Back in April I wrote about the Lexus Performance Driving Academy, which I just attended this past weekend. Now that I’ve gone through the academy, I wanted to post my thoughts…I’ll take you through my day.

As a reminder, there were two different programs that were available. One on Friday was $295, but allowed you to get hands on with the new 416hp Lexus IS-F. On the weekend (which I did not attend) was free, but didn’t give you IS-F goodness. Two of my friends attended the Friday program with me, so they stayed over my place on Thursday so we could all go together Friday morning.

To get into the driving spirit, I drove my Viper with Alex riding in the passenger seat, while Eric rode his modified Subaru STI. The driving academy was located at Summit Point in West Virginia, which is about an hour drive from where I live. The drive up to the track was fun, especially getting into WV, we got to experience some twisty roads that really got us prepped up for what was ahead.

We arrived at about 11:30am and saw the parking lot was full of all sorts of fun cars. There were a ton of Lexus’s (including some IS-F’s), as well as a bunch of Corvette’s. There was even a new Bentley Continental Flying Spur. A Mercedes Sprinter shuttle picked us up from the lot and drove us over to the event.

We had about an hour before anything started, so we were provided a lunch inside a tent with an IS-F to gawk at. Lunch was surprisingly good, with a variety of foods like chicken, maceroni & cheese, cheese biscuits, cookies, and more. They also had an IS-F simulator setup that was pretty neat, and very hard…it made me a little worried about what to expect later on.

After lunch, we had a little opening chat, and then it was off to our groups first event, the advanced techniques classrooms. This was a very helpful course that went over a variety of techniques and showing the lines of the track. They also had a simulator setup in the room with a 2nd screen that was linked to a camera that showed the pedal area. This was extremely helpful because they had a pro driver go up there and show us how to drive the course. Seeing what his feet were actually doing was very beneficial. The instructor then chose me to go on the simulator and try it out for myself. All I have to say is it’s much harder than it looks. I luckily had the pro driver next to me giving me pointers like when to apply brakes and give more gas. Even so, I ended up slamming into the wall!

The next event was called “lead/follow”. This is where groups of 3-4 IS-F’s would follow a pro driver on a road course. The idea behind this is to really get an idea of the lines on the track, by following the pro driver you could learn fairly easily. We had to go arounds of about 3 laps, the second go, the pro driver was much more agressive, which made it way more fun.

Here’s a video from lead/follow:

After lead/follow, we took a shuttle to another track where we would do something called the relay. This was an event where our group split up into two different teams. Each person drove around the track, and each individual time was added to the total. We amazingly ended up tieing at 7:12. The track here was incredibly slick as they covered it in peanut oil since it’s used for training for police, CIA, secret service, etc…and they use it to do stuff like drifting around the track.

The following event was the autocross where a cone track was setup with all sorts of turns, etc. This was a timed event, each person got two practice laps, and then two officially timed laps to try and get the lowest time possible. The benchmark time was set by a pro driver at something like 21.1 seconds. This was the same pro driver that set the lap time for Mazda’s Rev It Up national event. The reason this is so impressive is because the Rev It Up event was about 25,000 people that tried to beat his lap time, and only person did. Then he went right back out, and in one go, beat that persons time.

The lap time is set by the amount of time it takes to complete one lap, if you hit any cones, 2 seconds is added to the time. Also, at the end of the lap you are supposed to stop within a coned box…if you don’t, 5 seconds is added to your time. On my first two practice laps I ran a 24.xx and then a 23.8x. Afterwards, I ran my two official lap times and I got a 22.9x and then a 22.7x. These were actually very good times, in fact, I had the 4th fastest time out of the group of about 150 or so people!? The fastest time of the day was 22.1 seconds.

The last event was the hot lap, which one was one of the best experiences I’ve had. The hot lap was when you go out on the track with a professional driver and he goes as fast as he could. I posted a video of a lap, but it does no justice!? It literally feels like a roller coaster in real life, I kept banging my head against the car every time we’d hit a turn…either way, check it out for yourself:

Afterwords there was another meal, along with a closing speech sort of thing. Before we left, we all received gift bags that had the following items:

• $750 certificate off of a new 2008/2009 Lexus
• Kaboom drink
• A watch on a carabiner
• Wired magazine
• Lexus “F” hat
• Kaboom t-shirt
• Lexus IS-F DVD
• $30 gift card for XM Radio
• Lexus pen

The Lexus Performance Driving Academy was well worth the $295, and I would easily do it again. It was no holds bar with the cars we drove, and I definitely learned a lot to improve myself with driving.