Episode 052: Is Good Driving Instruction the Key to Going Faster?

Jon, Ryan, and Scotty sit down with Mike Pettiford from Go 4 It Racing. The inspiration for this episode came about after we recorder episode #48 where we discussed how many times the driver is as much a cause for a handling issue as the car or set-up might be.  After that discussion, we wanted to bring that conversation around to how you can solve that problem by improving as a driver. And that brought us to driving instruction. Driving a car at speed on a track is a lot different than driving normally on the street.  The rules of the track, track etiquette, and track awareness are all very different skills that have to be learned.  It only takes a little bit of instruction to get to know the basics and to start to learn how to drive consistently and safely on track. Going through the NASA HPDE system is a great way to get started there for instance. But after you get to know the basics, and you start to want to go faster and add some race craft, it can be a harder and much slower process to learn those skills.  That is where good driving instruction can come in to help you progress more quickly, and also to help to discover or unlock some of the secrets of being a faster driver. For this conversation we talk with Ryan Dussex who has been instructing with NASA and the SCCA for a couple of seasons as well as Mike Pettiford who founded his driving school, Go 4 it Services, more than 30 years ago. Thanks for listening and Stay Tuned!