I'm thinking about doing an HPDE soon. Either VIR or Nashville. VIR is a road course, of course. Nashville is an oval, unless they do something in the infield to make it interesting.
Anyone have recommendations or advice for a first timer?
Here' a link to the VIR event:
https://www.nasaproracing.com/nasa_even ... ent_id=102
What does the transponder get you?
BTW, what's the relationship between SCCA and NASA? Seems like there's a lot of overlap...
HPDE?
A friend just sent me a link to an HPDE in Nashville coming up on 13 March. A "map" of the track seems to show a road course type circuit inside the oval. But I've never been there, so I don't know for sure. Sounds like a lot of fun.
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hondaracer13
- Posts: 1
- Joined: Thu Feb 19, 2004 6:28 pm
- Location: knoxville, tn
EVERYONE should come to Nashville to the newly formed NASA Southeast weekend on Mar 13-14. It is only 2.5 hrs away for one thing. We will be running on the road course with new curbing. Sure to be exciting. If you have never done a High Performance Driving Event, Nashville would be a great place to start. You will receive one on one instruction with knowledgable instructors who ride with you and allow you to ride with them while they fling their cars. The track is relatively safe and most people are driving their relatively "mild" daily drivers. Driving on a race track at 8-9 tenths in your own car for under $300 bucks with as much track time as you will care to have should be everyone's dream weekend. If nothing else, you can just come and check out the Honda Challenge and American Iron races.
As the co-directors of the Southeast Honda Challenge, we will be attending all of the Southeast and Virginia Region NASA HPDE/race weekends. Hope to see to ETR folks at these events. Feel free to contact us anytime concerning info on any of these events.
(edit) forgot to answer part of the original post.... NASA is another sanctioning body not affiliated with SCCA. The reason they may appear related is that many NASA members also run with SCCA (like us) but their class structures/series/and a few other things are different. They are a newer sanctioning body that started on W coast and only really expanded to E coast a few years ago. One key difference though is that while SCCA won't let you run a track driving school without a full prepped race car, and you don't get 1 on 1 instruction, and they don't separate the "students" into 4 different classes (based on proven driver ability)- NASA has the HPDEs that can either be run just for learning better driving skills or as a means to ultimately get your road racing license (to get a license though you must have a fully race prepped car.)
As far as the transponder goes- I believe that you wouldn't need/want to rent one as an HPDE student. The transponder is what the officials use for timing/scoring info. I don't think they will give you your lap times anyway- as they want you to focus on improving your driving skills with lap times left out so you aren't focusing on the "wrong thing" improving lap times comes later....I have run VA region HPDEs before (so I can get track time on the same day that Lyonel races)- I have a transponder in the car I have never been able to get lap times from timing and scoring, so I would think that it would be a waste of $ to rent one- I would check before you register as that could vary from region to region.
As the co-directors of the Southeast Honda Challenge, we will be attending all of the Southeast and Virginia Region NASA HPDE/race weekends. Hope to see to ETR folks at these events. Feel free to contact us anytime concerning info on any of these events.
(edit) forgot to answer part of the original post.... NASA is another sanctioning body not affiliated with SCCA. The reason they may appear related is that many NASA members also run with SCCA (like us) but their class structures/series/and a few other things are different. They are a newer sanctioning body that started on W coast and only really expanded to E coast a few years ago. One key difference though is that while SCCA won't let you run a track driving school without a full prepped race car, and you don't get 1 on 1 instruction, and they don't separate the "students" into 4 different classes (based on proven driver ability)- NASA has the HPDEs that can either be run just for learning better driving skills or as a means to ultimately get your road racing license (to get a license though you must have a fully race prepped car.)
As far as the transponder goes- I believe that you wouldn't need/want to rent one as an HPDE student. The transponder is what the officials use for timing/scoring info. I don't think they will give you your lap times anyway- as they want you to focus on improving your driving skills with lap times left out so you aren't focusing on the "wrong thing" improving lap times comes later....I have run VA region HPDEs before (so I can get track time on the same day that Lyonel races)- I have a transponder in the car I have never been able to get lap times from timing and scoring, so I would think that it would be a waste of $ to rent one- I would check before you register as that could vary from region to region.
Lyonel and Danielle Kent