Miles Ahead MINI Driving School Expands to Include Adult Courses at Indy
If you attended MINI Takes The States (MTTS) last year, you may have seen some car driving demonstrations being put on by the Miles Head driving school. We saw them out in full, tire squealing force at the Chicago stop. At the time, Miles Ahead was focused on using MINIs to teach teans advanced driving skills for better safety on the road. More than one adult spectator at MTTS commented something along the lines of “Why do the kids get to have all the fun?”
Well now they don’t. Miles Ahead has expanded its program to include adult participants:
MINI Performance Motoring School offers an adrenaline-charged day of driving and professional instruction in your own 2013 MINI John Cooper Works Hardtop. MINI has been recognized by Car & Driver and Motor Trend magazines as one of America’s “best handling cars”. Learn how to drive on Indianapolis Motor Speedway’s Formula 1 course from a team of internationally accomplished race car drivers.
The full-day adult course is $995, including the use of the JCW Hardtop mentioned above. So no wearing the tires off your own car. Course activities include:
- Slalom/Handling
- Precision braking
- Cornering and skid control
- Timed sector runs
- Instructor-driven hot laps
The timed sector runs aspect of the training is especially interesting. You get to compete against the clock and against your fellow students on the track.
Available dates for the adult full-day classes run from June 15th through November 3rd of 2013. Half-day teen classes are also available from June 22nd through October 26th.
Here at MotoringFile, we’re big advocates of driver training. Sure, a track day is great fun and good exercise for your cor, but more importantly the time spent getting tips and training from professional instructors has real world advantages. Knowing where your car’s limits are, and how to push them, can come in very handy when some jackwagon texting from his SUV tries to drive over top of your MINI.
So if you’ve ever wanted to grow your driving skills, or wanted a good excuse to drive at Indy, Miles Ahead has a day package just for you.
More info here: Miles Ahead
<p>I so want to do this!!!</p>
<p>Ouch, $1000 for a day? I can do almost all the same stuff for less than $50 at a car control clinic.</p>
<p>Last track day I went through a set of tires and brake pads, cost of track time and fuel- That was easily a grand and the wear and tear was on my car.</p>
<p>Granted this does not look like you get in car instructor time while doing hot laps but it is INDY!</p>
<p>It’s likely worth it for many of us considering costs and hazards of running our own cars. The insurance problem alone makes the price look valid not to mention the professional instruction.</p>
<p>I’ll be participating in this later in the fall and we’ll have a full report here on MF.</p>
<p>To anyone who does ANY track work, this is a rip off. Go ahead and call it a deal because it’s not your own car, but you can get a WEEKEND at Infineion, using an old Bonderant or something car, for a bit over half the price. Including coaching! Yes, you CAN trash a set of tires or brakes in a weekend, but only if you are rough on them or the car alignment is screwed up.</p>
<p>Really, this is a couple hundred dollar item, with tons of premium because it’s MINI and it’s Indy…. But here’s something to think about…. Out West here, it’s only about 10-20% premium (abut $50) for Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca. Driving through the corkscrew is a LOT more enjoyable than driving an oval in a MINI</p>
<p>Good idea yes, price sucks though. I’d rather have three weekends with Hooked On Driving. I’d still have $100 in my pocked for beer after the track closed! But with 6 evenings to cover, that’s only a beer or two a night!</p>
<p>It’s not the oval, it’s the interior road course.</p>
<p>Would love to do this, but it is a bit pricey..</p>
<p>So, $1000 for a single day of race instruction is not a bad deal….. But pretty much every other place that offers this type of stuff offers full race instruction even as far as ongoing skills development for professional drivers. This crew, on the other hand, seems to be offering something for adults that is a bit of an extension on the safety offerings they had for young drivers.</p>
<p>Skip Barber has lots of one day events at $1000 (Lime Rock, Laguna Seca etc), and they are just the entry level of what one can do through the Skip Barber program. Bondaurant has switched to Chevy power, and one can drive a Camero SS or Corvette at Sonoma…..</p>
<p>I hope Miles Ahead makes the transition from Driver Safety into full performance instruction, as having another player in the game is always good. But my money will go to HPDEs or instruction with a crew where there is more to learn than from Miles Ahead….</p>
<p>The MINI Performance Motoring School is definitely NOT an
extension of “the safety offerings they have for young drivers”. Anyone
who has been through the program will vouch for that. The instructor team is comprised of race car drivers who have competed at the highest levels of international motorsport (Alex Lloyd, Dan Clarke, Stephan Gregoire, etc.), not local car club stars. They are in constant contact with every driver via radio – the same instructional methodology BMW uses at its Performance Center.</p>
<p>You get to drive a nearly $40,000 2013 MINI John Cooper Works Hardtop at speed all day, liability free, without worrying about the cost of tires and brakes and you do it on an actual Formula 1 circuit at the most famous racing facility in the world. I’d say that’s definitely worth $995.</p>