Everyone buckle up. I’m going to crack my knuckles and lay out what a great experience I had with Scott Adams (https://www.facebook.com/scottadamsdd/) as my driving coach this weekend at Harris Hill. I’ll give you a short bottom line review in a few seconds, but you should really take the time to read the whole “book” I’m writing. After all, you’re going to spend money, you should know where it’s going. A lot of times you don’t see long reviews for products or services unless there is a problem.
I had a lot of people ask about my weekend privately or in the group, especially after my other thread about coaching, etc. I'm not trying to "sell" anyone anything here, just give some feedback on my experience.
This is a short bullet point list of what I got for my money (for more details you gotta read the full review, especially for the “little things” that really round out the experience).
About three hours of track time, all coached but some right seat coaching some observation. Would likely be more but I had other things we worked on not just driving.
Complete set up of AIM RaceStudio on my personal computer, along with complete class on comparing data traces, videos, down to the buttonology of clicking this or that. Understanding, evaluating, populating data, etc. Obviously varies if you don’t have a data acquisition setup.
Comprehensive “classroom” instruction. Theories, watching other racers and evaluating what they were doing, etc.
Lengthy phone conversations ranging from goals, expectations, data analysis, etc.
Driving simulator in the van (if needed) - if I wanted to work on something that couldn’t be done on track
Tips, tricks, etc ranging from basic driving and buckling in to loading a trailer, you name it. Anything I asked...
Not to sound cheesy - but I got a few new friends in the process.
Here’s a few paragraph summary of why I think you should hire him:
He was an AMAZING coach, before, during, and after our session. He provides a service that’s better than almost any mod you can do...Because consumables eventually get consumed, parts cannot always be transferred from car to car...here you get skills that you can take anywhere, any time, on any track, with any vehicle. Dollar for dollar, assuming you have the basic mods like tires and brakes, this is going to be a better bang for your buck to be competitive.
He coached Nikko Reger (https://autoweek.com/article/sports-cars/nikko-reger-wins-global-mx-5-cup-championship) to the Global Cup championship, which was an added bonus for me - both the coaching resume but also having experience with a quasi-similar set up car and familiarity with the characteristics of the ND. In addition, he gave me a full class on my AIM (see above). No matter what stage of development you're in, you're going to get a lot of track time anyhow, and you will have someone there with you to point out mistakes you are making and hopefully prevent them from becoming bad habits.
I know some people were mixed about at what point you should look to a coach. After talking to Scott, I/we decided anytime was a good time, and starting from the beginning with a coach was going to be a shorter, more efficient path to being better.
Scott is also a great dude, which is just as important in my opinion. He said something to me at the beginning that stuck with me and I can say I wholeheartedly agree with at the end: “I’ve never had a client just work with me once. I build drivers.”
Longer review:
Several people gave me some suggestions on coaching - a lot of people were suggested, but Scott came up multiple times. My intent was to get in a car with a coach as soon as possible, as I had somewhat left my car to sit in the garage this past year, except two occasions. To be fair, three months I was in Hawaii and three months I was in Afghanistan, but I still sort of drifted away from doing anything. So once I decided to keep the car, I wanted to get in the car, get good instruction, dust off some rust, and make myself more confident to attend more events. Scheduling is getting rough as a lot of coaches and drivers are busy with other race weekends, and I got lucky with a) someone that came highly recommended and b) that was able to make time to meet me on relatively short notice.
Lead up:
After texting back and forth over the President's Day weekend quite a bit, Scott asked me to call him on Tuesday. We spoke for an hour and 34 minutes while he gave me his driving/coaching philosophy, made sure we had the same goals in mind, as well as likely judge what I was looking for. It wasn’t necessary but it surprised me that someone would care enough to talk this long (excluding all the stuff we had already exchanged) before I even spent any money. Scott coordinated all of our time at Harris Hill, where to park, etc. He even explained that he has a driving simulator in his van that he takes to events. So if you have issues with something on track he can put you in a simulator as well. He texted me a few times leading up to the event, even though he was busy with other racing events - make sure you have this, remind you about this, coordinated what communications we would use based off what helmet I had, bring extra fuel, get rest, etc. A lot of it I had already planned for, but some of it was a good reminder or good advice in general.
Track day:
I got to the track bright and early, and met him, his wife Marie, and Will Faules (sorry will, more importantly I got to meet Clutch). It’s important to note that Scott and his wife are great people. You can have generally a few types of people you encounter professionally: a nice person who is competent at their job, a nice person who is incompetent, a jerk that’s competent, and a jerk that’s incompetent. While I’d rather work with a competent jerk than a nice incompetent person, I'm happy to report that Scott is a real people person so you get competent and nice.
