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How to become a great driver in just one day
Skip Barber Racing School offers several different programs located at many different race tracks scattered across the US.
For beginners, the best bang for your buck with Skip barber is their $1,200 high performance driving and racing school combo. In this single day program, you get seat time in sports cars like the Ford Mustang GT, the Porsche 911 Carrera, and some specially-prepped Mazda MX-5 racecars.
There's also classroom instruction time that's used to teach you how to be both a safer driver on public roads, and a quicker, more responsive driver in racetrack-like settings.
Currently, this combo school is only offered at Road Atlanta, Sebring International Raceway in Florida, and Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca in Northern California.
Skip Barber also has similar programs and other more in-depth racing courses at racetracks in Connecticut, Illinois, Kentucky, Virginia, and Wisconsin.
Located in Chandler, Arizona, the Bondurant School of High Performance has courses for everyone between recently licensed teens and seasoned professional drivers.
Thanks to a partnership formed with Fiat Chrysler in late 2015, most of their fleet consists of high-performance Chrysler products like the Dodge Challenger SRT 392, Challenger Hellcat, Viper TA, and Viper ACR. That's a good thing.
Bondurant's asphalt performance driving courses start at $799. They also have off-road and kart racing classes.
DirtFish has a slightly different approach to the whole car control thing. And by different approach, I mean a very muddy and sideways approach.
Each car DirtFish has in their fleet is basically built to be a competition-ready rally race car. This means roll cages, racing seats and harnesses, gravel tires, rally wheels, skid plates for underbody protection, rally communication devices, and all of that great stuff. All of these extra bits are used to keep you having fun, in a safe yet very exciting manor.
Though DirtFish's course lineup is limited to just off-road performance driving, there's still a ton that you can learn that can be easily transferred over to on-road, adverse conditions driving.
At DirtFish there are multi-hour to multi-day courses, depending on how in-depth you want to go with your rally skills.
DirtFish's normal course pricing starts at $475. The rally school is located right outside of Seattle in Snoqualmie, Washington.
Similar to DirtFish, driving instruction at Team O'Neil Rally School focuses on off-asphalt driving and bad weather car control. The biggest difference between the two schools is pretty much just the location. ToN is across the country from DirtFish, located in Dalton, New Hampshire.
During the winter, ToN offers a winter driving safety course where they teach drivers how to react properly in snowy weather. This class covers things like how to drive in a way that you're less likely to lose control and how to prevent a total loss of control if the car begins to slide. This is a one day course and runs $499.
Team O'Neil also has a serious rally school program. Here they give drivers an in-depth intro to the world of rally racing and teach about many of the required skills to be successful at high-speed loose surface driving.
Instructors mostly focus on the basics of left-foot braking and loose surface accident avoidance. Basically, they teach you how to drive safely, quickly, and confident on gravel or snow covered roads.
For the rally school, drivers can sign up for 1-5 days of instruction. These programs start at $1,450, though that number can climb pretty quickly if you decide to do a multi-day school.
It might seem a bit pricey for driving instruction, but it really isn't. Between the amount of fun you'll be having and all the skills you'll be learning, it's an incredible value.
At the Florida International Rally and Motorsports Park, you can get on-track, rally, and 4x4 off-road instruction. The FIRM operates on over 400 acres of property and they have an enormous 11 miles of off-road rally stage. If you want automotive fun and proper driving instruction in Northern Florida, this is where you go.
Here rally instruction starts at $695, track programs at $1495, and the two-day 4x4 off-road classes at $2895.
Organized track days are almost always the cheapest and safest way to push your car and your skills to the limit.
These kinds of events are organized by many different organizations, some including the BMW Car Club of America, the Porsche Club of America, the Sports Car Driving Association, as well as the Sports Car Club of America. To a track day, you usually only need a car and a race helmet. Though helmets can often be borrowed from the organizers and cars are sometimes offered for rent.
Track days generally cost around $200 and up, though the SCCA has a similar series of events called Track Night in America. At these events drivers are allowed three 20 minute on-track sessions in the late afternoon and early evenings. They run $150 with a club membership.
Sites like motorsportreg.com can help you stay on top of upcoming track days and motorsport events in your area.
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