Driver Education

Driver Education – May 2017

The 2017 CVR DE season has officially started. We kicked our season off in
March with our Annual DE Winter Workshop. By the time you have this
month’s copy in your mailbox we will also have had our first on-track event of the season, with our April DE at Lime Rock Park.

For those of you who did not make the Winter Workshop, I’m sorry you weren’t able to attend. It was a great gathering of a lot of familiar faces and also a lot of new faces, hopefully our newest track junkies. As attendees arrived, there were lots of things for them to check out in the parking lot. Danbury Porsche had a graphite blue metallic 911S and a silver Cayenne on display, Elm City Trailer brought up a trailer to put behind the Cayenne and Car Lifts Plus set up a lift in the parking lot. We also had Chris Musante bring 2 impressive GT4 Club Sport Caymans and Dan Jacobs bring a beautiful yellow street Cayman S. It was a parking lot full of eye-catching machines.

The morning began with everyone checking in at registration and receiving a goodie bag provided by Car Lifts Plus. We also gave out a bright t-shirt printed with all of our sponsors’ logos. The shirt will be very visible at the track and I hope to see them at all of our events. As the drivers registered, everyone socialized with old and new friends and also enjoyed a light breakfast. Thank you to the Hayestown Avenue Dunkin Donuts in Danbury for providing the donuts, muffins, munchkins and bagels. Fred, the manager of this Dunkin Donuts, picked out a great variety of pastries and was more than generous in what he gave us.

We started off the event with Mike Killeen of Danbury Porsche giving a brief rundown on some of the new happenings at Porsche, from the line of turbo motors now available to the new cars coming, like the GT3 4.0 with 500 hp. Yikes, I can see our instructors lining up to instruct a first time green student with that car. After Mike finished speaking, we had a short break-out session for all rungroups, separating the instructors into one group, with Spencer Cox, our Chief Instructor speaking to them, the beginners into another group and everyone else into the third group. I want to thank Dan Jacobs for helping me out with the beginner group and thank Dave Hutchings for talking with the solo and advanced drivers. We got some good feedback from the drivers on things the DE committee can do to make CVR’s great program that much better for all participants.

After the break-out session, we all came back together and our next speakers were Starr and RJ from Car Lifts Plus. They spoke about some of the cool products they have, from portable two-post car lifts to full-on-pro two-post lifts and even epoxy floor covering for your shop/garage. They will come to you, to measure and suggest ways for them to make your garage the ‘ultimate’ place to put your car. The Workshop was the first DE event that Car Lifts Plus has attended and we appreciate their support.

The question of “am I covered on track if something happens to my car?” comes up from time to time. You should check with your insurance agent but nowadays, most companies will not track events. That’s why we had Will Corr from Hagerty Insurance talk to us about HPDE Track insurance. I hope it was helpful to those who have thought about track insurance and how it works. Will has supported CVR DE for many years and is always very informative when it comes to insurance.

When you get to the point of having had enough of loading up the car with everything to take to the track or you decide to get that second set of wheels, the inevitable next step is to buy a trailer and tow your car to and from the track. We had Bobby Fantarella from Elm City Trailer talk a little bit about trailering and some of the different trailers he can set up, tailored for individual needs, from full enclosed aluminum trailers to basic open-deck steel trailers. Besides selling trailers, Bobby also sells trailer accessories and does service and maintenance on trailers. If you have a question on trailers, Bobby is your go-to guy for the answer.

Safety is a big part of what we do in DE and having the proper equipment as you progress is very important. Helmets, seats, safety harnesses, even the basic stuff like gloves, shoes and proper outer wear – all of this cool stuff was on hand from Stable Energies, there for trying on and testing. Bob and Michael gave a presentation on new products and every-
day track items we all use or will use in the future. Stable Energies has just about everything anyone could need for a day at the track so if you need something, give them a call.

With the CVR PCA workshop ending with lunch, most decided to stick around and have some fun at the on-track facility. It was a great way to get a lift for the winter months without DE. I would like to thank all of our sponsors who were so very generous with helping us put on this event—our four shops all provided advertising support for the t-shirts: Automobile Associates of Canton, Daniel Jacobs LLC, Musante Motorsports and Speedsport Tuning. Our display sponsors were Car Lifts Plus, Hagerty Insurance, Elm City Trailer, Stable Energies and Danbury Porsche.

Once the event was done and everyone was gone, it was time to bring the extra food down to the homeless shelter in Danbury. Every year we have donated food to their facility and they are always very thankful. We also had to return the cars to the dealership and thank Chris Partelow, the sales manager at Danbury Porsche, for once again providing cars to display and supporting our Workshop. Getting to drive the brand new cars to and from the dealership was fun for me, and driving a $125K car in sleet is not like a driving at a DE, but it was still a rush.

From now until November it will be all about driving on track. If you are new to DE and want to know where to start, check out the calendar in Challenge and then go to ClubRegistration.net and create a profile. Once that is done, you are all set to register for an event.

See you at the track. Dave

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