Garage Heroes (In Training)

Learning as we go. Come along with us and Enjoy the Ride!

Driver Education

GHIT 0148: Brian Bohlander Racing and Potential Paths to Racing Education and Training

Is Racing School or HPDE/Comp School Better for you?

  • Brian Bohlander Headshot
  • Brian Bohlander Racing Driver

Brian Bohlander is a very accomplished race driver having competed for over 30 years and has won the Mint 400 Class 5500 and is a 3-time Thunder Roadster champion.  In his professional life, he is the marketing director for Peak antifreeze and is responsible for all sports and racing partnerships.  As if that was not enough, he is also the Comp school director for NASA Great Lakes.  During the episode, we try to compare two of the primary paths for training and qualifying to compete in wheel to wheel racing:  attending a formal racing school or working your way through the HPDE levels and graduating through Comp school.   Please note that this was recorded prior to our skid pad event that we covered in earlier episodes.

We discuss the different methods of determining your braking point markers and their relative importance in our Dominating with Dawson segment.  We start with a discussion of the relative importance of the point where you begin braking and the point where you come off the brake.  Then we digress into a wide variety of discussion points, some related, some very much not.  We each learned a bit of what we each do when on track.  Who knew?

We hope you enjoy this episode!

Best regards,

Vicki, Jennifer, Alan, and Bill

Hosts of the Garage Heroes In Training Podcast and

Garage Heroes In Training racing team drivers

Highlights from this episode include:

1)  We start with a bit about off road racing and quickly go into several strategies for organizing and prepping for a track event.  It is not only a skill challenge, but a large and complicated logistical challenge.

2)  Brian has probably the shortest and most direct racing philosophy that we have heard to this point.

3)  What is Comp school and how it compares to attending a racing school and where HPDE’s fit into the landscape, including a brief history of where we started driving instruction and how we arrived to where we are now. 

4)  We learn that the NASA CCR (~ rule book) actually has a definition of what a “pass” is on track and how to and how not to pass, but also addresses what each drivers responsibility is during a pass.

5)  What is Comp school?  What do you do and learn while in Comp school?  What are you qualified to do after passing Comp School?  Hint:  Safe, Predictable, and FAST are three key points that allow you to advance.

6)  How the NASA program works to prepare you a driver for better, fast, and safer driving on a track, wheel to wheel racing, time trials, or even to eventually work towards being a competent and certified performance driving instructor.

7)  What is the best path to learn depending on your personal goals.

8)  Several tips that we tried to apply at our skid pad event a few weeks ago at Lime Rock Park.

9)  Brian gives some opinions on the use of data and how it can help you while you are learning and progressing as a driver.

10)  Track Attack Software comes up again.  Please let us know if you have used it what you think of it.  Also, if you would like us to try to get them on a guest, please let us know.

11)  Brian does a very good and clear description of trail braking and how to use it bet on a track.  So, if you haven’t ever been 100% clear on what trail braking is or why you would want to use it, this may be a great episode for you.  Even if you already use trail braking, this may increase your understanding and use of the technique.

12)  We also have a chance to go into the auxiliary benefits of learning to drive in this manner and how it helps you when driving every day on regular street roads.

Brian Bohlander Racing
Brian in His Thunder Roadster

GHIT 0148: Brian Bohlander Racing and Potential Paths to Racing Education and Training

GHIT 0147: HPDE at NJMP Lightning Wrap Up for 2020

  • Porsche 911
  • Vicki's NB Miata
  • BMW
Some great cars, and some of ours attended this event.

The latest HPDE with NASA Northeast last weekend completes our season of track driving and instruction for 2020.  We try to summarize it as well as how the COVID 19 impacted racing season went.  And Bill can’t wait to start planning 2021.  It was a great weekend on track with fantastic weather, especially for mid-November in NJ.  We came with three cars good to go.  We left with zero.  Seems to be a familiar refrain.  The winter to do list gets longer.

On Dominating with Dawson, we cover driver communication going into and out of the car at the track.  

We hope you enjoy this episode!

Best regards,

Vicki, Jennifer, Alan, and Bill

Hosts of the Garage Heroes In Training Podcast and

Garage Heroes In Training racing team drivers

Highlights from this episode include:

1)  We cover our goals going into the event.

2)  How was Bill’s new HPDE car on track for the first time.  If at first you don’t succeed, try, try, try again or the fourth time is the charm.

3)  We also cover how Vicki and Jennifer applied the things they learned at the Lime Rock skid pad on the track.

4)  Bill gets to see the Lightning track for the first time, even though he/we drove this track for several hours last year.  Hood-Gate.

5)  Jennifer got to drive with and review the data from the Garmin Catalyst for the first time. 

6)  Vicki also started reviewing and using the data from the Apex Pro for the first time ever.

7)  Both Jennifer and Vicki got a lot faster throughout the weekend and seemed to have some of their best driving stints ever.

8)  Bill went on track for the first time ever in the ND Miata. 

9)  What were the areas of greatest improvement for Jennifer and Vicki.  Both made significant gains in both their lines and their car inputs.  Also, now they were both able to take input from the data and video and apply it on their next stint. 

