Development of mentor program?

[alberto_mg]

Do you think putting a free "ad" (basically small logo) on the mentor page and in the student welcome package for clubs who promote this program would entice them? Have mixed thoughts on this.

It might help. Anyone that has already become a member of a club like SCCA or NASA is pretty far down the path and somewhat informed already.

[gizmo83]

It sounds like you guys are already convinced but...one new person's opinion,
The idea of a new drivers' information packet is excellent. All you get when you register for your first school is the Supps!
In my very little experience, sometimes you don't have intelligent questions to ask at first and just being asked to sit in and listen to veteran 'bench racing' after a session on the track is invaluable! The instructors and helpful drivers that have pulled me along so far are the only reason we keep trying! Well that and it's fun!
I hope you do get a form of this going...Can I still get a Mentor?
Denise

[gran racing]

Denise,
I've actually decided to keep moving along with this and am plugging away at it. Kai helped give me the extra nudge and there's little to lose by at least giving it a go.

There have been a few things that I've been working on such as how to administer the program. At first the plan was quite simple and I'd have someone complete a word doc created in Word then I'd take the information and consolidate it into an Excel spreadsheet. One of my co-workers / friends laughed at that idea. I knew that was far from perfect. So instead she's finalizing on-line student and mentor applications where the information gets put into a database and reports can be run against it. IF this program were to actually grow, that will make life much easier!

I spoke with SCCA national about the mentor program and am sure they'll make an announcement as one of their top stories. It's moving along and will be ready this Spring. Several people have already volunteered to help with this and not only from SCCA. Pretty cool!! (I'll send some type of brief update shortly to those who contacted me with interest in helping out.)

[cherbi7]

If you need a list of all the dumb newbie questions for a possible pamphlet I have plenty of them. I think this is a great idea and could be very beneficial to us new guys.

[Z3_GoCar]

It sounds like you guys are already convinced but...one new person's opinion,
The idea of a new drivers' information packet is excellent. All you get when you register for your first school is the Supps!
In my very little experience, sometimes you don't have intelligent questions to ask at first and just being asked to sit in and listen to veteran 'bench racing' after a session on the track is invaluable! The instructors and helpful drivers that have pulled me along so far are the only reason we keep trying! Well that and it's fun!
I hope you do get a form of this going...Can I still get a Mentor?
Denise

When I went through super school with Cal-Club almost 4 years ago, I recieved a Drivers training manual. It covers the basics of skills of race driving.

Dave,

You might want to contact Jim Bishop, Cal-Club's chief instructor, for a copy rather than starting from scratch. (I just noticed it copyright 2004 Danny McKeever's Fastlane Driving shcool)

[gran racing]

I don't know if all noobs go through this or if it is just my personality type, but I worried about every step of becoming a racer starting from downloading the medical form on.

Could be somewhat related to personality type, but I felt the same way too.

James,
Fortunately I'm starting off with a ton of information that’s already put together. (All of the topics from this page http://www.goaheadtakethewheel.com/Contents.html will be on the site.) There's a quite a bit of other topics I want to add to it such as driving techniques, but at the same time I'm trying not to get too bogged down with that yet.

SCCA continues to be supportive of this and based on my recent conversations, they’ll add links in places people will see. I also have 10,000 flyers that I had printed which will be inserted into the new membership packages. A more challenging task will be attempting to get regions to add it to their sites, and getting people to actually take advantage of peoples’ willingness to help.