Back in August of this year I had a chance to travel to New Jersey Motorsports Park to attend the Skip Barber 3-Day Formula 4 School. Thanks to some good results in the Esports Series they hosted last year, Joe Monitto (Chief Revenue Officer for SBRS) awarded me with a complimentary 3-day school (huge thank you) at an event of my choice.
After we made the 13+ hour drive from north Alabama to Millville, New Jersey we decided to check out the track the evening before the school started. Luckily the Skip Barber car haulers were arriving just as we were out and I got to have an early introduction to some of their instructors, such as Chief Administrative Instructor Eric Powell, Lead Instructors Carter Fartuch and Don Kutschall, and Instructor Ken Fukuda. We made sure to check out the Mygale Formula 4 cars as well as the Ford Mustangs used by the GT School.
Early the next morning we arrived at class to start our introductions and begin learning the basics of racing. Experienced drivers may find this part a little boring but this school is made for newcomers as well, so everything from flags to weight transfer is thoroughly taught in depth. Around lunch time we went to the Formula 4 cars they had sitting in the garage so we could get properly fitted and acquainted with the car for the first time. After some more classes and learning basic racing procedures about the Mygale F4 car, we took a walk outside to the skid pad where we would learn car control and when the tires start to give (spin-out). They do this by putting a plastic tire on the rear-outermost tire so that when the load transfers, it will start to slowly lose grip until you spin out and it’s up to you to make corrections and keep the car from spinning out. The instructor will give you feedback on what you need to fix and then you head back to the classroom for lunch.
After your skidpad session, you will then briefly hop in the Ford Mustang GT cars to go over the proper racing line with cones in the parking lot. For this session I was paired with Loni Unser, current Battery Tender Mazda MX5 Cup driver and part of the legendary Unser racing family. You will drive the course lined with cones to learn when to turn in and brake and to fix any small issues you may have. It’s best to have some experience driving manual cars as I saw a few students struggling with it. When you’re finished with this, you’ll head back to the classroom for some more instruction and be dismissed for lunch.
The class attendees are separated into different groups and luckily mine was the first one on the track. The first session is getting your feet wet, you follow the pacecar around in groups of 2-3 cars and slowly start to build speed, learning braking points and the racing line will under complete control of your car. After the first session, you hop out, share your experience with everyone else and prepare to go out again in usually 20-30 minutes (depending on the size of the class). The next time you’ll again follow a pacecar but this time at a slightly faster pace.
When you finish up this session, you’re typically done for the day after receiving some pointers and told when to show up the next day. Unfortunately for the one-day driving school students, this is the only thing you’ll get to do, so if you want to do open lapping I for sure recommend the 3-day school!
Day two saw us start out with another follow session and a few classroom things to touch up on. Right before lunch we hit the track to do our first round of stop box drills, a session where you will do a lap on your own but will stop on the front straightaway in the “box” of cones to receive feedback from your instructors stationed along the track. We did this for the remainder of the day and also into day 3. In total you will probably do around 3-4 of these stop box sessions so take the time to learn what you can from your instructors.
Finally at the end of day 3, you are turned loose into open lapping. You and the other cars in your group are given 15 minutes of open lapping with two designated passing zones. This obviously was the best part of the whole weekend as you were able to push your Formula 4 car to it’s limits and enjoy the thrill of speed.
Overall, the 3 day Formula 4 school with Skip Barber was an amazing experience and I received a lot of great feedback and complements from my instructors. It was awesome to meet some great people in the motorsports community and I look forward to going back to the 2 day Advanced Formula 4 school sometime in 2022!