10)  Bill apparently can’t count turns past 5 and gets confused with turn 7.  We will blame this on our post-race weekend hangover. 

11)  Bill really wants to put racing brake pads onto the M3 for the next track event.  The all-season tires were not as big a deal as anticipated but will also need to be improved for our first event next season.

12)  Vicki’s last stint led to an off on turn 5 that has caused some issue with her suspension.  Exact point of failure is still TBD at this point.

13)  We were able to get a lot of good video and hopefully good data.  We cannot wait to analyze further and learn what we can work on and how we are improving.

14)  Jennifer breaks the news that Ross Bentley is coming back as a guest for our 150th episode that is coming very soon!

15)  Vicki went into her off track event late Sunday at turn 5. 

16)  Brief review of some of our off season work and planning for next season.

GHIT 0147: HPDE at NJMP Lightning Wrap Up for 2020

GHIT 0146: Live from NJMP Lightning with NASA NE

We thought we would get a short podcast out to update how the day has gone and what we have been doing today.  Jennifer is in the Soul Red 2019 Mazda MX5 (Miata) ND2 and is in HPDE 1 this weekend.  Vicki is in her first HPDE 2 and, as always is driving her 1999 Mazda Miata with the Flyin’ Miata turbo.  Bill finally found an HPDE car that he can fit into that wasn’t stolen (yet) by the girls, a 2004 BMW E46 M3.  The day went very well and we all learned from the time on track.  We cover highs and lows and end with a short story time from Bill about the last stint of the day.  This will cover Saturday and we will likely have a longer episode covering the whole event in the future.  

If you are here, please say hi.  Jennifer actually ran into a listener in her HPDE class.  

Also, if you happen to have some race pads for an E46 M3, Bill has cash money.  

GHIT 0146: Live from NJMP Lightning with NASA NE

GHIT 0145: Our Skid Pad and Autocross Event at Lime Rock Park

  • Jennifer in the 2019 Mazda MX5
Just a bit of splashing around

We have finally gotten to our long postponed skid pad event.  Our original event in March was cancelled due to COVID 19 and when John from Safety Third Motorsports was kind enough to offer an invitation to an event at Lime Rock Park using the skid pad and autocross track, we gladly said thank you!  Was it everything we had hoped for?  Should you go to a skid pad?  Did it help us?  Would it help you?  Why do our cars always break the night before we leave?  All this and more will be answered in this episode. 

A seemingly simple subject for our Dominating with Dawson segment, but very important.  How to position your mirrors and the importance of a good seating position on performance driving. 

We hope you enjoy this episode!

Best regards,

Vicki, Jennifer, Alan, and Bill

Hosts of the Garage Heroes In Training Podcast and

Garage Heroes In Training racing team drivers

Highlights from this episode include:

1)  Goals for the event going in

2)  How the event was organized.  It included a brief 1-hour classroom meeting, followed by several sessions and drills on the skid pad and ending with several sessions on an autocross course.

3)  Jennifer drove in the stock 2019 Mazda Miata MX-5 ND2.  Bill drove in the mostly stock 2017 Toyota 86 and Vicki drove her 1999 turbo NB Miata MX-5.

4)  Keeping with tradition, we had an issue with one of our cars and this time it was Vicki’s NB Miata that had two blown struts in the rear.  Parts were unavailable, but Alex Levinson came to the rescue with some struts that he had.

5)  How to change the suspension of your NB Miata twice in the parking lot of a hotel the night before, and morning of the event. 

6)  A brief review of the classroom session, with a few quiz questions to Jennifer and Vicki.  We may need another session.  Lol.

7)  Skid pad drills and what we learned.  There were three drills we tried:  speed testing, inducing understeer, and inducing oversteer. 

8)  Vicki had some struggles (again) with in car instruction and we try to get to the bottom of it and how we can look to improve that issue going forward. 

9)  A comparison of how our three drivers and our three cars compared during the skid pad event.

10)  How the autocross course was laid out and what drills we used.

11)  How Alex “The Unintended Gigolo” faired in his attempt to use all three cars on the skid pad and the autocross course.

12)  Jennifer and Vicki learned heel toe downshifting and did quite well.  Bill, not so much. 

13)  Bill goes into the autocross part of the event and had some issues with the traction of the course or his over driving, or even more likely, lack of skill.

14)  Jennifer improved so much that she actually got motion sickness for the first time while driving at the event.  And she’d do it again!

15)  How both Vicki and Jennifer learned to get comfortable with the car getting loose and even looking forward to it.  Still so much more to learn and get comfortable with, but a great first step.

16)  We cover the final part of the autocross event where we were timed.  On the GHIT team, Alex was fastest, Vicki was second, Jennifer (on an empty stomach) came in third but was by far our most consistent driver at the event.  Bill prefers to remain unquantifiable by hitting a cone and posting a DNF.

The good, the bad, and the ugly
The good, the bad, and the ugly

17)  We try to cover the event with our traditional “Good, Bad, and the Ugly” but Vicki and Jennifer had so much fun that there really wasn’t an ugly. 

18)  Vicki is planning on some additional skid pad practice in an upcoming snowy parking lot.

