When an offer to attend a three-day Skip Barber Racing School is thrown your way?during the work week, no less?you take it. Skippy schools, as they?re colloquially known, are offered at some of the best tracks across the country, including Lime Rock Park, Road Atlanta, Road America, and our favorite, Virginia International Raceway. One-, two-, and three-day sessions are available in your choice of racing machine: a fully prepped Mazda MX-5 or a Skip Barber Formula car. With a craving to experience unassisted steering and brakes as well as a sequential gearbox, we chose the latter. As for venue, we opted to attend a track we?d not yet visited: the relatively new NCM Motorsports Park (pictured above), located near the National Corvette Museum in Bowling Green, Kentucky. Back to School
Day one began with the usual chalk talk?a discussion of the basic ground rules for the day and general track-driving tips, often accompanied by chalkboard or whiteboard illustrations and delivered as if fired from a machine gun. To someone completely unfamiliar with track work, it could come across as overwhelming, but the experienced and helpful instructors gladly took the time to answer questions. We received a briefing on the basics such as “sight picture” (looking through the apex), vehicle weight transfer and its effect on contact patches, and over- and understeer. Then it was time to head to NCM?s 22-acre skidpad. Dark skies loomed, however, and major rain came down on us jus...