So! You want to be an Instructor!
by Bill Groschen
Ed note: Bill is an instructor at Porsche Club driver's schools at CBIR. They allow instructors to be in the car with their students which is similar to the High Performance Car Clinic which will be held in conjjunction with the September 23-24 Regional Races at CBIR.
You want to be an instructor! Are you nuts?
Why? Better pay? There ain’t no pay. Shorter work hours? Guess again. Prestige? Sure a little, maybe. Unless you screw up or maybe your student doesn’t listen or understand what you mean and they screw up. Then you're the butt of everybody’s jokes. Might learn something? Definitely. Maybe more than you expected or wanted to know. Danger? Without a doubt. Remember, you are in the hands of a novice who is trying to "go fast" and probably has never been over 90 MPH in a straight line much less 110 or 130 MPH in a curve. Pucker time !!!! Adrenaline rush? You bet. Sit in that right hand seat often enough and I’ll guarantee that somewhere along the line with some new student you will at least see the faint outline of Jesus in turn one, two or three at BIR.
What else? Get more track time? Fer sure! On a "short of instructors" weekend, if you try to get in time in your own run group as well as teaching two students, that could amount to somewhere around 250 to 350 laps. Don’t believe me? Figure the math. Except on school days, 8 to10 laps per 20 min. session, three sessions per hour, 5 to 8 hours per day. Dizzy yet? We have three events at BIR per
year with two of them including drivers schools. So in a (good?) year you could get over a thousand laps at BIR and one third to one half of them in the passenger seat with your life in the hands of the guy behind the wheel. Comfy now?
If you could hear a tape recording of the in car conversations between instructor and student during some of these lapping sessions you would hear things like, "Don’t turn in too early on turn three this time, OK? Here we go, pick up your brake point, got it ? Good! Brake!... Brake!!...Brake!. Brake! Brake! Brake!!!!!!!! Don’t turn yet! Oh, Shit! Careful, now. Easy, Easy, Easy!!! Thank you lord!
The above student was concentrating very hard on the turn in point and forgot about the brake point. The instructor’s screaming then distracted him/her from the turn in point ........and so the world turns. That’s only the first time thru turn three at somewhere near appropriate speed. That is, appropriate speed for you, because you have been around that corner at speed yourself about 2000 times. Right? Well, wake up and smell the roses, Bunkie, things can get much more interesting in the rain.
I would caution first time out instructors to drop 10 or 20 mph from the student speed for several laps until the comfort level rises between instructor and student. It’s really poor form to be off the track with your first student. Also, and I speak from experience, a bad experience, never put your hands on the steering wheel without first informing the student you intend to do so or asking the student if it would bother them. Seeing a problem fast approaching in the infamous turn three at BIR I reached
over and grabbed the wheel to keep the student from turning in "WAY Early" and the student screamed and grabbed her helmet with both hands. Did you ever try to negotiate a 120 degree turn while steering from the passenger seat with someone else working the pedals? I don’t recommend this at all. As I remember, this lady went on to be an excellent and very fast driver despite my instructor induced trauma. Her name will remain anonymous.
I think someone (not me) should write a book or gather stories from instructors about their most harrowing experiences. It ought to be a best seller in the instructor corps.
What are the "costs" of being an instructor? You get track time but you are not really in control. You usually get to pay for an extra nite’s lodging so you can be fresh in the morning, you get to pay for an extra tank of gas, a missed day of work (What is that worth? $50 or up to $1000?). You usually get to wear out your car a little quicker giving your students rides around the track to show them the "line" that you think is the best. (But, then it’s also great fun to scare the crap out of them for a change so maybe that is a benefit). You get a stiff neck from that helmet that doesn’t seem too heavy for the first 50 laps but Oh, Mother after 200 laps it will git ya. I also get a little tennis elbow from holding on to the door handle in the turns as most of the cars don’t have 4 or 5 point harnesses. You get to spend a little more for lunch and dinners than you normally would. The $5 hot dogs, $3 cokes etc., but you would have to eat anyway so that is not real spendy unless your group likes to eat at Ivan’s all the time. I figure a Drivers School
INSTRUCT, cont. on page 13
Tonneau On-Line August 2000
Page 12
Copyright 2000, Land O'Lakes Region Last revised: March 13, 2003
