Evolution Performance Driving School

snookwheel · Postby **snookwheel** » Fri Oct 12, 2007 3:29 pm

Anyone else heading to Ft. Meyers for the school in a couple weeks??

rippin mazda · Postby **rippin mazda** » Fri Oct 12, 2007 4:37 pm

Yup.

I'm going to both days.

snookwheel · Postby **snookwheel** » Sat Oct 13, 2007 10:56 pm

Great! Should be a blast. Sunday is an AutoX.

deadmeat · Postby **deadmeat** » Sun Oct 14, 2007 1:25 am

I'm too poor for such flim-flammery, and snobbyness...

But I'll be damned if I'm not standing outside the gate trying to catch a glimpse of what I'm missing out on LOL

Good luck to you guys, and hope you do well in the school and have an open mind to the pointers their going to be spewing out at ya.

Envious!

-meaty

Postby **Native** » Sun Oct 14, 2007 8:49 pm

Meaty, stay tuned here - I have a funny feeling FAST will be doing another novice school soon... Yellow_Colorz_PDT_43

rippin mazda · Postby **rippin mazda** » Mon Oct 15, 2007 12:31 pm

snookwheel wrote:Great! Should be a blast. Sunday is an AutoX.

You going to be there for Friday and Saturday?

deadmeat · Postby **deadmeat** » Tue Oct 16, 2007 11:54 am

Native wrote:Meaty, stay tuned here - I have a funny feeling FAST will be doing another novice school soon... Yellow_Colorz_PDT_43

I think I'll need more than that lol

-meaty

WAFlowers · Postby **WAFlowers** » Tue Oct 16, 2007 12:39 pm

Native wrote:Meaty, stay tuned here - I have a funny feeling FAST will be doing another novice school soon... Yellow_Colorz_PDT_43

Maybe this time I should attend instead of instructing!

I'm tired of telling people "Do as I say; not as I do."

Alizarin · Postby **Alizarin** » Wed Oct 17, 2007 11:51 am

WAFlowers wrote:Maybe this time I should attend instead of instructing!

I'm tired of telling people "Do as I say; not as I do."

Actually, we could turn that into a great instruction station...

"Recovering from a spin" with Bill Flowers

"Effective use of reverse on course" with Steve Frank

"Snarky comments and you" with Kenny Gardner

snookwheel · Postby **snookwheel** » Thu Oct 25, 2007 8:38 pm

rippin mazda wrote:
snookwheel wrote:Great! Should be a blast. Sunday is an AutoX.
You going to be there for Friday and Saturday?

I'll be there both Friday and Saturday. I'm sitting in a Motel 8 on Colonial ave right now, waiting for morning!

rippin mazda · Postby **rippin mazda** » Fri Oct 26, 2007 6:25 am

snookwheel wrote:
rippin mazda wrote:
snookwheel wrote:Great! Should be a blast. Sunday is an AutoX.
You going to be there for Friday and Saturday?
I'll be there both Friday and Saturday. I'm sitting in a Motel 8 on Colonial ave right now, waiting for morning!

Cool. I'm going to pick the trailer up and head out as I type. See you in a bit.

rippin mazda · Postby **rippin mazda** » Fri Oct 26, 2007 9:01 pm

You guys missed a great Phase 1 at the Evo school. FAST is pretty well represented there with Victor, Scott, and myself in attendance. I was able to pick up about 1 second and change on a 30 second course on street tires. :shock:

WAFlowers · Postby **WAFlowers** » Mon Nov 19, 2007 11:29 am

Have we (FAST) considered hosting an Evolution school?

The novice school we run is great for the target audience, but I'm sure I'm not alone in needing something beyond that!

TracAction · Postby **TracAction** » Mon Nov 19, 2007 2:44 pm

I like that idea .... BIG THUMBS UP!!!!!!!!

Postby **Loren** » Mon Nov 19, 2007 5:01 pm

I'm not gonna say we shouldn't, but I'm not sure I see why we should hold a school that will charge 3x as much for the same amount of seat time with fewer instructors.

It really doesn't take a national champion autocrosser to teach a "Phase 1" type of school. It's all about seat time and beating the basics into your head.

Jamie · Postby **Jamie** » Mon Nov 19, 2007 8:25 pm

From a more practical standpoint, we simply don't have a site both large enough and close enough to a commercial airport and lodging (they fly in the non-local instructors) and a large enough student base to do an Evo school at a reasonable cost.

rippin mazda · Postby **rippin mazda** » Mon Nov 19, 2007 10:59 pm

Victor C. and I discussed having a FAST sponsored EVO school with Tim Aro (one of the co-owners of the school) and he was actually quite receptive to the idea. I dunno how our site costs compare to the Gulf Coast guys, but they can make it happen with 18 people @ $250 each including the instructors.
Also, there is at least one hotel in Brooksville that would hook us up if we got a few rooms. I believe it was the Holiday Inn, I inquired over the summer when I was researching for the mirror-x.

Postby **Loren** » Mon Nov 19, 2007 11:15 pm

Well, of course they're receptive to the idea, that's how the school makes money!

I'm going to bow out of this discussion soon, but...

How many of our FAST regulars are going to sign up for a $250 school? My guess is about as many as went to the GCAC school. What's that... four? Even double that is far from enough to support the costs of such a school.

Now, I'm not saying that if we did an EVO school that it wouldn't at least break even. People from all over the state would sign up for it, and the club could ultimately make a little money on it. BUT... that's not why we're here. If only a handful of our members are going to benefit from it, and a whole bunch of our members are going to have to work to make it happen... is it worth it?

We could just as well do another $60 entry fee school event, only instead of an "open" Novice School, make it a "Phase 1" school with some prerequisites for entry so that we can skip the barebones basics and spend more time doing the same kinds of things they do at the EVO schools. At $60/driver and nothing more than normal event expenses, our break-even point probably isn't much more than 20 drivers. Pretty easy to achieve from within our own ranks.

I'm just trying to keep that focus on the F in FAST. Working our butts off so that a very few of our members can improve their skills and the EVO school folks can make money isn't my idea of fun. There needs to be a broader "payoff" for the local club, IMO, and I don't mean money. (if we wanted to keep feeding other people's pockets, we'd have stayed affiliated with NASA)

WAFlowers · Postby **WAFlowers** » Tue Nov 20, 2007 9:05 am

Loren wrote:We could just as well do another $60 entry fee school event, only instead of an "open" Novice School, make it a "Phase 1" school with some prerequisites for entry so that we can skip the barebones basics and spend more time doing the same kinds of things they do at the EVO schools. At $60/driver and nothing more than normal event expenses, our break-even point probably isn't much more than 20 drivers. Pretty easy to achieve from within our own ranks.

The problem I see with this (and I thought about it) is that the workers we'd need to run such a school are just the same people who are most likely to want to attend. Which makes the endevor impossible for us to do. Which is why I started thinking about us hosting an Evolution school.

Yes, it costs more.

I want a school that will help me (and I've come to the conclusion that I really need some help to improve beyond where I am now) that is run close enough to Tampa Bay that I can sleep in my own bed and not have to get up at 4am to drive for hours to get there.

I'm selfish; so sue me!

Postby **Loren** » Tue Nov 20, 2007 11:04 am

Evo relies on local workers, so making the school an evo school does not eliminate your workers problem. It only eliminates the instructors problem.

Everything is a compromise.

Evolution Performance Driving School

Evolution Performance Driving School

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