National Capital Chapter HPDE

The primary goal of these HPDEs are to develop and hone your car-control skills. It is not to drive fast, although speed will come with improving skills. We seek to produce not necessarily the fastest, but the most proficient drivers possible. Each HPDE consists of driving sessions on the track and at the skidpad, as well as classroom sessions. During your on-track sessions, you will be driving the full track at progressively higher speeds throughout the school. An in-car instructor will work with you to help you improve your driving mechanics. Braking, cornering, and accelerating techniques are refined continuously during your on-track sessions. Skidpad sessions will allow you to begin to master the skill of controlling your car at the limits of adhesion. You’ll learn how to control understeer (when your front tires lose adhesion) and oversteer (when your rear tires lose adhesion). The skills learned here will not only be invaluable on the track, they may well save your car – and your life – on the highway. Classroom sessions present the underlying mechanics of your car’s behavior and how your inputs as a driver affect it. We present basic driving theory, the physics of car behavior (i.e., the “why it works” of driving), and discussions of the techniques of advanced car control. No single HPDE will ever convey all there is to learn about driving. In this sense, our HPDEs are part of a continuous learning environment, one that requires several years of attendance at dozens of schools before proficiency is attained. Even at that, there is always something more to learn, something additional on which to work. Acquiring driving skills is a process that is never completed.