We unloaded my trailer, kind of got situated, and discussed/reiterated some of the goals for the day while we waited for the track to go hot. The day of there were two one hour-long Spec Miata races. Scott of course knows everyone that works at the track (helpful, I think), as well as a large portion of the drivers in the race itself. While he focused on helping me improve throughout the day he didn’t hesitate to field questions and talk to other drivers he had previously coached, giving them pointers etc. That speaks to his character.
Before going out we discussed point bys, some safety stuff, and reiterated the goals.
My first session was about 28 laps, 45ish minutes with in and out laps. Communication was great - quiet when necessary, encouragement as necessary, corrections if necessary. Probably pushed me harder than I would have first session. Which was good. The rest of the day was spent discussing basically how to get better than my best lap WITHOUT him pushing me in my ear.
We then watched the first Spec Miata race. While watching we discussed some of the things happening on track, discussed some mistakes and their consequences of the drivers on track. We had some lessons on steering angle, brake and throttle inputs, physics, tires, etc during lulls in the action.
They switched to CCW and I got back out there. Despite being basically dropped into a new track, he got me within 2ish seconds of my best CW time with him in the car. I kept pushing and was on pace to beat that time, but made a mistake and had a little four wheel excursion.
This was actually a good time to pit in after another lap.
Here is where we started a full on class on setting up AIM software and analyzing data on on the race studio software. If you are already adept at this, you would get more track time. But I’m a truly hands on person so it was worth it to take a break and have someone knowledgeable walk me through everything. In addition we walked frame by frame through my mistake that put us off course and we analyzed at each step what I could have potentially done differently to achieve a better outcome (how to not go off in the first place, how to better correct the issue once it was happening, etc).
After getting through all this, Scott put me on track by myself. I was now about 5 seconds off my best CW time, likely because I didn’t have someone pushing me and I was also more cautious where I made mistakes.
Now Scott took my car out for a few laps and put down a 1:29.xx CCW in pretty short order - undoubtedly could do better given some more time with the car. This gave me a reference. I was now about 4 seconds off that time with him in the car and 7 seconds off of my own time.
We now had data to compare between Scott and myself on the same course. We found about two seconds alone where it was me not going flat out through certain areas - again diving deep into data analysis here was a huge help. We looked at most areas of the track and were able to see a lot correctable issues.
Unfortunately they changed back to CW so I didn’t apply my CCW comparison analysis.
I was back out for CW by myself and running about 2s behind my times with Scott in the car. About 1:33 compared to 1:31. Eventually I was getting pretty much on par with my best time with him in the car around 1:31. It’s important to note that while I was out by myself, Scott was watching from the top to look for mistakes etc.
I’m not going to lie - by this point in the day I had logged quite a few laps and was starting to get a little worn out. So as I was pitting in Scott met me out front. We talked about dialing it back to a 1:33ish for a few laps to “relax” and working on some techniques. He gave me more instruction on finding the edges of the track. He told me to find the limits of the car, the track, you name it. Amongst other things. And then go all out for the last few laps.
Happy to say taking his advice netted me a 1:30.7. I know it’s no track record, it isn’t into the 1:20s, but I was happy to break what I had done with him actively right seat coaching me. It was a great way to end the track session for the day after about three total hours on track.
After the track:
I came off track and Scott was waiting for me to help load the car on the trailer. While I was packing up for the day (we are after 5pm here) Scott was busy downloading data from the dash, video, and adjusting my dash configuration based off of things we noted during the day (for example I only had the Lap delta displayed and not the lap time, thinking I wouldn’t care, but realized after that it would have been easier than going into memory).
Additionally, he gave me some trailer load tips (I’m a new trailer guy, previously driving to events).
Ultimately it was the little stuff like that, that was the icing on the cake to an already amazing experience. Even when I was headed out to track by myself, he could have walked off and that would be perfectly normal. But instead he was helping me reach my harness, making sure I was buckled in, handing me stuff, all the while reminding me of what my goals would be for each session.
Post track day:
Prior to leaving Scott gave me homework to work on. Review the data, review the video, and we would talk at length sometime around Tuesday or so while it was still fresh to discuss areas for improvement. For example, I haven’t been flat out in some areas (confidence issue, working on it yet) so we are going to discuss the throttle position and where I’m letting off etc. Very useful to have AIM data to compare and work with and helpful for future “virtual” sessions as well.
As you see, there’s a lot of work he puts in for you that’s above and beyond, and really goes the extra mile. I have no idea how long it would take to accumulate this much instruction over driving time. Granted, it’s not the cheapest thing you’ll do this week, but at the end of the day I think it’s cheaper than making the same mistakes over and over. In a perfect world, my experience was so good that I would hire Scott every time I went to a new track.
In either case, I can promise you I’ll be a repeat customer. You won’t regret it.
