Driver Education

Driver Education – March 2018

It’s almost Spring. As fun as snow is for some, I am looking forward to longer days and hopefully plenty of warm sunny days. With CVR’s 2017 DE behind us I would like to highlight a few things from our past season. We had a very full season of DE events – 15 track days, 3 different tracks (Lime Rock Park, Watkins Glen and Palmer Motorsports), a Winter Workshop, our first Big Porsche DE Sampler and our season-ending Todd “the master cook” Pajonas’ cookout.

There are plenty of track days for people to choose from and we at CVR thank all of you who support our DE program and continue with the future growth of CVR’s DE program. We (CVR) would like to thank all of our great sponsors: Danbury Porsche, Stable Energies, Elm City Trailers, Hagerty Insurance, Car Lifts Plus, Max BMW, Automobile Associates of Canton, Speedsport Tuning, Musante Motorsports and Daniel Jacobs LLC. Please support our sponsors as a thank you to them for backing our DE program, letting us give our drivers some great track shirts. Our 2017 Workshop sponsors backed our bright yellow shirt, our 4 shops backed the purple WGI shirt and Max BMW backed the black and neon green WGI shirt. Many drivers tell me that CVR is responsible for the shirts they wear both at the track and everywhere else.

CVR held the end-of-the-year Photofest in November. I was pleased to announce the winners of the DE awards, with the Instructor of the Year award presented to Steve Winkler, the DE Enthusiast award to Donn Castonguay & Suzanne Smith and the Dale Smith award to Chuck Veth. All are very deserving of their recognition for their contribution to the CVR DE program. When you see them at the track, let them know that you appreciate their contribution to the CVR DE program.

With 2017 wrapped up, we are looking ahead to the 2018 DE season. All of our events are finally posted on both ClubRegistration.net and on the CVR website. Make sure that you double-check the events since we had a few late add-on dates, including May 19th at LRP for beginners & instructors and July 13/14 at Palmer Motorsports (yes, we were able to keep our Friday/Saturday slot).

We are once again offering the Palmer event as either Friday or Saturday or even better, both days. If you buy insurance ‘by the event’, then a 2 day event costs the same to insure as a 1 day event, giving you more value for your money spent. Hopefully your schedule will let you get two days in at Palmer but if not, you definitely have to do at least one track day at Palmer. The track is close enough that a lot of our northern CT members can go home after the Friday event and be back on Saturday morning, bypassing the need for a hotel.

Palmer is continuing its development of their property – they have added more curbing to the track and are deploying tire curtains in certain corners for greater protection. They are also in the process of creating more paved areas for parking in the paddock. It’s always nice to see a track looking for ways to improve the experience for the drivers. Come to the track on Friday and Saturday and still have Sunday to spend with your family and friends.

The CVR DE track schedule starts in April – by the time you get this issue of Challenge, registration will already be open for the April events. Put this magazine down, go sign up for an event and then come back to finish reading.

See you at the track.

Dave

Leave a Comment

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

*