By Allan Maurer
RESEARCH TRIANGLE, NC—Today’s high performance cars offer great handling and power, but their potential cannot be reached on local streets, says Lee Barnard, chief operating officer of Raleigh-based medical software company eCast. Barnard, who drives a 2002 Z06 Corvette, participates in high performance driving education (HPDE), where he gets to test the capabilities of his machine and his reflexes.
HPDE is not your father’s high school driver’s Ed—or for that matter the instruction many a dad hands out in the family sedan. It’s taught on a race track with instructors who have advanced experience driving a high performance car like the student’s. The idea is to help people driving these cars understand both the automobile and their own capabilities better.
“It developed as a way people could use their road cars on courses,” says Barnard. “It has little to do with nerve. It’s about what skills you develop. Some people use it as an opportunity to get on worldclass courses nationally that pros drive on. But, it’s a great way to drive a high performance car safely where you don’t endanger anyone. Lot’s of drivers use it a training ground to get their competition license.”
Running time trials
Barnard’s Corvette, like other cars in HPDE events, has been tuned to change its horsepower and torque, has enhanced suspension and racing tires. He’s hit tracks such as Watkins Glen, Road Atlanta, VIR, Beaver Run, Pocono Raceway, and others. “At longer tracks, I can reach 165 miles an hour,” he says.
In these HPDE events, you may run time trials in which your lap times are matched against other drivers to see how well you’re navigating the track, Barnard explains, but you’re not racing the other cars on the track. “It’s an opportunity to develop your skills and test your car,” says Barnard.
The hobby hooked Barnard back in 2002. “I was chief information officer of a lab in Upstate New York,” he says. One of the partners bought a Mini Cooper and he knew I’d just bought a Corvette. He said he was going up to Watkins Glen and I followed him up one Saturday in the Z06.”
Hooked on it
The car was “a gift to myself when my children were grown,” says Barnard. “I decided to buy myself something I had always wanted. I grew up around Corvettes. I owned a 1971 model.”
At Watkins Glen, he joined a novice group on the track where he was assigned an instructor who was himself a professional Corvette driver. “They try to match your teacher to your car,” Barnard says.
After he finished the Saturday event, the instructor asked, “Coming back tomorrow?”
“I wasn’t planning on it,” he said.
But he drove home and told his wife, “I think I’ll go back tomorrow.” He did it again the next day. “I’ve been hooked on it since then,” he says.
Skills needed
NASCAR races on some road courses and rates Watkins Glen the most technically difficult of the road courses it uses. It’s 3.42 miles with 11 turns. “It’s not a course you get bored driving,” says Barnard. “It requires a lot of different skills, proficiency at braking and turning, not just driving fast. I like that part of the country, too, Upstate New York.”
Barnard says he prefers faster tracks such as Virginia International Roadway (VIR) or Pocono, where he can let the Corvette’s V8 strut its stuff. “The kind of driving we do isn’t like the circular tracks of NASCAR,” he says. “It’s fun to be able to navigate safely, develop a good rhythm, keep track of your lap times to make sure you’re doing it consistently.”
Barnard says some basic skills drivers learn are “to use peripheral vision and make sure you look beyond turning points so you’re not following the car ahead but rather the right lines for you. You use light pressure on the steering wheel and if you’ve mastered the technique, heel/toe on the brake and gas pedal. You squeeze the throttle down rather than abruptly plunging it. Clutching helps brake the car faster. You develop a rhythm around up shifting and downshifting and looking in the mirror.”
The skills tend to carry over to more sedate normal driving, making you a more proficient driver, Barnard says.
It’s not an inexpensive hobby. A track event costs from $275 to $400 a day. A weekend with full expenses, gas, tires, hotel and food, Barnard says, might cost $1,500 an event. “I usually budget $5,000 for parts, tires, brakes and work on the car every year. I’m always looking for ways to save money, but not if it puts me at risk. I buy nice race quality equipment, not off the shelf brake pads or street tires.”
He does about six events a year from February through October. “Next year I may become an instructor,” he says. “I’ve been asked.”
Lessons for business
Barnard takes his wife Deborah and two stepdaughters with him on many HPDE excursions. “These driving associations are family-oriented groups,” he notes. “You see a lot of families traveling together to them in RVs, bringing their sons and daughters to the track. It’s a good way to develop a nice relationship with your children.
“You see a lot of kids helping their parents clean the windows, change tires, help if the car needs to be worked on.”
Barnard says he also meets friends that while he only sees them once or twice a year, at those times he goes looking for them.
Do the lessons from driving carry over to business?
“You sure learn patience, I’ll tell you that,” he says.
“High speed driving requires discipline that ultimately leads to patience and confidence. Patience and confidence do play a key role in my job and career. Also being prepared is a key when you enter into an event; preparation of the car prior to entering is a key to success, safety, and favorable outcomes; don’t overlook the little things; in dealing with clinical data at eCast the attention to the little details is vital to our success.
“Ultimately, the by-product of this is that it relaxes me and prepares me better to go back to work,” he adds.
On the Web: www.ecastcorp.com
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