Reaper948
08-06-2005, 04:47 PM
Every day of the school schedule the school starts at 7am...
I got to meet Mr Bondurant and his dog Rusty, He himself drives a black
CTS-V.
So anyway we had a classroom session about how car dynamics and physics work, as you accelerate, you have less grip upon the front wheels and more upon the rear wheels and Vice Versa when you brake. Then they introduced heel toe shifting. I'm not sure if everyone reading this knows what that is, as our cars are automatics. But basically when you downshift in a car, the revs will increase and if not done smoothly, the engine braking causes, well, engine breaking, and a very abrupt bump and unsmooth ride. The heel toe technique goes like this.... Brake, Clutch, Downshift, Rev, release clutch. This, executed in a very smooth fashion, is meant to both slow down, and prepare your higher revs in a lower gear in a very efficient way. (in case you're wondering how you rev a car while you're braking it, you rotate your foot so that the side of it catches the gas pedal to bring up those RPMs, then in turn releasing the clutch quickly but not abruptly)
After the classroom, we hit up the CTS instructor cars, Each instructor, 4 of them for a class of 9, has their own CTS, with AR wheels, borla exhaust, eibach springs.
They took us to these circles where we would further learn about the dynamics of weight transfer in cars. (this was on an open asphalted area about 8th of a mile in width, and maybe 1 mile in length) So it was just me and another student sitting in the car while the instructor told us to drive in a circle, beginning about 20 feet in diameter and begin to depress on accelerator very slightly. As the speed increased, you could see and feel the car's circle radius increasing, as he got off the gas, it in turn decreased the radius. So we did that a couple of times, then we hopped into the Vettes.
Vettes had similar modifications, Eibach springs, borla tips, and then there were roll cages, fire extinguishers, 4 point harnesses, Z06 rear fender air intakes (not sure what the proper name is)
Heel-toe shifting was next, we were still on this course, and we had to stay in 2nd, upshift to 3rd, heeltoe down back to 2nd and then turn around, I'd say the highest speed we were doing here was just about 55mph...
lunch was after
Now we went to do some general cornering techniques at the same course but now we just had to stay in 3rd gear and go through turns in this small oval that was shaped by cones, Braking point and turning point were both represented by cones as well. The first turn was a constant radius turn, and the second was a decreasing radius turn, (oh yeah, and they also taught us about trail braking, a brake technique which utilizes the gradual increase and decrease in pressure of our foots on brakes, makes a much smoother transition into the accelerator)
The instructor would let you handle it out for about 10 minutes then they would wave you down to hop into your car. He would take a ride with you, tell you what to improve on, you switched seats, and then he would drive.
Let me tell you, these instructors (when they're doing their real job, they are professional racers, my instructor races Rally trucks, 700hp ones you see in the desert, Another one races Porsche race cars, these guys were insane, the next couple of days I will post will tell you how good they are)
Oh yeah! and the first thing we all did, was take us all (including the advanced course students and Z06 students and teenage defensive driving students, in 2 Chevy vans on teh course. We went insanely fast, a lot faster than a van should go in turns - and I swear we were on 2 wheels at some point, the vans were 2 feet away from each other the entire time)......
Anyway that was day 1.... Hopefully I'll remember enough for day 2..... enjoy
I got to meet Mr Bondurant and his dog Rusty, He himself drives a black
CTS-V.
So anyway we had a classroom session about how car dynamics and physics work, as you accelerate, you have less grip upon the front wheels and more upon the rear wheels and Vice Versa when you brake. Then they introduced heel toe shifting. I'm not sure if everyone reading this knows what that is, as our cars are automatics. But basically when you downshift in a car, the revs will increase and if not done smoothly, the engine braking causes, well, engine breaking, and a very abrupt bump and unsmooth ride. The heel toe technique goes like this.... Brake, Clutch, Downshift, Rev, release clutch. This, executed in a very smooth fashion, is meant to both slow down, and prepare your higher revs in a lower gear in a very efficient way. (in case you're wondering how you rev a car while you're braking it, you rotate your foot so that the side of it catches the gas pedal to bring up those RPMs, then in turn releasing the clutch quickly but not abruptly)
After the classroom, we hit up the CTS instructor cars, Each instructor, 4 of them for a class of 9, has their own CTS, with AR wheels, borla exhaust, eibach springs.
They took us to these circles where we would further learn about the dynamics of weight transfer in cars. (this was on an open asphalted area about 8th of a mile in width, and maybe 1 mile in length) So it was just me and another student sitting in the car while the instructor told us to drive in a circle, beginning about 20 feet in diameter and begin to depress on accelerator very slightly. As the speed increased, you could see and feel the car's circle radius increasing, as he got off the gas, it in turn decreased the radius. So we did that a couple of times, then we hopped into the Vettes.
Vettes had similar modifications, Eibach springs, borla tips, and then there were roll cages, fire extinguishers, 4 point harnesses, Z06 rear fender air intakes (not sure what the proper name is)
Heel-toe shifting was next, we were still on this course, and we had to stay in 2nd, upshift to 3rd, heeltoe down back to 2nd and then turn around, I'd say the highest speed we were doing here was just about 55mph...
lunch was after
Now we went to do some general cornering techniques at the same course but now we just had to stay in 3rd gear and go through turns in this small oval that was shaped by cones, Braking point and turning point were both represented by cones as well. The first turn was a constant radius turn, and the second was a decreasing radius turn, (oh yeah, and they also taught us about trail braking, a brake technique which utilizes the gradual increase and decrease in pressure of our foots on brakes, makes a much smoother transition into the accelerator)
The instructor would let you handle it out for about 10 minutes then they would wave you down to hop into your car. He would take a ride with you, tell you what to improve on, you switched seats, and then he would drive.
Let me tell you, these instructors (when they're doing their real job, they are professional racers, my instructor races Rally trucks, 700hp ones you see in the desert, Another one races Porsche race cars, these guys were insane, the next couple of days I will post will tell you how good they are)
Oh yeah! and the first thing we all did, was take us all (including the advanced course students and Z06 students and teenage defensive driving students, in 2 Chevy vans on teh course. We went insanely fast, a lot faster than a van should go in turns - and I swear we were on 2 wheels at some point, the vans were 2 feet away from each other the entire time)......
Anyway that was day 1.... Hopefully I'll remember enough for day 2..... enjoy