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Re: saab aero academy --what do i expect ? Posted by davecl [Email]  (#1994) [Profile/Gallery]
(more from davecl) on Mon, 24 Mar 2008 13:02:50
In Reply to: saab aero academy --what do i expect ?, ffb, Mon, 24 Mar 2008 05:02:41 Members do not see ads below this line. - Help Keep This Site Online - Signup |
Here's a report I wrote five years ago after Aero Academy. I don't think it's change much since then:
I’ve just returned from Aero Flight School. I thought some of you would be interested in hearing about it, so here’s my trip report:
First, if you qualify for this, GO! It was very good, lots of fun and well worth a plane ticket and a couple of nights in a hotel. I came away from it having learned several things:
I’m not as good a driver as I thought I was, but now I have a better understanding of what constitutes “good,” and how to get there. I’m much safer now. I’m faster, safely. I’m sooooo glad I bought this car. The Saab execs are really good guys – totally dedicated to these cars, great listeners and enthusiasts. This is a top-notch program; really first class.
So, some stuff. Road Atlanta is about 60-70 minutes from the airport. The traffic can be easy or brutal. Rent a car and allow some time. The Chateau Elan and the whole area is beautiful. Smooth country roads, rolling green hills. The Chateau is a working winery and is surrounded by vineyards. There was a Z3 meet going on, some Audi stuff, some weddings….busy place. The Lodge at the Inn is actually the Holiday Inn across the street. Perfectly fine, new, clean for about $75. There’s a little mall next door with a supermarket, pizza joint, etc.
Road Atlanta is a spectacular facility. Huge, very hilly, wooded. The classroom parts are in a room behind the pro shop. You shuttle all over the place in the track bus and the Aeros. You’re always within sight of the main track. During our two days there was motorcycle racing school underway on the main track. Hordes of screaming bikes doing 150, leaning through turns – amazing to watch, and loud.
The days run from 8:30- 4:30 and they’re full. Each day has two classroom sessions, which are fairly short and full of good info. You really do drive, or watch driving, about 80% of the time. There are eight instructors. Most are with the Panoz Driving School, which is at RA. The Panoz factory is nearby, too. BBS wheels HQ is next door.
These instructors are great guys. All are experienced racers. One of them has been a pro racer for 38 years. You spend most of the time in different driving exercises. During some of them, and instructor gets in the car with you and talks you around the course as you drive. “Brake here, ease off…throttle, more throttle, turn hard – not hard enough, more…big input, ease off…” A great way to learn.
You spend lots of time driving, and while you’re watching the instructors can critique what’s happening on the track. “See, he was too far inside. He’s braking in the turn….don’t do that.” I really enjoyed these guys. They’re interesting and encouraging.
Generally, you have an hour or so of class time discussing what you’ll be doing in the cars. They use graphics, slides and they discuss it. Then you break into three groups of eight. Each morning and afternoon there are three driving exercises. Each group goes through the three, than back to the classroom. We had 22 students with eight instructors – that’s really good.
The cars: this was impressive. There were about 10 or 11 brand new Aeros. Some wagons, some sedans, in every color. All automatics. These had about 300 miles on them for our session – tough break-in period! Seeing them all lined up you realize, damn…this is a good-looking car. We drove these cars pretty hard. The tires on the autocross car get too hot to touch.
So, without excess detail, here’s how the days break out:
Day one: Morning -- Classroom session, then three exercise:
Braking (floor it and stop straight, learning to modulate)
Baseline autocross (timed laps when you don’t know what you’re doing)
Wet skidpad (car control on very slick surface)
Afternoon -- Lunch (pretty good, too), classroom
Lane change (perception, reaction and control)
More autocross
Wet square-pad (running through wet area while turning)
For the braking, lane-change and slalom exercises each student gets a car. You keep lining up and running the course with very little waiting. An instructor critiques each run. For skidpad and autocross there are two cars in use. This is really good – I took a shorter course years ago where there were four students to a car and you didn’t do much driving.
Day two: Classroom session
Morning --
Slalom (running through cones fast, coordinating throttle and steering)
Saab history, product update (with John Libbos from Saab, very informative)
Wet skidpad autocross (driving a combo wet/dry course. Instructor pulls ebrake at random times and you recover)
Lunch, more classroom
Afternoon –
Prep and practice for final team autocross competition. You get about two hours on the autocross and skidpad autocross tracks to practice for the final runs. The idea is that you hone your newly acquired skills to try to beat your baseline time. You get four laps untimed with an instructor riding shotgun so you can learn the lines, etc. Then you get two timed laps to beat your baseline. There were some amazing improvements by almost everyone. The baselines were generally 31 seconds and up, with many in the 32-34 range. The slowest was around 38. One guy ran in the 29s on the first day…a guy who had some experience. In the final the 38 improved to 31! Most of the others got down into the 30s or 31 second range. A few ran in the 29s. Best was a 29:00. This was exciting and lots of fun to see everyone cheering for people as they screeched around the course.
The final competition is a total time event – 8-person teams, each person driving two laps, total time including driver transitions. There are penalties for knocking over cones and some other things. This was pretty amazing. Everyone drove well. I was most impressed with the 4-5 people who had seemed intimidated by all this on the first day. In the competition they drove within their limits – obviously a bit slower than others – but so much faster than they had on the first day. They were smooth and pretty fast and definitely contributed to their teams.
After all of this, 8 driver changes, all these variables, the competition was decided by one second! One second out of 10.5 minutes! That shows some consisitency.
I didn’t mention the dinner. Saab puts on a really nice cocktail reception and dinner at the Chateau Elan. The Elan is a beautiful place and this event is first class. Lots of good wine, a good meal and about three hours with the Saab execs and some of the instructors. There were four guys from Saab: John, from product development. Dan, from parts, Joe (?) from training and Chris (didn’t catch his role). Really good guys, great listeners who appreciate their customers. I was impressed.
So, as someone said, what have we learned? Well, I learned:
The Aero is a fantastic car. High limits, forgiving, built like a tank
Saab really makes an effort to listen to their customers.
Saab goes all out with this program – it really delivers value.
I’m a safer driver and at the same time, smoother and faster.
I have a better appreciation of what it takes to be a racer. I’m a million miles from it, but I have a slight glimmer of what you’d have to do to be really good. Kind of like if you can get your golf score down to 80 – you’re pretty good, and now you’re good enough to understand what it would take to shoot 72, or 67. You achieve full awareness of how much you don’t know or can’t do.
Anyway, if you have a chance to go to Aero School, do it.
To all the great people I met at this thing – I enjoyed driving with you.
posted by 72.1.169...
, Mon, 24 Mar 2008 13:02:50 <-- Viewing This Message, Tue, 25 Mar 2008 04:57:44
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