My Laguna Seca experience with Allen Berg Racing School

[Reedy]

So I recently went on holidays to Canada and the US West Coast, and have wanted to check Laguna Seca off my international bucket list for a long time. After a bit of shopping around I decided to book an academy day with Allen Berg's Racing School.

Once that was decided it was time to start practising.



The day starts with an optional (should be mandatory) early morning track walk. This takes about an hour to walk the entire track and is led by Allen Berg, a retired professional racing driver who had a short stint in Formula 1 in the 80's and had raced against Ayrton Senna in the lower categories.

This was one of the best track walks I have ever been on and Allen was very astute in pointing out the quirks of the track like the surface crowning, banking, kerbs and braking zones, in addition to the racing line. I have driven Laguna Seca for years in iRacing, which has an extremely accurate representation of the track but there are a lot of details which you won't notice in the game, or even from the seat of a car for that matter. The best way is to get down to driver level to survey the lay of the land.



The corkscrew is why we were all there. It's a double blind corner that is very hard to navigate for a beginner & I have racked my brain for years over how to take this corner consistently in video games. But Allen pointed out a very simple trick. Literally all you have to do is point the car at a tree that is located off track, using this reference point transforms the corkscrew from one of the hardest corners on the track to being no different to any other chicane. It really kills the mystery of the corner for you, which is a little bit bittersweet.

Next we spent some time in the classroom, running through some theory, how the cars worked and some more detail on how to drive the circuit.



Then our group jumped into a van for a ride around the track with one of the ABRS instructors. My group was placed with Tyler who had the perk of not only knowing his shit, but also being the owner of a Gen 2 Mazdaspeed3. My kind of guy.
We rode around the track for a few slow laps, stopping regularly to discuss the racing line and how to approach each corner. Then after a few laps Tyler turned it up to 11, taking us for a couple of hot laps at full speed, right on the limit of grip and beautifully handling the thing through the corners. This was one of those moments where I realised just how much of an amateur I really am, and how much better someone who is an actual professional can be.



Next was a trackside familiarisation session with the car and its controls
These cars have a small Renault 4 cylinder engine and a full carbon chassis. They also run full slick tyres which is a step up from a lot of their competitors. The gearbox is sequential with a simple lift off the throttle and lever pull for upshifts, and clutch + heel + toe on the downshifts.



Then we were allocated our cars and spent some time getting seating positions and padding to suit




Then we lined up behind a Mustang for the first lead/follow session. Cars were to run in single file behind the lead car and we followed the leaders racing line for a few laps. Getting familiarised with the car and how to shift gears.
The lead car slowly builds speed during these sessions, half the class are driving the cars while the other half jump back in the van to observe from various points around the track.



After the lead/follow sessions we were given a lot more freedom out on track in their stop box circuit configuration. Free to drive as fast as we like (only with no overtaking) and with a stop box on the main straight where the instructors would periodically flag us down to stop and give us feedback over the radio. This worked amazingly well, with instructors located at all corners on the track that were taking notes on each individuals driving, so when you pulled into the box for some feedback you usually had multiple instructors giving you advice from several locations on the track. Still being in the car allowed you to head straight back out and apply what you had just heard before you forget. I liked this format a lot.
And the instructions given by the guys really was top notch, from simple things like racing line corrections and encouraging harder braking in the early part of the braking zone, to really subtle stuff like paying attention to my hand speed on the steering wheel at turn 10 and encouraging me to be slower and smoother with my inputs. This stuff was all communicated through in a way that made sense to me, and was helpful and encouraging in a way that only gave me more confidence. At this point I was starting to push the car, start feeling the limits of adhesion and how the car behaved when pushed into understeer and oversteer scenarios. It was a pleasant surprise to see how progressive and forgiving these cars were, how effective the brakes are and how rewarding it is to start exploring their limits.



The main gripe that I had with these sessions was the no overtaking rule. There were some extremely slow guys in my group who you would inevitably get stuck behind each lap until the stop box pulled them aside and waved you through. The instructors really do their best to give the faster drivers more room, but when the speed differential is that great there is only so much they can do. Even with that I could still find some space and put in some proper fast laps and really start to stretch the cars legs.

After 2 stop box sessions we went back into the classroom to review the video of our second run where the instructors were able to provide some even more astute feedback on the lines we were taking and how we were controlling the car.

After the video session we went out on track for the final runs of the day with the stop box removed and track fully open. We still had the no overtaking rule except for on the main straight with blue flags. This was when it was time to start really stretching the legs of the car and put into practise what we had learned. I had been slowly building in confidence all day, I was starting to reach threshold braking into turn 2, watching my inside front wheel under rotate on corner entry, I was getting comfortable with a bit of mid corner oversteer at turn 3 and was now taking Turn 6 with just a small lift off the throttle, the corkscrew had been rendered trivial by the tree trick I learned on the track walk and was going faster and faster every time I went through turn 9 without traffic.



Naturally with more confidence, you will eventually find the limits of your own talent, and I did exactly that at turn 2 when I screwed up a downshift going deep under brakes and ended up with a compression lock up and going for a perfectly executed 180 spin. I wish I had the video of this but I pulled a huge powerslide on turn in which I thought I had successfully saved until the back end decided to come around just as I thought I had brought it back under control.
After this spin I was black flagged and brought into the pits for a bit of coaching and was really pleasantly surprised to hear how encouraging the coaches all were. Some other track days and venues I have been to take an extremely hostile approach to mistakes which can be very counter productive, but these guys treated it just as another learning exercise and encouraged me to get right back out there and learn from my mistake.



After that it was the end of my day. The car was in one piece, I had found something of a limit and felt like I had just started to scratch the surface of the performance of these cars. My spin was unfortunate but a part of me is glad I actually drove the car hard enough to make a mistake like that. These days are not cheap but when you consider the hardware they have to maintain, as well as pay the salaries of half a dozen highly capable instructors who provided such excellent feedback all day you can easily see where the money is going, that student to instructor ratio is what really sets these guys apart from other motorsports experiences for me. I definitely recommend these guys to anyone who wants to drive Laguna Seca and is looking for an introduction to open wheelers.

[Natey]

If you're gonna a spin at LS, turn 2 is a nice safe place to do it. Nice pic there. lifting a wheel down the corkscrew! I've never driven an open wheel car at Laguna but it looks like you had a ball.

Weird how there is no more Mazda presence there. It went from Mazda to Weathertech just this year.

[Code Monkey]

Yeah, I spun going (incorrectly) through the corkscrew, you do not want to spin there....

[GohanX]

This is the coolest thing I have read in a long time. Thanks for sharing!

[nindoja]

Originally Posted by Code Monkey Yeah, I spun going (incorrectly) through the corkscrew, you do not want to spin there....

Where's the video? I'm sure that was a wild one.

[Code Monkey]

Originally Posted by nindoja Where's the video? I'm sure that was a wild one.

That was in a rental spec Miata, no video unfortunately.