Drug Delivery

Are there any good driving schools near San Francisco? My wife will be out there in mid-April and I thought I might go out as well if I could get into a descent driving school. I won't have my own car so an HPDE or auto-x is probably out of the question.

gkmccready

http://www.jimrussellusa.com/ & http://www.infineonraceway.com/sched...hool_schedule/ @ Infineon Raceway
http://www.skipbarber.com/locations/mazda_raceway.aspx @ Laguna Seca

Some track groups will let you run in a rental car, too...

Drug Delivery

Any idea about the cost for the Jim Russell school? Their website is loaded with useful information....a phone number. I can call them on Monday anyway.

gkmccready

They're both north of $3k, I think.

Bill Hetzel

I did the Russell school quite a few years ago. It's a great school.

63Corvette

Laguna Seca is a much easier track to learn on, the Skip Barber instructors are friendly and knowledgable, Oh, and the school cars are Vipers. Have fun!

floor it

http://www.sportscardrivingexperience.com/index.phpIf you are going to be in town for the Indianpolis 500 you migh consider this

Zee916

Russel is a super good school but they are all Formula cars to my knowledge.

I heard they were getting F3000 full aero cars. Gonna have to go back and check that out pretty soon!

davidfarmer

both are a few hours away from San Francisco....Sears Point a bit closer.

Sears is an extremely complex, technical track....the most difficult in the country IMHO. It's fun, but a bit daunting if you haven't done quite a few events.

Laguna Seca, on the other hand, is a quick learn, and other than the fact that it run counter-clockwise and has the famous Cork-screw, it is rather boring.

mousecatcher

you must be rather expert then!

laguna is really easy to become mediocre on (and my mediocre i mean "ok", not "poor"), but almost every corner has a lot of things going on with elevation or camber changes at entry or apex and it's quite difficult (for me, at least!) to really master ... and thus quite interesting. and super fun since the runoffs are to motogp spec and basically worry free everywhere.

mousecatcher

from the sound of your first post, i highly doubt you'd want to do the russell school. it's really geared towards career-minded folks. the cars are VERY fast and EXPENSIVE if you damage them. (they ran their last class in the older cars in December, now they are using what are basically pro mazda cars, but faster.)

otoh, the skip barber cars are slow and clunky (3 day basic class -- h-pattern double-clutch required tranny) or slow and slightly less clunky (2 day adv class -- sequential tranny), but it's probably a better class all around if you haven't been doing karts for 5 years already.

the skip barber classes for sports cars are pretty weak IMHO.

mousecatcher

since when? they have miata's, some low-midrange euro cars (for the lame driving experience class), and rx-8s.

mousecatcher

the mx-5 class might be good, especially when they update the suspension which maybe they will do by mid-april.

StArrow68

The schools have both been changing for the past few years. Russell
at Sears Point got rid of the Mazda 'advanced' cars at the end of last
year and should now be running BMW full aero race cars for their
advanced class. The old Mazda rotarys had about 150hp, the new cars
can be set and go up to 250hp I was told. The techniques of racing
class, required before going on to advanced is run in a non-aero, street
tire formula car four banger, about 130hp. At 1000#s plenty to get into
trouble and great learning experience. The instructors are great, done
several classes with them.

As to David's comment on LS, I agree, Sears Point is basicly more fun.
I also agree with the response that LS does grow on you. The Skip B.
fleet has been changing a lot these last few years. Last I saw they
had P Cars, both Boxsters and 911's in addition to MX5's and their open
wheel cars they run, comparable to Russell's old fleet.
Randy

mousecatcher

not sure where you heard BMW, but they are mitsu evo engines on a lola chassis. i kind of remember hearing 350hp and they detune them to 300. not too confident about those numbers, but i know the cars are very fast. they are comparable to a pro mazda car chassis-wise, but faster. according to their web page
http://www.jimrussellusa.com/index.p...d=61&Itemid=90
they detune to 195hp for the class. so i take it back, the cars are probably not so fast as to scare you (in class trim).

another neat difference/consideration between barber and russell is that the barber formula class runs on street tires whereas in russell they use slicks.

at barber they teach trail brake trail brake trail brake. at russell they teach straight line braking only. i guess the difference is slicks have MUCH less slip angle (say, 5% vs 15%) and also they break loose much faster. so trail brake is both less effective and a lot harder to do on the slicks.

Bill Hetzel

Yea, the corkscrew is the only section that's really fun. And I hate practicing in the fog.
Sears Point is the most exciting track I've driven and I've races most of the west coast tracks and a few on the east coast.

StArrow68

thanks for the tech sheet and the update. I made a bad assumption
since I saw some BMW advertising that they would be involved. Seems
the new cars are only 1025#'s compared to the older cars at 1050#'s.
With added HP if that doesn't scare you, better man than moi! The
chassis seems to be much different than prior formula Mazda which was
just a detuned Pro-Mazda. Star Mazda developed from that. I think
most important thing is that to get into the advanced class you have
to have comparable class to their techniques class and if you didn't do
it with them, the deductible on the insurance used to be about double,
$3k vs. $6k.
As to any visit, major thing is timing. Good luck finding what you are
looking for.
Randy

Drug Delivery

thanks for the info guys. I have some time before I decide to go out there or not.