Driver Education

Getting the Most Out of Instruction

GHIT 0340: Getting the Most Out of Instruction at a Track Day or HPDE etc.

Track time is a precious commodity. It is often difficult to fit into your schedule, it takes a significant amount to prep for a weekend (both the car and the driver and often simply getting to the track). It is also not free to attend the event. We try to give some examples of what to do and what not to do before an at an event. Also, given this, one of Bill’s obsessions is in getting the absolute most he can from each event, and even every stint, especially for our team and his HPDE students. We use a standard debrief sheet for each event and have fount it to be very helpful and increase the progression of each of our drivers, especially as you progress and improve since you will often be driving without an instructor directly assisting you every stint. So if you are looking at getting the most out of instruction, this may be the podcast for you.

If you have any interest in getting a copy of out sheet, or our track walk/track notes template, please let us know in a podcast review or on our social media, or send us an email at [email protected] and we can share it with you.

(Because Bill has no idea how to link them in the episode notes, lol)

If you would like to help grow our sport and this podcast:

You can subscribe to our podcast on the podcast provider of your choice, including the Apple podcast app, Google music, Amazon, and YouTube etc. Also, if you could give our podcast a (5-star?) rating, that we would appreciate that very much. Even better, a podcast review, would help us to grow the passion and sport of high performance driving and we would appreciate it.

For instance, leaving an Apple Podcast rating is amazingly easy. If you go to your podcast library, look under shows. Then click on this podcast. Here you can leave a (5?) star rating and enter your review.

We hope you enjoy this episode!

PS If you are looking to stream or save your integrated telemetry/racing data with you video, Candelaria Racing Products Sentinel System may be the perfect solution for you. We are during installing the system in two of our cars. If this sounds like something that may help you and your team, please use our discount code “GHIT” for a 10% discount code to all our listeners during the checkout process.

PS2 Please do not forget that if you are looking to add an Apex Pro to your driving telemetry system, do not forget to use our discount code for all Apex Pro systems you will receive a free Windshield Suction Cup Mount for the system, a savings of $40. Just enter the code “ghitlikesapex!” when you order. They are a great system and invaluable to safely increasing your speed on track and/or autocross, etc. The recently released second generation systems and app increases the capability of the system.

Best regards,

Vicki, Jennifer, Ben, Alan, and Bill

Hosts and Drivers for the Garage Heroes In Training team

GHIT 0340: Getting the Most Out of Instruction at a Track Day or HPDE etc.

How to Test Your Race Car

at the Track with Scott Robertson

GHIT 0334: How to Test Your Car at the Track with Scott Robertson

We often hear how important it is to test your car prior to racing. While listening to Scott’s Track Walking podcast (a can’t miss podcast), Scott was discussing how he and Becky were able to conduct a full track test and tune evaluation of their vehicle during a recent HPDE. Since Scott is a respected coach and offers a service to help a driver to dial in their car at the track, we thought he would be a perfect guest to discuss how to best conduct a test and tune day most effectively and efficiently. We start the discussion with what a test day means and work our way up from there. This was recorded several weeks ago prior to the 2022 One Lap of America where Scott and Becky entered the OLoA in their Mazda 2 Sundae Cup car lovingly called Mooncake. If we could go back in time, we would have asked how that car was able to come in second overall on the skid pad event versus some very capable and sometimes expensively prep’ed vehicles.

If you would like to help grow our sport and this podcast:

You can subscribe to our podcast on the podcast provider of your choice. This includes the Apple podcast app, Google music, Amazon, and YouTube etc.

Also, if you could give our podcast a (5-star?) rating, that we would appreciate that very much. Even better would be a podcast review. This helps us to grow the passion and sport of high performance driving and we would appreciate it.

We hope you enjoy this episode!

PS If you are looking to stream or save your integrated telemetry/racing data with you video, Candelaria Racing Products Sentinel System may be the perfect solution for you. We are amid installing the system in two of our cars. If this sounds like something that may help you and your team, please use our discount code “GHIT” for a 10% discount during the checkout process at https://candelaria-racing.com/

Best regards,

Vicki, Jennifer, Ben, Alan, and Bill

Hosts of the Garage Heroes In Training Podcast and Garage Heroes In Training racing team drivers

Highlights for this episode include:

1) We start off with pre-event processes such as planning what you will test. This includes aspects of what tools you have, what you are capable/willing to change at the track.

2) Some examples of the testing order and priority. Things to do and things not to do.

3) One of the key aspects is to determine what you are trying to get from the process, i.e., driver experience/education or car optimization etc.

4) We also cover some of the key changes that you would like to change, as well as what tools you need to have for some of the key areas you will likely test. Hint: you will need a good tire pressure gauge and ideally a tire thermocouple or equivalent.

5) The best aspects of seeking an outside perspective or even better an experiences coach or F1 engineer, or even somewhere in between.

6) Ideas of things that you would like to test, including front sway bar (full hard to disconnected), rear sway bar (same), shock sweeps (full hard to full soft), rake adjustment, alignment, aero, tire pressure, etc.

7) Tips on how the impact of driver adaptation can affect the tests.

