My father is retiring at the end of the month and is really into corvettes. My brother and I would like to buy him one of those track experience days, where you get a short class, then get to drive a car on a closed track. We want one where you use their car, my dad wouldn't want to use his own classic vette. We are hoping to find one that is more than just an oval, nascar-type track, but would be open to that. We'd also like to find one that uses vettes, but it doesn't have to be. We are also hoping that it is around $600 total and somewhere on the east coast.

I have no idea where to look for one other than google, and who knows if what it pulls up is any good? Does anyone have any recommendations for me?

Thanks!

 

i did a driving school at West Virginia... uhhh the name skips my head. it was a real fun weekend driving school

 

you should pm tmak26 hes a driving instructor that operates at virginia international raceway

 

http://www.midohio.com/school.aspx

 

Howdy Duke,

Before I start, let me ask you. How experience is your dad in terms of driving a car at speeds and how much does he enjoy doing it? THere are couple ways you can do it.

#1 Go to a professional school and learn from them. Places like Skip Barber, Petty Racing (decide if you want to do ovals or road racing too) ($500-$2500) You do spend a lot of time in the classroom going over concept, which is somewhat boring to me.

#2 Bring your own car and go to a track day. You will have more control on what you do, but the risk and everything is higher. It is less expensive, but you also learn less from the classroom point of view. Most of your experience will come from being on hte track with a pointer for you. ($150-400)

The driving school will get you more of the concept of racing and they will teach you how to be good at it (on paper). HPDE is more like learn as you go kind of deal. Just picture yourself being in a pickup basketball game rather than an organized league. WHat do you like more? You will have to ask yourself.

Some people are just not meant to do the track events, get them to do whatever is comfortable for them. If you want to use your own car, you can use your RX-8 too. I personally think racing a street car is more fun due to the challenge, but it is very dangerous. I will be instructing at VIR and Summit Point a lot this year, two sites you can go to.

http://www.mazdadrivers.com/

http://forums.vwvortex.com/zerothread?id=3020642

http://capital.noreastr32.org/sp_hpde_info.html

Here are some things you can do on the track.

VIR
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b-BfLpfJxEQ
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PVM9pjfDNKk
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UND3OV0gRIU
http://video.google.com/videoplay?do...80474710&hl=en
http://video.google.com/videoplay?do...93640124&hl=en

Lime Rock
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vICXp_KOJC8
http://video.google.com/videoplay?do...11961269&hl=en

Pocono
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E1-C7VCnGOE
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r03VgMk4WD8

Scary stuff
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FEkihkT1B3Y
http://video.google.com/videoplay?do...80664789&hl=en
http://video.google.com/videoplay?do...40904805&hl=en
http://video.google.com/videoplay?do...17556823&hl=en

Things you can do and have a lot of fun (can be dangerous)
http://video.google.com/videoplay?do...52352108&hl=en
http://video.google.com/videoplay?do...51752828&hl=en
http://video.google.com/videoplay?do...49336427&hl=en

Btw, I only instruct as a hobby. I do other crappy job to survive

 

Thanks to everyone for their responses, and especially to tmak26b for all of the great info. I'm looking through the different options now. I learned something about the 1 day Skip Barber Racing School that people on this board might find interesting. The 1 day option consists of a class, plus practice time in an RX-8, then track time in a forumla car.

http://www.skipbarber.com/racing_sch...day_combo.aspx

 

My brother did the 1 day Skip Barber @ Lime Rock last August (before they had the Mazada deal). He had a blast, but that's crazy expensive to my mind.

I did the NASA (www.nasaproracing.com) HPDE 1 event @ Mid-Ohio last July. Great time and I learned a ton. I hope to get to more this year.

Depends on what you want and what you are willing to spend.

 

I wrote an extensive review of Skip Barber's 2-day high performance driving school (where you drive the Porsche 911, Boxster, and M3):

https://www.rx8club.com/general-automotive-49/review-skip-barbers-2-day-high-performance-driving-school-109515/

I hope you find it useful.