Originally Posted by Road&track
Driver coaching and the risks of the passenger seat
Instructors put their lives in danger to help you be a better, faster driver.
By Jack Baruth October 16, 2013 / Photos by Getty Images
Around four years ago, I was at the end of an uneventful weekend of trackday driving and instructing. My intermediate student had one session left and a strong desire to get the most out of his mildly tuned C5 Corvette Z06. Everything was going fine until, as the speedometer hovered slightly below the “130” mark, he said in sort of a disbelieving voice,
“My brakes don’t seem to work any more.”
The five or six seconds between that statement and the ensuing tire-wall impact will stick in my memory for a long time. We got lucky: we had a long, albeit bumpy, run-off area and my student was able to follow directions on safe car control all the way to the head-on hit. We walked away with nothing more than sore backs and a story to tell.
Sean Edwards didn’t have that same sort of luck. Or perhaps he’d used it up in all those brilliant drives, all those victories. Maybe there’s really no such thing as luck behind the wheel. When his student’s GT3 Cup car hit the tire wall at Queensland Raceway, it caught fire and there was no way to escape the inferno. Mr. Edwards gained fame as a driver, but he died as an instructor. A coach. A teacher.
Every weekend, hundreds of volunteer and professional driving coaches strap in next to a students on a road course. In some cases, the student is an established racer looking to shave a critical half-second. Those sessions are usually part of an established, ongoing, and trusted relationship between instructor and student. Other times, however, it’s maybe a volunteer with just a few years experience himself sitting next to someone he’s just met—an unknown driver in an unknown and often troublesome vehicle.
Most of my time spent coaching drivers from the passenger seat has been productive and entertaining, but there have been enough bad times to make me occasionally question why I haven’t quit the gig. I’ve seen things I wouldn’t believe if someone else swore to having seen them, like drivers taking their hands off the steering wheel and covering their eyes when things go wrong. I’ve ended sessions in which first-time participants couldn’t find the brake pedal under stress and therefore kept running off the ends of straights.
As word of Edwards’ crash spread across the Internet, I saw several well-respected drivers and coaches say they were reconsidering their participation in on-track instruction. I don't doubt their sincerity, but I believe that most or all of them will keep working with students, despite the risks. For many of us, it’s more than a way to earn a buck or snag some free track time. It’s a commitment—a calling, perhaps.
The next time—or the first time—you show up for a trackday and some guy or girl you’ve never met drops into the freshly Lexoled passenger seat of your car, take a moment to get to know that person.
He’s taking a risk.
He’s betting on you to do the right thing. To listen, to be responsible and responsive. To trust his instruction over your street-honed instincts. To be a safe and considerate student.
He’s willing to put his life in danger to help you be a better, faster driver.
If you think about it for a moment, that isn’t something most people would do for a total stranger. Your instructor, however, is. Which means he’s probably a pretty decent guy, all things considered.
Sean Edwards will be missed for many reasons, not the least of which was that he was willing to get in the passenger seat to help someone become better. Even though he knew the risks, as all of us do.
A pretty decent guy, indeed.
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