Rant about Driver's Schools (archive)

See pics 3 and 4 in the album. I wasn't there, a friend sent this to me. This was at the "Friday at the track" at Summit Point this past Friday (6/22). No word on the condition of the driver. Apparently happened going through turn 3 too hot, two wheels off drivers right, attempted to jerk car back on track. Car pitched up and straight down onto the roof. It really doenn't look survivable with just 3 point belts. Notice that you can see the tops of the seats bulging through the roof panel. Nasty stuff. Lessons learned...
1. If you even consider going on track, get a bar AND harnesses.
2. If you ever go off, go off straight. This applies on the road as well. Attempting to jerk the car back onto the road (or track) will usually get you into trouble.
3. Don't get overly confident or cocky on track. This guy was apparently driving at 10/10ths with his buddies in their M3s, on street tires.
4. Don't get lulled into thinking it won't happen to you. I have personally witnessed 2 Mustangs, a VW GTI, an MR2, an Infiniti Q45, a Pontiac Grand Prix and a couple others I don't recall at the moment GO OVER at Summit Point at various turns. Luckily, the higher speed rollovers involved cars with bars. The others were lower speed, so the damage wasn't too horrible. These were all a few years ago. The biggest culprit was loose tire walls. They've since corrected that problem. A few of the incidents were exactly like this one. The driver's overcorrected and pitched the cars into the air. It's an amazing and sobering thing to witness.
Be careful out there, and hope this guy was lucky this time.
Rob K.

Summit point is a very dangerous track, as I only drove it once at driver's school at Ofest '96, and an instructor flipped her E36 M3.

I do 2 driver's schools every year, and have no intention of getting harnesses or rollbars or (most importantly) R compound tires. Most of the young drivers at these schools scare the hell out of me, as they are there for all the wrong reasons. I go only to sharpen my skills, and learn to better control my car as it approaches it's limits. I've never spun or gone off the track, although I've come close. Many nitwits modify the hell out of their car, then push it right to and past the limit, because they really believe they are this wonderfully skilled driver with a very cool car. The limits on these cars especially with R compound tires are extemely high, but give little warning when they break away, as those pictures showed. And trying to pull the car back on the track after putting two wheels off shows what an idiot the driver was. I especially pray there wasn't an instructor in there.

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