Originally Posted by wstar

Good for you! Driving Schools are necessary. Some are structured differently than others, and I really prefer the sorts of grassroots-style DE events where former students are turning around and helping the newbies through the process. But the bottom line is it's pretty hard to get decent at driving without someone there pointing out your mistakes, telling you how to improve, and harping on the basic habits. And that's not just the mechanical skills of the situation, but the psychological ones too. Things like lifting up your vision and scanning constantly to be aware of traffic and flags and incidents way ahead of time, and not letting your ego (or stress, or emotional state, etc) control your decisions on the track. That part was especially difficult for me at various stages. You have to be driving exactly to your rational capabilities, which also implies being able to rationally evaluate yourself first; you can't be driving harder than your skill allows for due to ego overload, and you can't be driving weaker than you're capable of due to fear or stress either - both of those mistakes can send you off the track if they hit you at the wrong time. These things carry over into other areas of life as well.

No matter how awesome a driver anyone thinks they are in everyday life, the first few real track events are always a real eye-opener as to how bad you really are at driving and how much there is to improve on. I really think everyone who owns a sportscar or is into cars owes it to themselves to at least do a handful of light DE weekends at some point. You don't have to stick with it as a major hobby, but you get so much out of just those first few experiences that they're always worth it.