a briefing on what to expect throughout the day, explain cone penalties, general course working, and how to read the course directional cones as a driver. Once all this has been briefed, you will walk through the course as a group and the instructor will explain each element of the course and what to do when. It is highly recommended that you walk the course at least twice before the novice walk-through to generally familiarize yourself with the course. You will not have the opportunity to walk it again after the novice walk-through because the course closes for walking and the general drivers meeting starts immediately following the novice walk-through.

In addition to the novice walk-through, we also provide a “Ride and Drive” program for drivers registered in the novice class. This means that a novice instructor can ride-along with you, direct you along the course as necessary, and give you some pointers after your run. Following this, you can have the instructor take you on an instructor-driven run in your car to show you the driving line, braking points, etc. This is highly recommended as it is a real eye-opener and most novices improve their time by multiple seconds after taking advantage of this benefit. At most events the instructor driven run does not count against your run total for the event. However at certain high-turnout events with many novices, the run may count. If that is the case, an announcement will be made during the novice walk-through and then again at the driver’s meeting. In either case, only one instructor driven run can be given during an event, but the instructor may ride along with you on each one of your runs if you choose.

Novices may not have any passengers other than instructors.

For more information, check out the Novice Handbook. The write-up is somewhat old, but the information is basically the same and will give you a great idea of what to expect at an event.

I can't imagine a better way to teach car control than autocross. I always thought I was good at car control because of all the winter driving I did and all the parking lot skid control training (both instructed and solo) that I had, but I learned at my first autocross that I sucked. I'm way better now than I've ever been, and I still suck.

Once she gets to the point that she can drive hard at the autocross (especially in a Miata), she'll pretty much be ready for anything.

I can't really advise on finding events near you, but I got DD#1 interested in autocross just by taking her along to spot for me during the year she had her permit. Then, soon after she got her license and was soloing regularly on the street, I brought her car to the autocrosses too.

It was a simple as that. I got her out on course, with me riding along and pointing her through. She went 2 or 3 events with a navigator on almost every run, then she started driving alone as her confidence built. I never pressured her to go fast; the speed picked up naturally. I put her through a Street Survival school. We did a novice school together so she got coaching from someone other than me.

Now she instructs novices at our club autocrosses, and is looking for a manual transmission car.

dyintorace wrote:

jstein77 wrote: Buccaneer Region SCCA holds events in Jacksonville: http://www.buccaneerregion.com/soloevents.html And my region, Central Florida, holds events in Brooksville: http://www.cfrsolo2.com/ In fact, there's one there this weekend.

Any idea if your region offers novice introductions? She literally has zero experience doing any driving like this.

As a matter of fact, I'm one of the instructors. Since I'm on the east coast, I don't go to Brooksville events, but if you ever get to Deland or Orlando, you could get me as an instructor.

Duke wrote: I can't really advise on finding events near you, but I got DD#1 interested in autocross just by taking her along to spot for me during the year she had her permit. Then, soon after she got her license and was soloing regularly on the street, I brought her car to the autocrosses too. It was a simple as that. I got her out on course, with me riding along and pointing her through. She went 2 or 3 events with a navigator on almost every run, then she started driving alone as her confidence built. I never pressured her to go fast; the speed picked up naturally. I put her through a Street Survival school. We did a novice school together so she got coaching from someone other than me. Now she instructs novices at our club autocrosses, and is looking for a manual transmission car.

Awesome. I'll be over the moon if my daughter follows the same trajectory. The only difference is that she already DD's a manual transmission. I don't know what your daughter is looking for specifically, but I absolutely love the four door 2012 GTI I bought for mine, as a replacement for the Jetta TDI wagon she was driving. The Jetta goes back to VW tomorrow (yay for a big check!), and we've had the GTI for ~3 weeks now. It's a riot to drive.

jstein77 wrote:

dyintorace wrote:

jstein77 wrote: Buccaneer Region SCCA holds events in Jacksonville: http://www.buccaneerregion.com/soloevents.html And my region, Central Florida, holds events in Brooksville: http://www.cfrsolo2.com/ In fact, there's one there this weekend.

Any idea if your region offers novice introductions? She literally has zero experience doing any driving like this.

As a matter of fact, I'm one of the instructors. Since I'm on the east coast, I don't go to Brooksville events, but if you ever get to Deland or Orlando, you could get me as an instructor.

Brooksville and Deland are almost the exact same distance for us (95 miles). Have you ever been to the Brooksville site? Is one markedly better than the other? The only downside is that getting to Deland would take longer, as we have to transit through the Ocala National Forrest.

dyintorace wrote: I don't know what your daughter is looking for specifically, but I absolutely love the four door 2012 GTI I bought for mine, as a replacement for the Jetta TDI wagon she was driving.

She's been driving and autocrossing this for the last 6 years:

It's a plain jane automatic 2.5TS. Not quick, but with a giant rear bar it's surprisingly willing to rotate. She's pretty set on the AWD / 5-door platform, so her choices are fairly limited, especially if she wants to replace it with a manual. I've been advising her to look past the FWDness and consider the FoST and GTi.

Im also in Gainesville and we have a few clubs near by about 2 hours or less driving. Dixie region, Buccaneer Region, CFR solo, FAST, Martin Sports Car Club.

We've had several parents bring their newly licensed kids to autocross to learn. I think it makes a great difference in learning car control, and is a good outlet for a heavy right foot.

In reply to car39:

That's another great point. I drive like so much less of an shiny happy person since I started autocrossing, most of the time.

Growing up, I spent a lot of time screwing around in large, empty parking lots, both dirt and asphalt. You can learn a whole bunch in an asphalt parking lot when it's raining. There's always one not too far away if you know where to look. Industrial areas on Sunday mornings is a good time to go play, away from police and nosy bystanders. Two of my favorite places are a local community college and a baseball stadium. These places are dead quiet at certain times with no one around.