San Francisco Chronicle - (Sunday)
Racing school daredevils zoom around Laguna Seca
When the Mygale Formula 4 open wheel race car zooms over the edge of the rumble strip through the Laguna Seca Corkscrew at turns 8 and 8A, it makes a “grng-thp-thp-rzzz” sound. That’s a good thing — it signals tire friction grabbing the textured asphalt to keep the vehicle from spinning off the Earth at some 200 miles per hour.
Racing is thrilling to watch, though it can be a terrifying ridealong experience. At least it was for me, as I clenched my teeth, digging my foot into the floor mat, futilely braking, where, since I was a passenger, there was no brake. I’ve tried race driving twice — once at the Simraceway Performance Driving Center at Sonoma Raceway, and once on the crazycurving skinny backroads of a very remote area in Marin County, where I traveled with a former racecar driver in a Porsche Speedster.
So given the opportunity to explore again, with the teams at WeatherTech Raceway Laguna Seca in Salinas, I chose to be an observer. Really, no one needs to hear me clenching and grinding my teeth so hard that I go, “grngthp-thp-rzzz” as I faint in my seat.
To be clear, the instructors at WeatherTech are world-class and keep safety as a top priority. Students are fitted with a helmet, fire suit, gloves, racing shoes and a HANS device, which is a professional caliber head and neck restraint.
There are two main schools at the track: the Skip Barber Racing School and the Allen Berg Racing School, and both offer training as single- or multi-day programs, designed for every level of skill.
School owner Allen Berg noted to me that his crew has worked with an 89-year-old driver who mastered the race car, and a 13-year-old driver who conquered a Formula car after starring in prior superkarting experience.
At Laguna Seca, top daredevils navigate the 2.238-mile long track’s 180-foot elevation change like they were driving country lanes. The track was built in 1957 and continues to attract the world’s best drivers.
“Laguna Seca is one of our highly sought-after tracks to drive on because of its heritage and that infamous corkscrew,” said Mike Stillwagon, Skip Barber’s lead instructor and a National Auto Sport Association racer. “It is a definite bucket list track for most. And our Mygale Formula 4 is not your typical school car. It’s a turbocharged, four-cylinder with paddle shifters. It’s the real deal.”
In fact, this is the same car model that ferried F1 driver Lando Norris to victory in the 2015 British F4 Championship. Berg’s school, too, uses real formula racing cars outfitted with racing slicks, the same as machines used in international competition.
All the better to take on the famed Corkscrew that drops 59 feet between the entrance of Turn 8 to the exit of Turn 8A — a 5 ½ story descent — in only 450 feet of track length. From Turn 8 to Turn 9, the elevation falls 109 feet, or just over 10 stories. The instructors make it look so easy, piloting their 1,200 pound machines zip-zip-zip propelled to 60 mph in under 4 seconds.
It’s fun, promises Skip Barber instructor and Director of Race Series Ken Fukuda.
“F4 open-wheel cars are the most exciting cars to drive,” he said, “due to their extremely raw nature, lightweight platform, aerodynamic downforce, slick tires and overall physicality required to operate them at top speed and high G-forces.”
Of course, Fukuda recently became the highest finishing American in his class at the Nürburgring motorsports complex in Germany, and the highest finishing Japanese driver overall, beating an ensemble of factory drivers and Le Mans winners, all on his first time on the track that is affectionately known as “The Green Hell.”
(Side note: At 13, Fukuda snuck off from home, boarded a Greyhound bus to Laguna Seca and was given a hot lap tour around the track by a Skip Barber instructor.)
As specialists in racing dynamics, mechanics and human dynamics, the instructors at Allen Berg Racing School strive to keep classes stimulating, but also educational for understanding the real world on the road.
“Most drivers never even approach the capabilities that their cars have,” Berg said. “They really only use 10 to 20% of their vehicle’s capabilities. Race cars help you heighten awareness of what’s going on around you and how to anticipate your reactions. It’s called headroom, like in drumming.”
That means that essentially, a car capable of going 200 miles an hour just breezes along at 60 because it has all that headroom from 61 to 200 miles an hour in reserve. If you master that 200 mph of chops, more than you’d ever really need, your typical driving becomes almost effortless.
Since Skip Barber founded his racing school in 1975, his crew has worked with more than 400,000 students at Laguna Seca and other tracks across America. Graduates have participated in NASCAR, IndyCar, Sports Car Club of America, GT World Challenge America and the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship.
Ultimately, Fukuda explained, the more I embraced the needfor-speed, the safer I would become on the roads. I need not be afraid.
“Attending a racing school will most definitely make a person a safer driver due to a better understanding of what a car, its technologies and tires are truly capable of,” he said. “Our classes also give you a further understanding of what to do in emergency situations at or above the limit of your car’s capabilities. We feel truly privileged to empower and educate those that want to improve their driving abilities, as well as to show how beautiful the sport of racing and operating a motor vehicle can be.”