Road to the racetrack

By Carrie Patrick

Defensive driving classes? The words conjure up an image of a worthy, useful, but not tremendously exciting pursuit. Safe driving is one of those things we all know is right, but it’s like healthy eating: in the car or in the café, we promise “I won’t do donuts” out of a sense of duty, not because we think it’ll be more fun that way.

My recent visit to a Denver-based driving clinic changed all that. It’s taught by female racing drivers, it’s four hours of incredible fun finding the safe limits of your own car and learning to react instantly to emergency situations on the road—and best of all, after you’ve tried it out in a parking lot, you can try it out on a real racetrack.

Nowadays, many articles about high-adrenaline activities start with a prim disclaimer that the writer would normally never do such a scary thing. It’s a nice way to set up a heartwarming tale of expanded horizons and empowerment. So I’m going to disappoint you by saying right now that trying scary things is my main purpose in life. If there’s any chance that an activity will result in motion sickness and/or death, I’ve probably done it, screaming “WOOHOO” the whole time, and then asked if I can go again.

Colorado has a lot of people like me, and also plenty who aren’t. That’s why I’m certain the Wheels in Heels safety and performance driving clinics are going to be very, very popular. Whether you sign up because you want to be a safer driver, or because the safety clinic is a prerequisite for the racetrack day, the end result is better reactions on the road. You will become a safer driver, and you’ll have a whole lot of fun doing it.

Safety Clinic, Commerce City

My Wheels in Heels experience began in a deserted parking lot in Commerce City. I had seen KDVR’s news clip about the driving school, which went around the Internet due to its unexpected star: a baby raccoon which emerged from under a parked car and made a valiant attempt to scuttle up reporter Dan Daru’s pants leg. You really can’t pay for that sort of publicity—at least, I’m almost certain Dan Daru wouldn’t have paid for it. (See the video here.)

The parking lot was thankfully raccoon-free on the day of my class, but had a major infestation of traffic cones. I parked next to the organizers’ trailer with its pink banner and warily surveyed the feet of my fellow trainees. Despite the company’s name, nobody was wearing heels (or a spandex superhero costume, like the cartoon mascot on the banner). Apart from the sensible footwear and an interest in road safety, we didn’t have much in common. One participant was a young girl with her first car, hoping to gain confidence on the road (and perhaps the ability to change gears without making her stick-shift Volkswagen hop like a bunny). A woman with a large SUV was concerned about the chance of a rollover or other loss of control in an emergency situation. With the exception of the teen, all of us considered ourselves to be confident, experienced drivers.

Wheels in Heels co-founder Denise Longwell is sometimes asked, “Why are your classes just for women? Do you think women are bad drivers?” That’s far from the case, she says. Women are safer drivers than men, statistically speaking, but they are also less likely to experiment with the limits of their vehicle, or to simply play with cars for fun. This means that if a female driver gets into an emergency situation on the road, it is often the first time she has experienced a skid, felt ABS braking or a weight transfer in a sharp swerve. And a real-life emergency is not the time to learn how to react.

“We want you to get bored in this class,” Denise told us at the short pre-class briefing. “If you’re bored with each exercise by the end of it, that means it’s become second nature to you. We want to get you to the point where you respond automatically in an emergency and do the right thing without thinking.”

At first, the exercises are anything but boring. Traffic cones become an endangered species as we brake, swerve, skid and occasionally crash our way around the course, doing each exercise over and over again, circling back to join the queue of cars waiting for the next run. The focus is on driving outside our comfort zones—which have expanded considerably by the end of the day. I thought I already knew what it felt like to stamp on the brakes, until the emergency stop exercise. Now I really know. I left a thick streak of tire rubber on the pavement, and a seatbelt-shaped dent across my collarbone, but who knew my car could stop that fast at 40 mph? And who knew a traffic cone could fold up that small and require three people to pick it out of your undercarriage? Unlike traffic cones, pedestrians don’t snap easily back into shape, so it’s really best to practice on cones. After a few more passes, I was stopping on a dime, easily fast enough to avoid cone carnage.

The day’s final exercise was when things got really different. And by “different” I mean scary, and by “exercise” I mean driving really fast at a live human being and not braking, swerving, or slowing down until she signals you—so you don’t know until you’re only feet away whether you will have to swerve left, right, or slam on the brakes. This exercise did not get boring. It eventually got easy, yes, but boring? You would have to be a sociopath to be bored by coming this close to killing another person. Denise and co-founder Christine Jerritts have a lot of confidence in their students.