19)  Bill is committed to incorporating heel toe down shifting into his track driving.

20)  Ben will be very happy with the latest version of couples therapy, lol.

Special thanks to John Lavin and John Murphy for hosting and leading the event.  Hopefully, we did well enough to get another invite in the future.

GHIT 0145: Our Skid Pad and Autocross Event at Lime Rock Park

GHIT 0143: Using Video Coaching with Dion von Moltke from Racers360

  • Dion von Moltke
  • Autobahn Country Club
  • Bill in the 2017 Toyota 86
Dion reviews Bill’s driving at the Autobahn Country Club in the 2017 Toyota 86

Our latest Podcast, episode GHIT 0143:  Using Video Coaching with Dion von Moltke from Racers360 is out on all podcast services

After a recent HPDE event with NASA Great Lakes at the Autobahn Country Club near Chicago, Bill sent in some video of a representative lap to Racers360 to try their video coaching and see what he could work on to improve.  Dion von Moltke, from Racers360 and a podcast guest from episode #92, evaluated one of Bill’s laps and who knew, it wasn’t all that bad.  We thought it would be a great discussion of the use of video and the added benefit of having a professional driver and coach review the video for you.  Bill learned a great deal and every driver will.  This is especially valuable to the two ends of the learning curve.  The newer drivers will start off breaking any bad habits and the higher level drivers will finally have someone qualified, capable, and available who could help them refine the last few items to help shave the final few tenths to get closer to their potential.  The cost (~$100) makes this an exceptional value to all drivers looking to improve.  Ben and friends discuss the concept of weight transfer during the Dominating with Dawson segment.  Whether conscious or subconscious, it is an underlying fundamental to high performance driving and managing this is key to getting the most you can out of a car and reducing lap times.

You can email Dion directly at [email protected]

And follow him on Instagram at or twitter @Dionvmr

We hope you enjoy this episode!

Best regards,

Vicki, Jennifer, Alan, and Bill

Hosts of the Garage Heroes In Training Podcast and

Garage Heroes In Training racing team drivers

Highlights from this episode include:

The raw lap video a bit after 11:30 in:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Am-epQIjT4&t=758s

A 5-minute snippet of Dion’s review of Bill’s lap can be seen at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iT2-NzD3o4Y

Eric Meyer from NASA Great Lakes also discussed this lap from a data analysis perspective here:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aMtlsfwbSso

1)  We review some of Dion’s racing accomplishments including his time as an IMSA driver, winning the 24 hours of Daytona and the 24 hours of Sebring twice and his current work with Racers360 that is aimed at all levels of amateur racing of cars, motorcycles, go karts, etc.

2)  A discussion of NJMP’s Lightning track and its (obvious) nickname.  Just look at the track map.

3)  The advantages of personalized coaching and the feedback opportunities it opens up the coach and the driver.

4)  Dion asks Bill to self-asses his driving strengths and weaknesses.  This discussion was very short and very long, respectively.

5)  The coaching consisted of not only the “what”, but the “why” as well as an estimate of the potential impact on lap times and safety that area involved.  

6)  A big discussion of Turn 9 and Turn 10 at Autobahn that applies to several other turn complexes that lead onto long straights where sometimes you sacrifice a turn and sometimes it is not the best choice.  It appears that as in life, nothing is 100% all the time. 

7)  Turn 1 at Autobahn is a high speed right hand turn that Dion went into in general and also used as an example of how best to break down a turn (backwards) to determine what to do for a specific turn, especially if you are unfamiliar with the track or turn.

8)  To the surprise of absolutely no one, we also discussed vision and the need to relax and look very “long” and “wide” with good scanning practices. 

9)  Dion is a fan of trying to work on one or two things at a time and not overwhelming the driver while learning.

10)  Bill gives a brief description of the Garmin Catalyst and how it worked for him at Autobahn during his first weekend with the unit. 

11)  Dion gets (unfairly) put on the spot with looking at Jennifer’s crash at the Charlotte Roval.  He agreed that is looks like a catch done well and a recovery not quite quick enough.  Dion also recalls a time where he was able to catch a similar incident and save the car (with a bit of luck).  It can be found at about 40-45 seconds into the video at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fPq5K1giAC8

12)  Racers in training weight loss challenge is entered.  Please let us know if you want to participate.  Dion may even help despite not needing to lose any weight personally. 

13)  Bill looks to scoop up a few brownie points when the opportunity arises.

14)  Some of the takeaways and how they apply to all laps and all tracks.  Many are going to be incorporated into his practice session at the track and on the sim.

15)  Bill vents his standard color matching issues.  Still no traction received.

16)  Track Addict may be worth some investigation and if your budget allows perhaps an AIM SmartyCam.

17)  Bill drags Dion into his current level of overthinking the geometry of a turn.

18)  Another vote for the Senna documentary.  Maybe Vicki will finally watch it.  It is really fantastic, even if you aren’t a race driver. 

19)  Post credits discussion of Mid-Ohio, with and without the chicane before the keyhole, and some volleyball discussion. 

GHIT 0143: Using Video Coaching with Dion von Moltke from Racers360