People will ask so here is his pricing (also note he coaches tennis):
KARTING
$200 minimum
$100hr (plus driving cost for both of us)
SIMULATOR
$200 minimum
$100hr (plus possible gas cost/travel expenses)
TRACK (must pay 1/2 upfront to book dates)
$500 minimum $800 maximum
$100hr (plus driving cost/track cost)
I had a lot of people ask about my weekend privately or in the group, especially after my other thread about coaching, etc. I'm not trying to "sell" anyone anything here, just give some feedback on my experience.
This is a short bullet point list of what I got for my money (for more details you gotta read the full review, especially for the “little things” that really round out the experience).
About three hours of track time, all coached but some right seat coaching some observation. Would likely be more but I had other things we worked on not just driving.
Complete set up of AIM RaceStudio on my personal computer, along with complete class on comparing data traces, videos, down to the buttonology of clicking this or that. Understanding, evaluating, populating data, etc. Obviously varies if you don’t have a data acquisition setup.
Comprehensive “classroom” instruction. Theories, watching other racers and evaluating what they were doing, etc.
Lengthy phone conversations ranging from goals, expectations, data analysis, etc.
Driving simulator in the van (if needed) - if I wanted to work on something that couldn’t be done on track
Tips, tricks, etc ranging from basic driving and buckling in to loading a trailer, you name it. Anything I asked...
Not to sound cheesy - but I got a few new friends in the process.
Here’s a few paragraph summary of why I think you should hire him:
He was an AMAZING coach, before, during, and after our session. He provides a service that’s better than almost any mod you can do...Because consumables eventually get consumed, parts cannot always be transferred from car to car...here you get skills that you can take anywhere, any time, on any track, with any vehicle. Dollar for dollar, assuming you have the basic mods like tires and brakes, this is going to be a better bang for your buck to be competitive.
He coached Nikko Reger (https://autoweek.com/article/sports-cars/nikko-reger-wins-global-mx-5-cup-championship) to the Global Cup championship, which was an added bonus for me - both the coaching resume but also having experience with a quasi-similar set up car and familiarity with the characteristics of the ND. In addition, he gave me a full class on my AIM (see above). No matter what stage of development you're in, you're going to get a lot of track time anyhow, and you will have someone there with you to point out mistakes you are making and hopefully prevent them from becoming bad habits.
I know some people were mixed about at what point you should look to a coach. After talking to Scott, I/we decided anytime was a good time, and starting from the beginning with a coach was going to be a shorter, more efficient path to being better.
Scott is also a great dude, which is just as important in my opinion. He said something to me at the beginning that stuck with me and I can say I wholeheartedly agree with at the end: “I’ve never had a client just work with me once. I build drivers.”
Longer review:
Several people gave me some suggestions on coaching - a lot of people were suggested, but Scott came up multiple times. My intent was to get in a car with a coach as soon as possible, as I had somewhat left my car to sit in the garage this past year, except two occasions. To be fair, three months I was in Hawaii and three months I was in Afghanistan, but I still sort of drifted away from doing anything. So once I decided to keep the car, I wanted to get in the car, get good instruction, dust off some rust, and make myself more confident to attend more events. Scheduling is getting rough as a lot of coaches and drivers are busy with other race weekends, and I got lucky with a) someone that came highly recommended and b) that was able to make time to meet me on relatively short notice.
Lead up:
After texting back and forth over the President's Day weekend quite a bit, Scott asked me to call him on Tuesday. We spoke for an hour and 34 minutes while he gave me his driving/coaching philosophy, made sure we had the same goals in mind, as well as likely judge what I was looking for. It wasn’t necessary but it surprised me that someone would care enough to talk this long (excluding all the stuff we had already exchanged) before I even spent any money. Scott coordinated all of our time at Harris Hill, where to park, etc. He even explained that he has a driving simulator in his van that he takes to events. So if you have issues with something on track he can put you in a simulator as well. He texted me a few times leading up to the event, even though he was busy with other racing events - make sure you have this, remind you about this, coordinated what communications we would use based off what helmet I had, bring extra fuel, get rest, etc. A lot of it I had already planned for, but some of it was a good reminder or good advice in general.
Track day:
I got to the track bright and early, and met him, his wife Marie, and Will Faules (sorry will, more importantly I got to meet Clutch). It’s important to note that Scott and his wife are great people. You can have generally a few types of people you encounter professionally: a nice person who is competent at their job, a nice person who is incompetent, a jerk that’s competent, and a jerk that’s incompetent. While I’d rather work with a competent jerk than a nice incompetent person, I'm happy to report that Scott is a real people person so you get competent and nice.
We unloaded my trailer, kind of got situated, and discussed/reiterated some of the goals for the day while we waited for the track to go hot. The day of there were two one hour-long Spec Miata races. Scott of course knows everyone that works at the track (helpful, I think), as well as a large portion of the drivers in the race itself. While he focused on helping me improve throughout the day he didn’t hesitate to field questions and talk to other drivers he had previously coached, giving them pointers etc. That speaks to his character.
