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Quick Rick Canter – CVR’s DE Chief of Instructor Development

There are not many people who have driven a car on the track who were not humbled their first time out. Everyone thinks they are the next Schumacher until they get to the first corner. That is what makes the instructor corps so important and CVR is fortunate to have Rick Canter as its DE Chief of Instructor Development since 2016.

Rick says he has always been a car guy and the list of cars he has owned proves it. His first car was a 1957 Triumph TR3, which was one of many British cars he has owned. In 1978 Rick bought what he considers to be his first performance car, a brand-new Mazda RX-7. He immediately added a big air dam and had a performance shop add a larger carburetor for more power. His wife was not a fan of the car and so it vanished into the ether many years ago.

Eventually, Rick’s attention turned to Porsches after attempting a different path. When he was turning 50 he told his wife he was thinking about getting a Harley Davidson and asked her what she thought. Her “opinion” was NO. However, she reminded Rick that he had always wanted a Porsche.

He went to a nearby dealer and bought a two-year-old 1991 964 Turbo which had only 1900 miles. It was painted a metallic black and had a black interior with red piping. Rick’s wife loved the car and loved that it came with a picnic table in the form of its iconic “whale tail” rear wing. When talking about this car Rick laments, “I never should have sold it.”

Soon after this purchase, someone advised Rick that he could drive the car on track at Bridgehampton Race Circuit, which fortunately for him, was right next door. Although he was initially intimidated by the experience he states, “I absolutely loved it. It was so much fun for a car guy.” Rick related that a PCA DE in 1994 was very different from today as there were no communicators and instruction was less formal. Even with these rudimentary beginnings, Rick stated, “I was hooked” and went on to drive several DEs each year at Bridgehampton.

Only a few years later Rick decided to get more serious and bought himself a 1997 Porsche 993 turbo, which he describes as the “classic mistake of going for power.” In retrospect, he believes he would have been better served by purchasing a Porsche 944, which would have provided a better learning experience. Not content with driving a stock 993, Rick added a Bilstein suspension, rollbar, race seat, and harness. He also towed a 2-wheel trailer with his tires and gear behind the 993. He branched out to other tracks, including Pocono and New Hampshire Motor Speedway, and his days on the track continued to climb each year.

With the value of hindsight and experience, Rick also admits that he also made the classic mistake of wanting to advance too quickly. “Everyone wants to solo, thinking we are better than we really are.” Fortunately, this mistake was ironically corrected when Rick bought a 2004 Porsche 996 GT3 which, in his own words, “frightened me.” He hired a pro coach to help him understand the car and came to the realization that, despite all his time on the track, there were still things to learn. Following this realization, Rick would get someone to sit right seat whenever he could.

In 2007, Rick became a National DE Instructor for PCA and has instructed for most PCA regions stretching from Connecticut to Virginia. He has also instructed for SCDA, HOD and has taught classrooms for both Ferrari Club of America and BMW Car Club of America. While he has fond memories of those varied instructing experiences he is quick to point out, “None of them turn out the quality of instructors and students as CVR does which is something we all should be proud of.”

Around 2009 Rick started to drive at Lime Rock Park with CVR and felt like he had found his driving home. “I had an epiphany because the quality of instruction and drivers was much higher,” Rick says. At this point, the track bug had hit Rick hard and he was averaging approximately 40 events a year. Rick made clear that he is a firm believer in PCA’s motto “It’s not the cars, it’s the people.”

In addition to driving with CVR, Rick started club racing with PCA in 2009 at Lime Rock Park in his GT3. Rick humbly states, “I was not particularly good at it, but I wanted the experience.” He club raced for about 5 or 6 years before calling it quits, but not before racing at a number of tracks up and down the East Coast, with Sebring being one of his particular favorites.

Continuing his quest to learn more, Rick used to rent Mazda MX-5 Cup cars at Sebring and have the late, great Peter Argetsinger instruct him. With only about 150HP these cars are all about momentum. Rick has stated that he owes anything good he has done at Watkins Glen to Peter, and anything good he has done at Lime Rock to Simon Kirkby. Understanding the value and perspective that a pro driving coach can sometimes bring, Rick has been instrumental in arranging for various coaches to work with CVR members.

The Uphill at Lime Rock Park

Beginning in 2016, Rick took over the DE instructor development program from Don Schneider. Rick had previously been helping with mentoring going back to Don’s predecessor, Fred Staudinger. When asked why he got involved with instructing Rick says, “I really enjoyed the mentoring as it’s all part of giving back. What I learned from every pro in my right seat I assimilated. I assimilated Spencer’s classes. All of a sudden you feel like you do know something, and you want to share it. I was ready for the job at the time Don left. We as a club have done very well with our instructor development program.”

Rick shared that learning to instruct takes effort and the skills needed are not necessarily intuitive. Talking about the process to go from instructor trainee to “getting your instructor card”, Rick states, “The first mentoring session, the candidate has read everything, but they get in the car and forget 90% of what they were going to say, they are one step behind every turn and have missed a million things. It is after this first session that they realize that they have so much to learn. Then you have to put them back together.”

Rick further explained that through practice and mentoring at some point the instructing “becomes natural”. While he is always proud of all the students he has instructed, he is most proud of every instructor turned out since taking over the program.

Asked what he likes best about instructing, Rick still shows enthusiasm for driving on track even after 27 years. “I get tremendous satisfaction when I do the track walk at Watkins Glen and people tell me that they learned something. I also have always enjoyed the give and take of the classroom.”

Rick pointed out that you can often learn valuable lessons from mistakes and pass that experience along. He states that his two biggest mistakes were not starting out with a less powerful car and not staying in lower run groups to get the benefit of additional instruction. Rick continued, “Year after year CVR turns out excellent students because we help students to adhere to this standard of promoting someone when they are ready.”

In addition to his many other accomplishments, both on the track and off, Rick was the recipient of Instructor of the Year, the Dale Smith Memorial Award, and was 2020’s recipient of the Spencer Cox Driver Education Award. At the mention of Spencer’s name Rick was quick to relate, “The first time I met Spencer, I was at Pocono with my 1997 993 Turbo. I had blown a turbo hose and someone said ‘ask Spencer’. Sure enough, I did, and he came over with a jack, got under the car, and replaced the hose clamp. I offered to pay him, and he explained we were all part of a club, and a thank you will do. Damn, I miss him!”

Rick had an interesting and varied career ranging from working in the space program to owning a bicycle business. He was a Deputy Section Chief for industrial Engineering for Grumman Aerospace and worked on the Lunar Module program both in Bethpage, NY, and Cape Kennedy. He was in charge of all the big flow charts for production to make sure all the parts ended up on the lunar module in the right sequence. He also worked on the F-14 proposal.

Although Rick is now retired, he keeps himself busy and is an avid cyclist having put over 7000 miles on his bike since March. He can also be seen driving around the East End of Long Island in his 1971 Jaguar E-Type Roadster, which is the last of the six cylinders. When he completed a body-off restoration years ago, he had the car painted Porsche Guards Red. He uses it about 2 – 3 times a week and almost never has the top up. Every year he does a historic rally that ends at Bridgehampton Race Circuit. It seems that no matter what Rick is doing he ends up at the track!

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