Spring Mountain Impressions

[FLYARMY]

I was braking too soon at the end of the straight and after the ride along , he showed me that you can pretty much apply hard brake just for a second as you enter the turn. The brakes are beasts on these cars , even without the carbon ceramic ones. I believe the SM cars have the ceramic brakes.

 

[beamon]

So hard to get a spot. I email within an hour of the email I receive and sold out again. I think caddy needs to work with them to open more dates

 

[FLYARMY]

They only have five CT4 autos , five manuals........five CT5 autos, five manuals when I was there. It is not going to get any better for dates. Now, if you want to drive a C8 Corvette....they have almost 300 of them.
If you tell them that you don't care which one you get, your chances are better.

 

[jbawden]

I was braking too soon at the end of the straight and after the ride along , he showed me that you can pretty much apply hard brake just for a second as you enter the turn. The brakes are beasts on these cars , even without the carbon ceramic ones. I believe the SM cars have the ceramic brakes.

The have both iron and CCB out there (the 5 I was in had iron). There are a number benefits to CCB but outright braking performance isn't one of them.

 

[Worldrider]

I was braking too soon at the end of the straight and after the ride along , he showed me that you can pretty much apply hard brake just for a second as you enter the turn. The brakes are beasts on these cars , even without the carbon ceramic ones. I believe the SM cars have the ceramic brakes.

In a CT5-V Blackwing manual, the first day I was hitting around 115 mph by the end of the straight. Then I did a ridealong, and watched him hit 127 mph. The next day, with massively more confidence in the brakes, I hit 128 mph (apparently faster than the Corvettes).
The performance of these big sedans really is astonishing.

 

[obeykube]

Finally got a spot on Oct. 9th and 10th!

 

[FLYARMY]

Are you able to stay on site in one of the condos? They were very nice and convenient. We did drive into Vegas for the nite life and then just wake up and have breakfast at the clubhouse and then go to the classroom.

 

[obeykube]

Are you able to stay on site in one of the condos? They were very nice and convenient. We did drive into Vegas for the nite life and then just wake up and have breakfast at the clubhouse and then go to the classroom.

They said they had no room on site, but the hotel they are putting me up at is like 5 minutes away driving supposedly.

 

[obeykube]

Any tips for me is appreciated! Flying in and renting a car. Never drove on track before. Will be in a Ct4V BW 6 speed

 

[Deneed4spd]

Any tips for me is appreciated! Flying in and renting a car. Never drove on track before. Will be in a Ct4V BW 6 speed

U will be fine. Just relax and they will teach you what you need. Dont try to keep up with others as it will make you worse. Do your thing.

 

[FLYARMY]

The hotels are in the main part of Pahrump and you will have a Walmart and other stores close by. The instructors are all great at what they do. They will break you up into 3 groups to keep everything flowing smoothly. Let us know if their gift shop has improved any with the Cadillac branded items. They did not have much to offer compared to the Corvette side. I did buy their BW winter jacket and a hat. Some BW T-shirts would have been good.

 

[Roadhawk]

Any tips for me is appreciated! Flying in and renting a car. Never drove on track before. Will be in a Ct4V BW 6 speed

Was the same for me. It will be a bit overwhelming at first....but just remember you're driving your car...and it can handle just about anything at speed (within reason). I tried really hard to follow the tips/lessons/instructions and not worry about speed per se (as when I did early to keep up with CT 5 Vs being driven by track guys in my group I only made it worse).

One tip I will give is that you should start braking just a bit later then they recommend - but when you do brake real hard then release and try to maintain a higher speed through the corners. I say this as chances are even at full throttle to the corner you're likely not going as fast as the "real" race car drivers thus don't need to slow down quite as much. Anyway thats how I see it (more experienced drivers should correct me if I'm off the mark).

Anyway good luck and have a blast (I'm sure you will)

 

[NewCaddy]

Any tips for me is appreciated! Flying in and renting a car. Never drove on track before. Will be in a Ct4V BW 6 speed

Get a good night’s rest cuz it will be intense, but fun!

 

[FLYARMY]

I too was braking , wayyyy to early before a turn. Especially at the end of the long straightaway. Don't be afraid to lay down hard on the brakes, just before the turn. These brakes will take all the punishment you give it.

 

[Ramsman]

I was just there a couple weeks ago. I agree what others have said. I had never driven on a track before and was a little overwhelmed at first. There were some in my class that had experience on a track and were a lot faster. I focused on trying to improve my lap times and not worrying about how fast some in the faster groups were. Some were very competitive in my class.

It took me a few track sessions to really understand and use the different cones they have on the track. By the end of the first day after my ride along I had a good feel about how aggressive I could be. On day 2 I felt like I knew what to do and just tried to get better each session. My best lap at the end of day 2 was over 20 seconds better than my best lap day 1 lap. I wish we had a third day to keep improving.

The various sessions we had off the track where all fun and helpful. The instructors are all great! You get to work with different instructors throughout the training, but all were great and helpful.

The gift shop in the welcome center was almost all Corvette and Spring Mountain items. There was just a small corner with a few types of Cadillac hats, shirts and jackets. They sell a nice Spring Mountain plaque to hold your certificate and badge afterwards. If you buy that you get 15% off the Cadillac T-shirt but you have to get them at the same time for the discount. Luckily, we tried to buy these at the end of day 1 and found they were out of XL shirts, so they had time to go to the warehouse to get more shirts by day 2 afternoon.

It's awesome and I am sure you will have a great time!

 

[Yalferd]

There are a lot of YouTube videos of people at Spring Mountain, you can check some of those too.

When you're in the car and following an instructor, they're talking to you and giving you guidance. Listen and follow and watch tail lights, etc. You'll be great.

 

[Neveready]

Anyone on here going to be out there Sept 30th through the 1st?

 

[565565]

Yeah I had the opposite problem. At the end of the 3rd session my instructor told me I had to start braking earlier because apparently smoke was pouring out of my brakes.

Whoops.

 

[SynisterAZ]

Yeah I had the opposite problem. At the end of the 3rd session my instructor told me I had to start braking earlier because apparently smoke was pouring out of my brakes.

Whoops.

We had an issue in our fast group with a guy in a 5V just putting the pedal on the floor and letting ABS do all the work in pretty much every corner. Spotter called out his brakes were glowing so we had a mid session penalty cool down for all vehicles.

I found the best tip, at least on the East Loop, was that after the high speed straight, there is a right turn that requires a down shift. The next turn is a long sweeper of a turn with a dip that you have to let off the gas briefly for.

But its not obvious that you can upshift early while off the gas which puts you in 4th still well above 3k. More than enough torque to get back on it and haul ass without unsettling the car at +1g lateral for that shift later in the turn. This was putting me into turn 3 (4?) at 117 which was pretty quick as the peak speed on a 4V on the straight away was the end of the 4th gear at 122.

 

[GTANotch88]

The whole facility, staff, and instructors are great.
I had never been on a track prior (just dragstrips) and I have ptsd and anxiety issues from military service. But for those two days, I felt at ease. Everything is clearly explained and you never feel rushed.

The only downside of my trip was the drive back to Vegas. Almost an hour driving alone on a highway in the desert that reminded me of Highway One in Afghanistan... not fun for me.