Just completed the Fri/Sat class. Great experience. Weather was clear, peak temps were 79F. Instructors were great- patient, personable and knowledgeable. During one of the classroom sessions, Ron Fellows himself even popped in. He sat quietly in the back until someone asked a technical question about the Precision Pack on the 5s- then he chimed in with some extra details on chassis/tire differences after the instructor had answered. Turns out the Cad-spec PS4Ss have a foam layer to reduce NVH, while, as one would expect, the Cup 2Rs don't.... Very cool to have him just pop in, on a Saturday too.
Facilities were great. I was expecting a continental breakfast and sandwiches for lunch, but we got a lot more (even Salisbury steaks and orange-glazed salmon for lunch on day 2). The facilities looked clean and well-kept all around. I stayed in one of the new "Casitas", the fixed travel trailers that had just been built in the past year. Think I was the only person to use the weights in the gym the whole time I was there...
Track times were pretty plentiful for a course like this. I think we had 6-7 dedicated lapping sessions over the course of the 2 days, each being 30 minutes. Plus all the other activities like launch control, skidpad, slalom, autoX etc. And the classroom sessions were useful- not just a summary of how to drive on track (hitting apexes, modulating braking, and so on) but also how to navigate all the mode settings, tips about hardware on the car ( I did not know the key fob battery could be so easily accessed with the "emergency" key in the fob for ex.) and other platform specific things.
All in all it was a great time. Even better of course was that it was no-charge. Apparently, all Corvette owners have to pay, even Z06 owners. They don't pay full price as someone off the street would, but still, that's at least $1k they have to fork over which we don't.
I do wish that Cup2R/PP cars were available, even if only for a short time/few sessions for those of us who had bought said setups, but I get their point about getting what GM sends them, not to mention the accelerated wear of C2Rs vs running 4Ss. It would be awesome to be able to feel the difference on back to back hot laps between a base 5VBW and a PP, but oh well.
Strongly recommend all 4/5 owners take the class if they have any interest in performance driving. Seems like 1/2 of my class had never been on track and had no plans to aside from this course. I'll bet a few perspectives changed by end of day 2.
Hey, I was there, too. I didn't get to meet everyone and ask if they were on this forum and what were their screen names, but my screen name is my actual name. There were two Todds there and I was the Todd in the back row of the classroom.
I concur that the whole program was run extremely well.
I was in town for the SEMA show in Vegas, so I tacked the V Academy onto the end of trip, since I was conveniently just an hour away.
Honestly, I didn't have high expectations, I figured the class would be primarily structured for people with little or no track experience, and I have a couple decades as a high-performance driving instructor and several years doing SCCA Club Racing. And piloting a purpose-built race car kind of spoils you when it comes to road course driving, vs thrashing around in a street car.
Halfway through Day 1, I was questioning my choice to extend my trip, as the program (understandably) starts very tamely, with slow speed braking and steering drills, and very controlled follow-the-leader lapping on track.
The skill drills got more interesting once we got to the Figure 8, as who doesn't love being told to drift a RWD car around a wet cone course.
And the more lapping sessions we did, the more the instructors split the groups up into similar skill levels, and the pace really started to pick up. At least in my group, we never ended up with a slow train, no matter who was setting the pace behind the instructor's car. The other two drivers in my group were a pleasure to drive with.
By end of Day 2, I could say that I was totally wrong with my assumption of a slow pace/beginner flavor to the whole program: it's designed to accommodate a pretty broad set of skills. I was absolutely punishing my assigned car (5BW manual) on the track by Day 2, and really enjoying it.
I should have never lumped the 5BW into the "overweight, overpowered street car on the race track" category, it's impressively engineered for the track, as we all have been told, one of my more enjoyable street-car-on-track experiences.
To all who are wondering if they should attend: Yes, yes you should.
