The National Auto Sports Association runs an excellent program from driver education through many levels up to actually racing on the great road courses in this country.

Surprising many, most insurance companies cover the rare damage done to cars during High Performance Driver Education. With competent, friendly, helpful on-board instruction, road racing courses are a GREAT place to learn car control.

This was my maiden voyage utilizing video and audio editing tools to make a more coherent, continuous video production of anything. It just happened to be the only way to show what real driving and real track time are like. I recommend starting the video right away, reading this post intermittently as it plays.

My first video editing project is imperfect, but does the job … and documents an extremely rare weekend of absolute joy, excitement and rewards for me.

My poster girl says she drives a Subaru like an old lady on the street, but her mate set her in a Porsche GTS for some real driver training… and she excelled … from crawling to flying in two days. I made a friend right away when after her second 20-minute session I dubbed her “most improved”.

My 1820-pound 1987 Honda CRX could be close to The Perfect Driver Training Car. Cornering correctly feels just right, is crucial to straightaway speeds, and decent lap times. When driven in too hot or drawing the wrong line through the turn, the driver needs only let off the throttle and turn the wheel sharper – which scrubs off speed without drama – no spinouts or off-road excursions to penalize driving errors.

Once a driver learns the techniques and course layout without a ton of acceleration, switching that skillset and knowledge to a faster car beats the driver who never had to work maximizing limited acceleration.