Driving academy gives race fans a feel for sport

Wednesday, Oct. 7, 1998 | 10:59 a.m.

The problem with the so-called "stick-and-ball" sports is that no matter how great the television coverage or how close to the field of play your seats are, you never truly get the feeling of what it's like to participate at the professional level.

Thanks to former Formula One driver Derek Daly, auto racing fans can feel exactly what it's like to drive an open-wheel race car at his Derek Daly Performance Driving Academy at Las Vegas Motor Speedway.

Daly's school features a range of driving programs from a half-day car control clinic to a three-day Formula Race Car School that will qualify you for an SCCA regional license.

"I wanted an environment that was safe, as comfortable and as enjoyable for the serious student as for the one-time guest who just wants to know what it's like to drive a race car," Daly said.

This one-time guest took the folks at the driving academy up on their offer to go through their one-day class, which is designed for a novice to get a feel for what it's like to pilot a race car around the LVMS infield road course.

The one-day program begins with an hour of classroom instruction, with the instructor explaining the various techniques the students will be taught on a short technique oval set up on the Speedway's parking lot.

In order for the students to get the most out of the program, the Daly Academy has a student-instructor ratio of 3-1. My classmates for the day were a pair of middle-aged businessmen from Fort Wayne, Ind., who -- unlike me -- had previous racing experience.

After the classroom briefing, we headed out to the technique oval where we practiced taking the proper line through the turns, steering, heel-toe downshifting and proper braking techniques in the Nemesis Formula SC99 race cars -- basically the same cars that race in the Formula 2000 Series.

After a break for lunch, instructor Mike Englehart let every student get behind the wheel of a BMW sedan fitted with a skid plate. The Skid Car, as it is called, is mounted on a cradle that hydraulically adjusts the traction on either the front or rear wheels to simulate low-grip driving conditions.

After spinning out more times than the three of us would care to admit, and another hour on the technique oval, it was time for the big time -- a pair of 20-minute sessions on the infield road course.

After getting up to speed, one fact became frighteningly apparent: driving 95 miles an hour in a passenger car on Interstate 15 may be one thing, doing it in an open-wheel racer with your butt four inches off the ground while trying to negotiate a half-dozen turns is quite another.

Running in a pack of four cars -- three students following the instructor -- at a comfortable interval gives you an even greater appreciation for what professional drivers go through every weekend. Trying to imagine doing this at twice the speed, with 30 other cars around you, all battling for the same line, boggles the imagination.

But it's as close as the average fan can get to experiencing what goes on in a professional race without spending a few million dollars to field your own car.

The Derek Daly Performance Driving Academy is a must for any auto racing fan who wants to know what it's like to drive a race car, or for any experienced driver who wants to improve his or her skills.

It sure beats the heck out of an hour at the batting cages.