do I need to do the required hpde in my region

#1

I’m part of the mid-atlantic region and will be getting my provisional license there. I am now one event behind my plans since my head gasket failed last weekend at summit point. The CCR only says that 4 days are required 2 in a racecar. Do I need to do all 4 days or 2 hpdes in the Mid-Atlantic reqion.

#2

Go to the NASA website and follow the links to the mid-atl website. Contact Chris Cobetto and company and talk to them about your qualifications to attend comp school. If they agree that you have the qualifications to attend and the CCR doesn’t stipulate a specific region then you’re good.

On the other hand, if you’ve not done a fair # of track days or Chris et. al. don’t know you then you’re going to have to spend some time on the track with them before they are going to greenlight your attendence at their comp school.

The bottom line is that you have to earn their trust before they will let you attend their school.

#3

I’ve only been to three track days and one school at road america. I don’t know chris. What I meant to ask is if I go to CMP for the hpde will it count towards my provisional license in mid atlantic.

I guess I will just go if I think my car can make it.

#4

Robert, don’t take this wrong, but with the track experience you’ve listed , I’m as excited about racing wheel-to-wheel with you as Mario Andretti would be if I were to apply for the Indy 500.

Don’t kid yourself, it is a dangerous sport. I’m hopeful that your progress is swift, but,unless I’ve missed something, you’re expectations are not well founded.You will need much more track time than that that you have listed.

Regards, Robert Patton

#5

turbo329is wrote:

[quote]I’ve only been to three track days and one school at road america. I don’t know chris. What I meant to ask is if I go to CMP for the hpde will it count towards my provisional license in mid atlantic.
[/quote]
Dude, I had 70 track days before I started thinking about comp school and 100 track days before my first race. Sure, I learn slower then most, but still…

You may be rushing this a little. You have to get to the point where you don’t need to think about driving fast.

Before you start thinking about racing your “reptile brain”, or automatic reactions has to be trained up to the point to where it can handle fast laps on your own. Your forebrain is going to be focused on the other drivers. What you’re going to be thinking about is analyzing weaknesses in the driver’s in front of you, predict where they might have trouble, and planning on how you might exploit them. And you’ll be watching the guys with and behind you like a hawk trying to predict what they might do, and how you might make there attempts to gain advantage a little more difficult.

Don’t worry about your provisional license. Worry about convincing Mid Atl Regional Director Chris Cobetto that you are ready for his Comp School. That 4 day requirement is for folks that have significant experience elseware.

#6

What they said above me. Having just done the Comp School, there’s no way I would recommend anyone doing it with that little on-track experience. You need to fill up that passport, and Chris ultimately makes the decision. If you really think you are ready, he will get you assessed at a HPDE.

The short answer to your original question is, it does not matter WHERE you do the HPDE’s. I did all mine in Mid-Atlantic and wound up taking the Comp School with NE because it was closer and the dates were far more convenient. They had no problem with my Mid-A experience level (20+ days on track in HPDE alone, plus SCCA hill climb license).

#7

I guess that’s why there’s no club in the US anymore that lets you get your license through a one week school like skip barber or bondurant. I know years ago when I was in the scca you could get your provisional license by completing the one week racing school.

#8

Read the CCR again. I think that you’ll find that the completion of a NASA or SCCA accredited racing school is specified as an adequate basis for a provisional license. That doesn’t make it a good idea tho. Sure, you’ll learn a lot on a week long racing school, but you won’t build any automatic reactions in that time. And it’s precisely those automatic reactions that you need.

I think that wherever you go in the racing community you are going to hear the same thing…Go get in at least a couple dozen solid track days before attending comp school. Folks are just trying to help you with what they perceive to be good advice.

#9

concur with advice from ranger et al. while i’m not quite as slow a learner as ranger :stuck_out_tongue: i had 40+ days before comp school.

#10

For what its worth, I have about 16 track days in the previous 2 years and have done a few auto-x events in the past year. So, I’ve decided to give it one more full year of DE and Auto-x before I do the comp school thing, since I’m not quite as comfortable in traffic as I’d like to be (or used to be). Previously, I’ve competed in street stock dirt and asphalt circle track type racing, but that experience was long ago and far away. I’d rather have a little more seat time on the road courses before I start racing again.

#11

----- Begin Thread Hijack -----
—Begin Rant ----

Everything everybody else said is true and they know a heck of a lot more than me.

** Note: I have only run with Nasa Northeast and BMWCCA I am currently on ~25 trackdays, I do have some Karting and dirt experience, but that was a while ago. Nasa NE is great, every instructor I have had has been nice and helpful, I recommend a lot of other people to running HPDEs with Nasa NE and I will continue to do HPDEs myself.

