This may be better for Tech/Perf since its performance related, but I'll leave that up to the mods.

My questions are (1), have any of you ever attended a driving school for racing (no, not the "driving school" you have to attend to avoid getting points on your license when you're CAUGHT racing, heh) - I mean an actual race-oriented driving school, and (2) if so, did you find one that was related to these old muscle cars?

I looked into a local one but a lot of the material is about the technologies on the newer cars and electronic tuning and that stuff. I'm really more interested in learning how to "properly" control MY cars, with their 40 year old suspension designs and no traction control or other fancy gadgetry. The place I looked at you couldn't run your own car, only theirs, and they were all less than 5 years old. No offense to the C6 guys, but I have to believe that running a 2008 vette around the track, where the car does a lot of the "Thinking" for you, would be slightly less challenging than a C3 on the same road course.

What has your experience been, and was the money you spent worth it? Meaning did you walk away with the knowledge that actually made you a noticeably better driver, or is it all just fluff you already knew but hearing it from someone else gave you the courage to try some maneuvers you were afraid to try before.

 

Are you a member of a vette club or know of one close by? I was a member a few years ago and they always had different things going on. One was at a school/track like you are talking about. They set up a group rate and we brought our own cars. Was a great day, I learned alot. That's probably the best way to go. Otherwise we would have had to drive their cars.

It was scheduled on one of the tracks off days so we had the whole place to ourselves. We only had 1 instructor and he didn't ride with us. We had class room instructions and he communicated to us via radio as we needed the info.

The price would have been too much to use their cars and their instructors riding with us. This was a little less formal this way but I learned alot and saw improvements on my khana times afterwards. IMO worth every penny I spent. I took an LT4 out there and was fun passing the C5s. C3s had a little more trouble on the course but they held their own.

 

Ive always wanted to go somewhere like that,

Miles

 

I haven't paid for any driving schools yet, but have gone to a few free ones. BMW, Mazda and Mercedes has had some free ones that I've attended. I have to say, what you learn depends on your attitude.. not what you're driving. A car is a car, four wheels plus one that steers the front two. If you go in with an attitude that you already know it all, you will learn nothing, and probably get your butt kicked by the open minded. However, any driving school, approached with the right attitude can (will) improve your driving. Traction control and abs will make things easier, but they won't take care of everything. If your driving a car with such creature comforts, realize that if you feel the engine slowing down or the brake pedal pulsing.. that you would be eating cones in your vette. Any time behind the wheel with an instructor is time well spent.