mx5cartalk.com

As the title suggests, I'm interested in getting some instructor time at Wakefield. Anyone had any experiences with any of the different groups out there offering driver training?

I've had a bit to do with Mike Navybox, great guy and will teach you heaps.
http://navyboxschoolofmotorsport.com.au/Home.htm

Haven't been to one of his days but have competed against him a few times and his dad for years

John Boston and trackschool.com.au

Real nice guy, and very talented, used to instruct for luffy, now on the hilux heroes precision driving team as well as running trackschool. Every man and his dog at wtac seems to know how good he is, last few years he has dríven several top cars with great result. I highly recommend him... I'm planning on getting a few laps in with bozmans crew before jumping into mra racing in July.

John is also a member on this forum, and posts his track days here.

Joe,

When I first bought my 911 I figured that I should find out about their unique handling characteristics in relative safety. A couple of blokes and I hired Rick Bates to come across to Wakefield for the day to give us some pointers on a Speed off the Streets day. Rick is in Canberra, so this may suit you.

Things may have changed in the meantime, but from memory we paid the track fees ourselves and then simply split Rick's daily fee between us; it was something like $550 between the three of us. Pretty good value really as we had him to ourselves for the whole day. If you decide to go down this route I'd probably been keen to line up again, but this time in the MX5. http://www.batesadvanceddriving.com/

A while ago I also did a high performance day with John Bowe Driving at Wakefield. There were five instructors to about twenty students, so I got plenty of in-car tuition. My instructor was Terry Bowe, John's brother. Terry is a pretty good peddler in his own right and my times dropped around 3.5 seconds over the day. Looking at their web site, their next Wakefield day is Monday 30 April, but could well be booked out by now. Worth a phone call never-the-less. http://www.johnbowedriving.com.au/.

As others have said, Mike Navybox and Trackschool are other options. If it wasn't so expensive, the Formula Ford Experience with Peter Finlay would also be a lot of fun!

Regards...

Tony wrote:Joe,

When I first bought my 911 I figured that I should find out about their unique handling characteristics in relative safety. A couple of blokes and I hired Rick Bates to come across to Wakefield for the day to give us some pointers on a Speed off the Streets day. Rick is in Canberra, so this may suit you.

Things may have changed in the meantime, but from memory we paid the track fees ourselves and then simply split Rick's daily fee between us; it was something like $550 between the three of us. Pretty good value really as we had him to ourselves for the whole day. If you decide to go down this route I'd probably been keen to line up again, but this time in the MX5. http://www.batesadvanceddriving.com/

...

A few years ago half a dozen of us did the same deal with Rick . He spent some time in the driver's seat, some time in the passenger's, swapping between the five cars (we had one no-show). When he wasn't in the car, we were out there practicing his advice . A great, very helpful, day. Highly recommended.

Peter Findlay has sold his business and retired AFAK.

+ 1 for John Boston's trackschool

If you need numbers to split costs, I'm looking for something like this as well.

Would be very keen to jump in on this as well but need to get my car sorted out first.