8) The importance of testing documentation and how it can help you going forward. A partial list of the items to summarize include the weather, track conditions, alignment, tires and condition, driver etc. This will eventually lead towards secondary goal of building you set up database for the car and the tracks

9) We go into last year’s One Lap of America and the (at that time) upcoming 2022 which since been completed.

10) Scott and Becky finished first in class and 54th out of 84 entries for the entire event and stunned the world on the skid pad with a 2nd place overall.

To follow Scott, you can go to:

@TrackWalkingPodcast on Facebook or Instagram

@RobertsonRacing on Instagram

@RobertsonRacingMiata on Facebook

Or you can email Scott about coaching etc. at: [email protected]

GHIT 0334: How to Test Your Car at the Track with Scott Robertson

CPR and Racing

– Correct, Pause, and Recover

DwD 0330: CPR and Racing – Correct, Pause, and Recover)

CPR is typically referred to in a medical emergency. But in racing, CPR is in reference to Correct, Pause, and Recover when you are out of sorts on the track. The thought behind the acronym is that when your car gets out of shape or out of control on a track, one of the things that should be taken into consideration is that this can often require a procedure where you not only correct for the issue/error, but you must wait an appropriate amount of time for the correction to take effect on the car. This allows the change to be transferred to the car through the vehicle through the suspension and then after seeing the car respond, the driver will then have to finish the process with a recovery to continue along the desired pathway on track. This is because the correction will often lead to a change of course that requires a further input to track properly. The unique aspect of this process is being relaxed enough to wait and feel the pause before applying the recovery before the correction has taken place. Without the pause, a driver can often get caught up in greater and greater oscillations and get “behind” the vehicle and end up in a worse condition than the original issue would have caused. This is likely part one of several episodes.

If you would like to help grow our sport and this podcast:

We hope you enjoy this episode!

PS If you are looking to stream or save your integrated telemetry/racing data with you video, Candelaria Racing Products Sentinel System may be the perfect solution for you. We are in the midst of installing the system in two of our cars. If this sounds like something that may help you and your team, please use our discount code “GHIT” for a 10% discount code to all our listeners during the checkout process.

Best regards,

Vicki, Jennifer, Ben, Alan, and Bill

Hosts and Drivers for the Garage Heroes In Training team

DwD 0330: CPR and Racing – Correct, Pause, and Recover

Best Car Mods to Go Faster

DwD 0328: Best Car Mods to Go Faster – With Guest DwD Judge Tyler

Ben is joined by honorary guest DwD Judge Tyler for a special Dominating with Dawson where we go over what are the best things you can modify in your car to perform better. Ben goes with brakes pads and brake fluid upgrades. Tyler goes with upgraded tires. While both of these are great additions, Bill and Vicki disagree slightly. If we were playing Family Feud, brake pads and fluid would be #2. Tires a close #3. We always like keeping you in suspense so the correct car mods answer is……..

If you would like to help grow our sport and this podcast:

We hope you enjoy this episode!

PS If you are looking to stream or save your integrated telemetry/racing data with you video, Candelaria Racing Products Sentinel System may be the perfect solution for you. We are in the midst of installing the system in two of our cars. If this sounds like something that may help you and your team, please use our discount code “GHIT” for a 10% discount code to all our listeners during the checkout process.

Best regards,

Vicki, Jennifer, Alan, and Bill

DwD 0328: Best Car Mods to Go Faster – With Guest DwD Judge Tyler

Driving What You Got

On Track – Two Ways

DwD 0326: Driving What You Got On Track – Two Ways

On this episode of Dominating with Dawson, we go over two aspects of driving on track with the “car” you have. This was originally intended to address the aspect of driving the car you have at the time. Adapting your driving to the car as it is during a weekend or a stint. Most of us are not fortunate enough to have the ability to dial in a car on the fly on track. Most times you have to make the best of it. The discussion also went into going to a track event with almost every one of your daily drivers. Most cars in the current condition and not waiting until you install a blank or add a new blank. In the end, the more seat time you have and the more car behaviors you learn. This allows you to drive and adapt to, the better your skills will be and the faster you will be in a different car or track or weather or tires etc. in the future. Just get started and make the best of any time that you are blessed and able to have on track.

If you would like to help grow our sport and this podcast:

You can subscribe to our podcast on the podcast provider of your choice. This includes the Apple podcast app, Google music, Amazon, and YouTube etc. Also, if you could give our podcast a (5-star?) rating, that we would appreciate that very much. Even better, a podcast review, would help us to grow the passion and sport of high performance driving. We would really appreciate it.

We hope you enjoy this episode!

PS Are you are looking to stream or save your integrated telemetry/racing data with video? Candelaria Racing Products Sentinel System may be the perfect solution for you. We are in the midst of installing the system in two of our cars. If this sounds like something that may help you and your team, please use our discount code “GHIT“. This will give 10% discount code to all our listeners during the checkout process.

PS2 If you are looking to add an Apex Pro to your driving telemetry system, do not forget to use our discount code for all Apex Pro systems. Please enter the code “ghitlikesapex!”. You will receive a free Windshield Suction Cup Mount for the system, a savings of $40.

Best regards,

Vicki, Jennifer, Ben, Alan, and Bill

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