Performance Clinic, High Plains Raceway

I took that confidence to a whole new level several weeks later, when I signed up for the Wheels in Heels performance driving clinic at the year-old High Plains Raceway near Byers, Colo. You still drive your own car, but a motor racing or motorcycle helmet is required. I took that as a good sign, because in my opinion the amount of fun in any given activity can be measured by the amount of protective clothing needed. Going on this theory, motor racing is about halfway up a scale where chess would be at the bottom, and fighting radioactive sharks in outer space would be at the top. And who wouldn’t want to try a sport that involves people standing around with fire extinguishers just in case?

I set out on I-70 from Denver at 6 a.m., heading for Byers. As observant readers might have gathered, High Plains Raceway is located on the high plains—a stone’s throw from the Kansas border, halfway between Byers and Last Chance. Saying it’s in the middle of nowhere would unfairly peg those towns as the beginning and end of nowhere, and we all know there’s a whole lot more nowhere to be found further east. So let’s just say the raceway’s neighbors are unlikely to complain about the noise.

Fill up at the gas station in Byers before setting off on the 18-mile one-way trip to the track. Fuel is available at High Plains Raceway, but it’s racing fuel, and very pricey—if you’re driving your usual car for a performance clinic or one of the track’s Open Lapping Days, you don’t need it. Pick up some snacks at the General Store, too. Byers even has a steakhouse, so you can relax and grab some dinner before heading home.

After a look at the course map and a briefing on flag signals to watch for, it was time to hit the racetrack. First, I rode as a passenger in my own car with Denise driving. She explained each of the 15 corners on the 2.5-mile circuit and possible lines to take through each of them. After a couple of laps, it was time to try it myself.

High Plains Raceway is built on about 460 acres of rolling terrain, giving the track some fantastic elevation changes. The current track only takes up about half of the available land, and expansions are planned when finances allow—this is the only raceway in the USA that was entirely funded and built by amateur enthusiasts. The up-and-down track is tremendously exciting to drive, even at the rather pathetic speeds I achieved the first few times around.

Admittedly, any track is fun for a first-timer, so it was nice to find out that my feelings were confirmed by the experts. Arie Luyendyk Sr., two-time Indy 500 winner, said about High Plains Raceway: “It’s going to take a lot of laps by a lot of people here to get a rhythm going, because it’s [a difficult] track. It’s challenging.” Andy Pilgrim, 12-year veteran of the Speed World Challenge and American Le Mans, says “The track is very challenging indeed. I think anyone driving there and getting it right will be at home anywhere else in the country on any other track. The track reminds me of some older European tracks, with great multiple camber corners and blind apexes.”

After a full day of driving laps—getting a little more familiar with the track each time, and working on a different aspect of my driving every lap or two, at the instructor’s suggestion—I was amazed at how much more controlled my driving had already become. Earlier, I had heard doubts from friends that this experience could lead to improved safety in everyday driving: surely, they suggested, it will just make a person more likely to drive too fast?

It’s true that taking a hairpin bend at highway speeds, or following the rule of “full throttle or sharp braking, nothing in between” is not what anyone should be doing outside a racetrack. The value of the experience—apart from the fun factor—is in the lessons learned about vehicle control and road awareness. I won’t be going around corners at 100 mph on my daily commute, but now that I know how to do it, making a sharp swerve at 35 mph to avoid a road hazard suddenly seems a lot easier.

In the safety clinic, Denise and Christine talked about the “One Second” concept: the idea that most collisions could be avoided if drivers had just one extra second to react. The skills they teach help you find that extra second—and use it in exactly the right way.

As for me, I plan to spend quite a few of my extra seconds at High Plains Raceway.

Carrie Patrick is managing editor of EnCompass. Several traffic cones were harmed in the making of this article, but are expected to make a full recovery.

Try it yourself

Wheels in Heels runs safety and performance driving clinics for women in the Denver area. Visit www.wheelsinheels.com for more information and a schedule.
High Plains Raceway holds regular Open Lapping Days for both cars and motorcycles, in addition to spectator motorsports events. Registration and payment is required in advance for lapping days. Visit www.highplainsraceway.com for all details.

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