I do have one major complaint with the NASA HPDE ladder system: in my experience is the inconsistency with instructors and what is required to move up coupled with how run groups are set up.

Here in the NE HPDE 1 and 2 are filled with Newer, high horsepower cars like M3s, Porsches, Skyline GTRs, EVOs and WRX STIs. The groups are also almost always sold out well in advance. This means in an stock E30 your going to spend much of your day pointing people by. While this does teach you to watch your mirrors, everything else falls behind, it also seems to have a negative effect on your score at the end of the day and weather your instructor signs you off. I have found my best days were at tracks that are tight and twisty rather than mostly high speed sweepers. (maybe I am just better at those tracks)

I have also seen/heard the instructors receive orders that “NO ONE goes solo or Moves Up today”. I understand this order, it is meant to keep the instructors in the car with you the whole day, so they don’t get lazy and let you go just so they can go do something else. That same particular day, about 10mins into my first run my instructor tells me there is nothing more he can teach me, that I seem to have got it all, but he was stuck with me for the rest of the day and I was stuck in that Run Group for the whole day. (I purposely moved down a run group that day as I had not been on track in 9 months) we had a great time chatting and he did give me pointers here and there.

I am not that outgoing of a person, the people leading this whole group are very busy and are doing an outstanding job of keeping everything running smoothly. I don’t usually have the time to stick around for the late night parties either. It is not that easy to get on a first name basis with all the management and I shouldn’t have to get all buddy buddy just so I can get the nod to go to Comp School. Maybe this is not true, but it is my perception.

HPDEs are a great way to gain the experience that is MANADATORY before you start real wheel to wheel racing. I am going to another Sanctioning body to get my comp license and I will then come back and do HPDEs with NASA NE to gain even more valuable experience until I am 10000% comfortable with my skills.
PS: I know people who are racing today with 4-8 HPDEs before going to comp school with no prior experience.

—End Rant
—End Thread Hijack

#12

NASA has it’s charms, but there are trade-offs. NASA is the best place to start racing. NASA’s bites off a helova difficult goal. Host W2W racing, Time Trial, and DE sessions and don’t give short shrift to any of them. It’s a wonder that they are able to pull that off each weekend.

So if you want to get into racing, there are racers all over to ask questions of, and there is an intermediate step (Time Trial) if you want it.

The trade-off is that NASA is a little low on track time for DE’s. There’s only so much time in the day. So when your emphasis is lots of track time, go do a DE event with a quality outfit. When you want to talk to folks about racing issues, go do a NASA DE.

The whole "No one " is BS. That shouldn’t be happening and I’d complain. The least they could do, for example, is write down in your logbook or something else in your possession that you would have run in DE3 if it hadn’t been so full.

If your instructor says he can’t teach you anything, ask for a different instructor, or ask to be signed off for solo.

The guys running these events are really nice guys that will agree to any reasonable request you make.

Re. instructor inconsistancy. Sure, that’s hard. IMO it would be a real challenge to find a weak instructor. A person hears some bad stories occasionally, but I’ve only actually met one, and that was my wife’s instructor at some low rent event I coaxed her into going.

But even tho instructors are good, they aren’t necessarily consistant. Every one has different ideas about everything. That was hard for me to understand at first because, as an engineer, I figured there had to be a single best way to do everything. It was hard for me to understand that what works for you might not work for me, and vice versa. The solution is to take the guidance from each instructor and put it in your toolbag. Some of your tools will work for you and some won’t. One instructor will perceive you as ready for the next group, and one won’t. Can’t be helped.

You are not chained to the NASA ladder. You could potentially gain good skills elseware and run solo with other groups. Then you contact the NASA honcho for your region and say “I run Solo at this track with these 3 groups. Can I sign up for your Solo group contingent on me passing your checkride”. Then they give you a checkride in your first session and as long as there’s no surprises you’re good to go.

In terms of creating personal relationships with management, sure, that’s an issue. Walk up to the big guy when he’s not busy and say “my name’s John Doe, I’ve now run Solo in 6 of your events and down the road a bit I want to go to Comp School.” In the 30sec of mindless conversation that follows make some ingratiating remark like you can’t help but notice what a good looking couple he and his wife make. That’s a start.

It’s also worthwhile to maintain a relationship with your instructors, especially if they are a wise-ass with those you like anyhow. As them questions via email later, go to chow with them on Sat night. Then get an old instructor to take you to the NASA honcho and have the instructor tell him “this is John Doe one of my former students. I think he’s about ready for comp school”.