Bundy and all,
Thanks for comments and especially positive ratings/remarks. Now to clarify.
Let me say that it is not correct to say that group 3 is a waste of time/money as in ALL sessions now, we do debriefs immediately after your drive. With this, if you had an off - as reported by SIC ( and SIC alone via mashal and CCTV ), you will be called in to explain what happened. Technically if you NO SHOW for your debriefs, we can stop you from going out the next session.
To clarify more - the debriefs are done in a very cordial and friendly manner to ensure you are not put in spotlight for your errors BUT to share with the rest what happened. A senior debriefing instructor is in attendance to tell you what possily happened and what you could have done to avoid the situation.
HPC also believes if you know your fellow drivers, you will be less agressive to one another. This is proven correct as there were less incidents in the later part of the day - at least for Group 3 since I was debriefing that. The other reason is also to allow some socialising of the drivers - to share a common passion for your cars.
We do this debrief for group 1, 2 and 3 students. This to ensure you are learning by joining HPC and not just burning your tyres and petrol away.
For group 3, the overtaking rules are more relaxed than group 2 and you will be driving with instructors as well - so THERE ARE STILL RULES, applicable to all. Do you have this in any track day? I have done public track days and I have seen 4 cars abreast going into T1. Imagine wrecking your latest M3 on a 30K worth track car EK9....
In one recent public open track day - I had also the pleasure of sitting on the pit entry in my teams' race car for a good 15mins to only be later waved to pack up cos the session is done as there was a car beached at T1 and cannot be removed that quickly. Imagine paying Rm300 for a sauna in our stationary race car and no play. A red light every 5 - 10mins is common, at least the one I went to this puasa month! There were 200 plus cars on track!
To also clarify - for GROUP 2, there are NO instructors actually. Those driving in Group2 but had an instructor were actually the spillover from the Group 1. In future, we are planning a taxi ride for all Group 2 students in our race car ( in group 3 ) to show you how hard you can brake, racing lines and heel n toe exercise ( and reason why its done ) to extend your money's worth into this education.
For those who had commented on the waiting time, I have this to say. Can your road car really take one hour of continous running? I had another real experience to share - I know a Subaru Sti BREMBO brakes cannot.....Husband did group 2, wife was doing group 1 and we ran out of brakes by session 2. No fun if you risk your life this way. A lime green Evo ( also Brembo shod ) also had cooked its brakes yesterday, so it's not a uncommon incident.
The break in between allows you to cool your brakes and engine. If not, I wonder why many cars open their bonnets ah?
HPC's Grouping is meant as step for a succession in educating the driver. Its intended to bring the participant from a Sepang Drive Experience ( group 1 ) to a more advanced driving technique ( Group 2 ) and Introduction to Racing ( Group 3 ). And yes, HPC is planning a racing series for this progression as well for those who want to go beyond group 3.
FYI, HPC keeps a database of all the Group 1 participant and also incidents for cars called in the debrief ( group 2 and 3 ). This is to say, we can weed out those wild drivers from progressing up the rank if we want to as well. Yes, we screen our entries. Once again, I think HPC is the only organisation that troubles itself to do this as we want to make this safe for all participants - not that we want to keep this for the elite.
All in all, I recognise there is a lack of understanding what HPC is aspiring to do here which have lead to some of the given comments. We have a Driver Progression System in place, albeit not perfect but we are trying to improve it as we go along. Please be reminded a lot of effort goes into the education material we email to all of you and I think its the cheapest driving education you can get nowadays.
Its sad to see many ppl dun read or listen and if the fairlady driver did so, he will not be where he is now - to reveal as less as I can, he was driving with windows up, hence the cuts. ( anyhow, pls recover fast and he is a friend of an instructor )
In closing, I thank all for the free feedback.
Safe Driving to all,
Jules
HPC Head Instructor
