“Remember when you and I were Green?” Words spoken to me by Shin Itoh at last September’s club race at Summit point. we both looked at each other and laughed. Yes, we both remembered when we were Green and how far we had come from those days. But, no matter who your watching out there and how fast they look we all started in green.

I was thinking the other day on just how much experience, we as a club have as far as instructing students. It is so good to see our PCA drivers moving up amongst the ranks. Some of my friends are just now moving up to the instructor level and that is particularly enjoyable for me to see.

We are taught to drive by the instructors that went before us. Some of us go on to more advanced venues as Skip Barber or Bondurant. It seems like every quadrant of the U.S.A. has some sort of race car school (highly recommended). Some of us go onto club racing where the thrills and the fears are sometimes just unexplainable. All of these schools and higher levels of high speed driving continually help us to help our students.

How I love to teach people to drive faster and faster, safe fully. Turns like the fast right hand kink at Pocono north, Where just a touch of the brake and a slight turn of the wheel gets you through at 120 mph. or the slow left hander, the perfect turn to teach a white run group student to throttle steer his or her way into a huge smile. As an instructor it is just so gratifying to watch and “be part of” as a green student goes from crawling around the track they’re first time out to driving fast and smooth by the end of that weekend.

I remember so vividly when I was in the white run group. My 930 turbo was putting out around five hundred horsepower and the BMW club, which is where I ran most of the time in my beginning, just did not want me there. They were used to straight away speeds of about 130 MPH and my 930 was closing in on 170 at the end of the long BridgeHampton straight. I was actually taken off to the side during a BMW D.E. drivers meeting and told by the president of the time (I’ll keep his name to myself) that he did not want me there. My car was just too fast and he felt that I didn’t have the skills to drive it (can you imagine!) Well thanks to the PCA D.E.s and they’re instructors I was taught to drive and drive it well. Last year at Pocono, running the “long course” Tim Trapani along as my passenger and to monitor the EGT gauge for the session calmly said to me as I started to brake for turn one into the back infield, “We just hit 198 mph”. I’d like to get one of those BMW instructors in my car for a ride these days.

I couldn’t begin to thank all the instructors individually that have helped me along the way. From as far north as NHIS I remember Jeff Goldberg Helping me get around that track. Mike Rufkahr sticks out in my mind for my long lost BridgeHampton days. I have gone as far south for D.E. as Savannah, Georgia. There I was helped out by a great guy named Dave Rodenroth. The names and faces go on forever. Every student will have a different list of instructors that in his or her book of whose who they will always regard as special. My hat is tipped to all the Porsche Club driver’s Ed instructors who give so much on any given weekend for what they have so freely received from the instructors before them. Thank you, to you all..