Instructor Nirvana Last Weekend

Last Saturday we had an autocross school I instructed at and we had two students who really brought home why I do this. 

1. Young guy with a WRX that had been doing "canyon runs". He said he knew they were sketchy and decided to sign up for the school. After his  2nd run through the section we were training on I drove. His words were "oh my God that feels so much better and is so much easier, I can feel how your using the weight transfer to get the car to turn"  It was great to see it click for him immediately.

2. Nuclear Engineer in a Fiesta ST. He was super methodically but a bit reserved.  In the slalom section I showed him how to rotate the car on entrance and use the weight transfer to get the car to dance through the gates (standard stuff for us). He was from snow country so his car control was good and it just hadn't occurred to him that you would intentionally rotate the car like that.  The best part was later in the day we were doing a big 180 sweeper into a tight chicane. When I arrived at the chicane I'd simply trail the brakes to get the car to rotate into the chicane and hold the steering lock for a split second to make it snap back the other way. The owner just shook his head laughed and saying "I would have never thought to try that, I can't believe how well that works". After that he went on his own and was able to replicate most of what I showed him.

At the end of the day both drivers thanked us repeatedly.

The WRX driver said "I'm done with canyon runs this is so much better".

The Fiesta driver said he'd really enjoyed himself and mentioned he learned so much in one day and noted it would have taken him a long time to get faster without the school.

It was a really good day and a nice reminder of why we do this.

Thanks for sharing this! It was really fun just to read. After all, if you love something and want to share it, teaching it to an enthusiastic person is about as gratifying as it could be. 

That's awesome. I don't know how instructors manage to impart their knowledge so effectively, but I appreciate that they can and do. I'm still relatively new to the sport (about to start my fourth season) so I've only been asked for advice - once - but it went pretty well. A young guy in an NB Miata noted that my Miata was one of the fastest on the course that day and asked if I could ride with him, which I did. At the end of the run, he asked me for pointers. His line was pretty good and he was smooth, but the car could go harder. Really, all he had to do was push the car more in a few distinct corners, and once I told him that he hit his target time on the next run. It was simple advice, but it felt good for both of us :)