Some guys fill their weekends with golf, others fire up the grill, but for Randy Terry, there’s nothing like getting behind the wheel of one of his race cars to feed his need for speed. High Performance Drivers Education (HPDE) is not your average, ho-hum hobby. It’s high-speed, adrenaline-pumping fun on winding road-course tracks in the car of your choice—and anyone can do it.
The first lesson Randy will teach you is not to confuse HPDE with racing.
“Instead of racing, HPDE allows drivers to go out and have fun without all the risks and requirements that true racing has,” says Randy. “You could take your family car and go out there and learn how to high performance drive your vehicle. The only requirement is that a car be well-serviced and you do have to wear a helmet.”
Granted, the average family car won’t go through tires and brakes like a high-performance vehicle will. Most cars will require fresh sets of both after only two weekends of driving, or about 400 miles.
“We don’t have a crew. We are the crew,” says Randy. “We are drivers and mechanics and all of the fun stuff in between. We try to do most of it ourselves.”
Randy’s enthusiasm for cars dates back forty years, to his senior year in high school, when he bought his first muscle car.
“As a teenager, I wanted a cool car, so I bought a 1977 Trans Am,” Randy says. “That was my senior year car.”
Fast forward to today to find Randy driving another white, 1977 Trans Am, fully restored to its high-school-era glory, and a second, newer model of vehicle.
“I have two track cars: the ’77 Trans Am, which would be considered very unique as an old muscle car, and I have the new 2020 C8 Mid-Engine Corvette,” he says.
Asking Randy to pick a favorite from the two would be a lot like asking a father to choose a favorite child.
“They are dramatically different, but both of them are a lot of fun,” he says. “My new C8 Corvette is about one second faster than I can achieve out of my Trans Am. But it doesn’t have near the power. The biggest frustration is how difficult it is to lower your lap time by even a half a second. You reach a plateau, and your gains can be somewhat short.”
Key parts to improve performance are suspension, horsepower, brakes and tires.
“That’s the problem when you get the bug,” Randy admits. “It is an endless pursuit of improved performance and it can get costly.”
Randy tries to race one weekend each month at a variety of tracks in central Ohio, Florida and Georgia. His “home track” is Sebring International Raceway, located in South Florida. The 3.7- mile track includes 17 turns.
“At Sebring, my average speed is 91.2 miles an hour,” he says. “A slow turn will be in the 30-40 miles an hour range. And top speed’s around 140.”
Sometimes, even the most skilled drivers hit a wall.
Randy says, “Last June at Mid-Ohio [Sports Car Course, Mansfield, Ohio], I put the car into the wall. A car ahead of me had lost oil and oil was on the track. When I hit that oil spill, I didn’t have any braking or steering. I slid off the track and hit a firewall. It hurts your pride a lot when you make a mistake.”
Even this doesn’t keep Randy from getting back behind the wheel.
“When this kind of thing happens, you take a hammer or a cutting saw and chop the bad pieces off of the car so you can still run it the rest of the weekend. The car looks like it’s winking at you,” he laughs.
Challenge your driving skills at HPDE, if you dare.
“It is an obsession. But it can be a very fun obsession,” Randy says with a smile.