[thstone]

Anyone can do a DE with a stock car in decent condition. Your first DE has nothing to do with speed or time or max g's so you don't need new tires, special brake pads, new sway bars, or 5-pt harnesses.

All of that will come later as you learn the driving skills unique to pushing your car to the max. Everyone thinks that they know how to go fast until they get on a track and then realize how little they really know.

Understand its not that you aren't willing to push hard (because I am sure that you are!) but its that you've never really been taught how to drive fast. Honestly, how times have you had someone demonstrate and teach you how to drive fast? For most of us, never. All we're ever told is to "slow down"! So we try to pick up what we can and just see what works.

A good HPDE is exactly what it says: HIGH PERFORMANCE DRIVER EDUCATION. This is where you will be TAUGHT how to drive fast. Instead of having your girlfriend or wife sitting next to you asking you to slow down, you'll have an instructor sitting next to you telling you HOW to go fast! This alone is worth the price of admission. You'll learn about car control, balance, oversteer, understeer, braking, and cornering techniques - all things that you've never been taught before.

Then you can take your willingness to push hard and combine it with the skilled driving techniques that you have been taught and really go fast. And then you'll realize that the only place to do this is on a racetrack because your driving skills are beyond any edge that could be sanely reached on the street.

Then you'll spend all of your money going to the track like I do. You're welcome.