YOUR car around YOUR local race track faster than you? I'm looking to enroll in professional instruction, but I always wondered how much more performance a professional can ring out of a perfectly stock 911.

 

another popular question is - how long in average does it take for a green group driver to grow into a black group, driving flat out.

 

Than me? Well, naturally my talents are boundless and blunted only by age and a certain amount of ballast laid on in recent years. Than the average track day enthusiast? Ah, well that will be shocking. When you see the time he posts, you'll think he stole a race car for the lap. The average enthusiast driver is giving up easily two seconds in every bloody corner, and with a slight bumble it will be five seconds. That's on each corner.

Gary

 

The difference between a world class athlete or driver and a novice (even a skilled novice) is tremendous . Perhaps when one watches a race and sees the top three so close it seems plausible . After all in an Olympic race (track, swimming, skating.. etc) a Gold and Bronze can be determened by X/100's of a second. But put an average athlete in the same race and he woild get creamed . Oddly enoigh .. most of the world class athletes I have met are extremely humble --UNLESS one challenges them in their mastered domain.

 

Indeed. Even then, they will be very humble and sincerely concerned about "that leg you broke at the start" that must be the explanation for your dismal performance.

Gary

 

I do not care how good you are. WR, Hurley Haywood, Cass Whitehead will be much faster than you, no doubt.

 

Interesting questions. At our DE events, there's usually a 10 +/- second differential between the fastest of the fast guys in the black run group and us average guys a group down in orange. They run about 2 minutes/lap and we're that much slower. I think the Cup cars were another 10 +/- seconds a lap quicker at the club races this summer, but that's strictly my recollection (which, regrettably. is sometimes wrong). It would be interesting to see what a true professional could wring out of the track in an equivalent ride.

On a sort of related note, back in 1979-80-ish, I was a ski instructor in Vail and had an opportunity to run a course with then reigning world champ Ingmar Stenmark and the Swedish national team. Although memories fade, I think he ran about 51 seconds, his teammates roughly 53, the best in Vail Ski School (some former national team members themselves) about 55 and yours truly, well, let's just say they threw away the stop watch and used a calendar! This in a sport where as Larry points out, x/100's of a second usually decides a competition. It's kind of like that here in Steamboat too, home to 60+ Olympians and a plethora of all sorts of world-class athletes. You learn quickly to never put down a challenge to someone you don't know, especially to someone of the opposite sex, on your skis, mountain bike, road bike, etc. as there's more than an outside chance they will have you for lunch! I love it in a suffering kind of way when you're hanging with them on a ride or event thinking you've had some sort of epiphany only to see them smile, put the hammer down and leave you toasted. They've prepared for and done the stuff that the rest of us can only dream of but sometimes it's fun and revealing to enter their world if only for a few fleeting seconds.

 

My best around VIR (recorded) is 2:10 (2:08 unofficially). Leh Keen did it on all season tires in 2:02 (the first time ever driving a GT-R on track).

 

would be huge. It would be silly to watch him destroy me

 

@Sharkys:

don`t even think about it. Everything u need to know is here:

watch that video "Genie auf Rädern" (genius on wheels) and esp. the part at 0:23 when he says:

"i have never been interested in winning by one second.
Some people might say: it was a really hard fight, i won by 1 second.
I want to win by 10 MINUTES, it delights me much more."


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ollt2LY0wsU

 

Scary thing is in your car the difference would be the least (though he could probably ride a bicycle around a track faster than most could drive). If you put John Doe in a true race car the difference would be staggering as most JDs could either barely get it going or spin off at the first corner.

The difference with elite athletes is truly staggering. I was fast enough in high-school at the state levels to help me get into college in a sport, then ok there, but I remember distinctly the times I went up against world record holders and I was not even enough of a challenge to give them a workout - very humbling.

 

Leh Keen would give walter rohrl , HELL..

Mike

 

All joking aside, I agree completely. In two fields where I had personal encounters with the world's best, my feeling was the same. The top martial artists move as if they begin reacting before their opponent starts a blow, as if they can read their opponent's mind. The top fighter pilots act like the entire plane is an extension of their body and that combined body has the same dynamic balance and rapid response as those martial artists. I've never been side by side with a really top driver, but I have no doubt they are equally separated from the rest of us.

Back to the real question the OP is asking, I would say that professional training is an excellent experience. Don't expect to come out of it being able to stay on the same lap with Walter Rohrl or anyone in his class, but for a simple comparison of ordinary people with and without professional training, an enthusiastic friend came with me to a DE day. First time for him and my first time in a Porsche. After he had half a day of instruction, I still was faster by twenty seconds a lap on the Streets of Willow, which probably was configured for 1.5 miles that day. Worse yet (or better if you're considering such training), I hadn't been on a track in fifteen years and I was protecting my injured neck by seriously conservative driving. I could have bettered that lap time by ten seconds a few years ago, and a driver like Rohrl...

Get the training. You'll love it.

Gary