Exceeded my expectations enormously. IMO it will make you love your ZR1 even more than you do now. I would estimate the number of ZR1 owners who fully understand where the cars capabilities are to be very small. When the pro driver takes you for a few laps around the 2.2 mile course at the limits of the car it will warp your mind. What you can do with this car yourself will boggle your mind. Classroom instruction on the dynamics of braking, turn in, hitting the apex, balancing the car in transition etc..the whole nine yards and specific to the traits of the ZR1 on this 2.2 quite technical track. Lots of track time. Some following directly behind the pro.. some not... some with a pro riding shotgun, and several laps with you as passenger with the pro showing you the real limits of the car. The improvement in my track driving in just two days far exceeded anything I thought could be possible. We did all our driving in Track, Sport 1 . mode. Ist day on Pilot SS... 2nd day on Cup 2’s. zero accidents or deductibles paid by any of the 12 of us. Good because the deductible is 15 grand. Anyone not planning to take advantage of this is missing a memorable experience IMO...from what I was told, this course is quite different than other classes given there. They had us wear HANS type protection in addition to the helmet at all times. I dont care what your skill level is, I believe you wont regret it. Former Indy Driver Richie Hearn actually runs the ZR1 school from what I could tell, and actually is one of the instructors himself. First rate lodging and food (breakfast and lunch both days). I signed up for the course at Road America and they had a special where they threw in the second night condo stay free. Check out if that free extra night is still offered when you talk to them. I’m only scratching the surface here. Hope this is helpful to anyone undecided about doing it. Btw.. the track is located 1 hour west of Las Vegas airport. Rental car is the best way to get there if you fly.

yes Sean, the Simpson Hybrid.... stock seat belts.. cars are completely stock.. they dont even have the larger air filter system..stock wheels and brakes of course.. they do run 100 octane gas because they said otherwise they can only get 91 octane in Nevada. Sean, I have no doubt you will be the star in your class.

After the first day I was a bit overwhelmed. I felt a bit frustrated at my inconsistency. Keep in mind I have had very little track instruction and little “real” all out track time before this (in my C6 Callaway).. so this was getting thrown into the deep end of the pool for me. BUT.. the instructors did keep telling us the first day: “don’t worry, it will all come together for you tomorrow”... and I think it was a combination of relaxing a bit, learning the track, trusting the cars capabilities, being able to look further out on the track and not having to think to hard about everything you need to do (a split second before it needs to be done)... it did all come totgether by the second afternoon and I was out there pushing the car really hard and feeling good about it. I could concentrate on the finer details of my braking pressure and more precisely hitting my marks. I haven't reviewed my PDR card yet as I dont have a lap top here in AZ but my lap times dropped significantly. I’m certain I wasn't the fastest guy in the class, (never expected that) nor was I the slowest... thats not important... did my driving improve however? MORE THAN I COULD HAVE EVER EXPECTED!!!!!!

I guess if you can outrun a former Indy Car driver they’ll probably try to hire you. On one lap the pro I rode with took the car just past its grip limit over and over and saved the car every time to show me where that limit was. His reaction time was faster than MMA fighter. I was really impressed with how far out that limit was for the car, which was the intent of the exercise. It gave me confidence I wasnt likely going to spin out at my pace.

They were not Hans devices, because the cars use stock seat belts. No six-point harness to which the Hans would attach. I don’t know the brand, but they are a backpack-style harness with small clips to the helmet.

yes first $15 grand is on you... Someone asked Richie about a buy down option but he said aparently they used to offer it, but it became so expensive that they didn’t feel it was worth it anymore. Btw... none of the ZR1’s have been wrecked. Not sure about minor damage. I was surprised they encouraged us to agressively use the curbs at the apexes(something I’d normally think twice about with my own car) but the curbs are gentle enough where they really dont unsettle the car and I never scraped once anywhere doing it. The most likely damage situation would be to severely late brake and go off into the dirt and do some splitter damage. I cant think of a way you could put a car into a wall there. I heard one student say he spun his car around ... no damage.

Also on that track, there’s plenty of runoff if you have an “oops moment.” You really would need a major knucklehead move to do any major damage to the car. Probably why, after all these months of having experienced and inexperienced drivers out there, they’ve never had a crash. Go have fun, and don’t worry about it!

Thats the situation for the ZR1 owner school. I can tell you from comparing notes at lunch with a couple of guys who were there doing a different “Corvette school”, there is huge difference between the ZR1 program and some of the other schools there.