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Octane Academy 8/1/15

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Location
Cincinnati
#1
Hello all,
I attended Octane Academy this past Saturday and it was a blast!

I was afraid there would be a lot of classroom time since there would be a wide range of experience levels there, but they really focus on getting everyone as much seat time as possible?we only spent maybe 30 minutes inside in the morning, then about 60 minutes for lunch and a briefing before the afternoon. The morning consisted of learning car control skills with a turning and braking exercise, e-brake turning/parking exercises, and skid car...they were pretty basic, but a lot of fun, especially the skid car. We also took some laps around the track in a van with an instructor so we could see the course before the afternoon. The afternoon consisted of the autocross (urban-X) and hot laps on the track. The laps started with some instructor-led laps (at a pretty good pace), then laps with an instructor in the passenger seat, then about 5 or 6 solo laps. Finally, we ended the day with some kart racing at the same site.

The instructors were great, and they kept the group size small for each of the activities, so there was plenty of interaction with the instructors, but enough time to chat with the other drivers in the group as well. Food/logistics/etc. were all great as well.

The people in the class came from all over the country ? it was fun to meet some other ST owners.

The cars we used were Fiesta STs and Focus STs. The only differences from stock were a roll cage, 4-point harness, and upgraded brake pads and lines. They said the Fiestas also had upgraded radiators to deal with the heat from track driving (it was near 100F for most of the day on Saturday). The Focuses also had a sport exhaust (sounded awesome!) and some other cooling upgrades ? radiator and brake ducting.

I highly recommend it to anyone, regardless of whether you have years of autocross/track experience, or have never done it before.
Here?s my video from the Urban-X run in the afternoon:

[video=youtube;ZJGeVNKRUkY]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZJGeVNKRUkY[/video]
 


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