Before going out we discussed point bys, some safety stuff, and reiterated the goals.
My first session was about 28 laps, 45ish minutes with in and out laps. Communication was great - quiet when necessary, encouragement as necessary, corrections if necessary. Probably pushed me harder than I would have first session. Which was good. The rest of the day was spent discussing basically how to get better than my best lap WITHOUT him pushing me in my ear.
We then watched the first Spec Miata race. While watching we discussed some of the things happening on track, discussed some mistakes and their consequences of the drivers on track. We had some lessons on steering angle, brake and throttle inputs, physics, tires, etc during lulls in the action.
They switched to CCW and I got back out there. Despite being basically dropped into a new track, he got me within 2ish seconds of my best CW time with him in the car. I kept pushing and was on pace to beat that time, but made a mistake and had a little four wheel excursion.
This was actually a good time to pit in after another lap.
Here is where we started a full on class on setting up AIM software and analyzing data on on the race studio software. If you are already adept at this, you would get more track time. But I’m a truly hands on person so it was worth it to take a break and have someone knowledgeable walk me through everything. In addition we walked frame by frame through my mistake that put us off course and we analyzed at each step what I could have potentially done differently to achieve a better outcome (how to not go off in the first place, how to better correct the issue once it was happening, etc).
After getting through all this, Scott put me on track by myself. I was now about 5 seconds off my best CW time, likely because I didn’t have someone pushing me and I was also more cautious where I made mistakes.
Now Scott took my car out for a few laps and put down a 1:29.xx CCW in pretty short order - undoubtedly could do better given some more time with the car. This gave me a reference. I was now about 4 seconds off that time with him in the car and 7 seconds off of my own time.
We now had data to compare between Scott and myself on the same course. We found about two seconds alone where it was me not going flat out through certain areas - again diving deep into data analysis here was a huge help. We looked at most areas of the track and were able to see a lot correctable issues.
Unfortunately they changed back to CW so I didn’t apply my CCW comparison analysis.
I was back out for CW by myself and running about 2s behind my times with Scott in the car. About 1:33 compared to 1:31. Eventually I was getting pretty much on par with my best time with him in the car around 1:31. It’s important to note that while I was out by myself, Scott was watching from the top to look for mistakes etc.
I’m not going to lie - by this point in the day I had logged quite a few laps and was starting to get a little worn out. So as I was pitting in Scott met me out front. We talked about dialing it back to a 1:33ish for a few laps to “relax” and working on some techniques. He gave me more instruction on finding the edges of the track. He told me to find the limits of the car, the track, you name it. Amongst other things. And then go all out for the last few laps.
Happy to say taking his advice netted me a 1:30.7. I know it’s no track record, it isn’t into the 1:20s, but I was happy to break what I had done with him actively right seat coaching me. It was a great way to end the track session for the day after about three total hours on track.
After the track:
I came off track and Scott was waiting for me to help load the car on the trailer. While I was packing up for the day (we are after 5pm here) Scott was busy downloading data from the dash, video, and adjusting my dash configuration based off of things we noted during the day (for example I only had the Lap delta displayed and not the lap time, thinking I wouldn’t care, but realized after that it would have been easier than going into memory).
Additionally, he gave me some trailer load tips (I’m a new trailer guy, previously driving to events).
Ultimately it was the little stuff like that, that was the icing on the cake to an already amazing experience. Even when I was headed out to track by myself, he could have walked off and that would be perfectly normal. But instead he was helping me reach my harness, making sure I was buckled in, handing me stuff, all the while reminding me of what my goals would be for each session.
Post track day:
Prior to leaving Scott gave me homework to work on. Review the data, review the video, and we would talk at length sometime around Tuesday or so while it was still fresh to discuss areas for improvement. For example, I haven’t been flat out in some areas (confidence issue, working on it yet) so we are going to discuss the throttle position and where I’m letting off etc. Very useful to have AIM data to compare and work with and helpful for future “virtual” sessions as well.
As you see, there’s a lot of work he puts in for you that’s above and beyond, and really goes the extra mile. I have no idea how long it would take to accumulate this much instruction over driving time. Granted, it’s not the cheapest thing you’ll do this week, but at the end of the day I think it’s cheaper than making the same mistakes over and over. In a perfect world, my experience was so good that I would hire Scott every time I went to a new track.
In either case, I can promise you I’ll be a repeat customer. You won’t regret it.
People will ask so here is his pricing (also note he coaches tennis):
KARTING
$200 minimum
$100hr (plus driving cost for both of us)
SIMULATOR
$200 minimum
$100hr (plus possible gas cost/travel expenses)
TRACK (must pay 1/2 upfront to book dates)
$500 minimum $800 maximum
$100hr (plus driving cost/track cost)
