One of the things you get when you purchase a new Boss Mustang is time at Miller Motorsports Park in Ford's Race School program. I used my voucher back in April and posted this on another forum, but since there is some GT40 content I figured I'd post it here. It was a hell of a lot of fun.
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Over the three days I’ve been out at Ford Racing School held at Miller Motorsports Park, courtesy of Ford through the Boss program. I didn’t think the program would be very good, sort of like a bucket list item for guys who hadn’t been on track before, but I was pleasantly surprised. Yes, it has some of the “bucket list” element, but even as a seasoned track guy there was something for me as well as a guy who’d never turned a wheel on track.
The first day involved a reception and dinner at Miller’s Museum. If you are into Fords, this is the place for you. We were treated to good food and a couple of hours of private viewing in the museum along with a tour by a very knowledgeable host. The museum holds a great number of very important Ford racing cars, including GT40s P/1074 and P/1102, one of the GT40 MKIIs that completed the 1966 1-2-3 Ford finish at LeMans. Awesome cars here – Dan Gurney Cougar, first 427 Cobra Race car, Thunderbolt, and other GT40s. They actually have one of each GT40 made; MK I, MK II, MK III (one of seven), MK IV (J-car, they have 4) and the P/1074 which is a MKI but built to race to the rules set of 68/69. It’s sister is the famous P/1075.
Story is P/1074 (Gulf car in the picture) was up for auction in 2012 and was being bid on fairly heavily. Information was passed that the bidder was from overseas and that the car would leave the US if purchased. Miller’s family(Miller himself passed away about five years ago) said hell no and opened the wallet to whatever it took to keep it in the US. $11 million kept it in the US and it’s here at the museum, you can view it for free – yep, no admission here, just schedule a time. Cool stuff.
Day one of the Boss Track Attack Experience is fairly tame. Classroom work, basic exercises of heel toe, braking points, instructor ride alongs, lead follow, and so on. The facilities and instructors here are top notch. Miller is a hell of a race track with garages, grounds, and amenities that VIR can only dream about. That’s the advantage from starting with a clean slate of paper for your track construction. We had a student to instructor ratio of 2:1 for the first day and the three folks we had were ex-Grand Am drivers with varying amounts of experience in the field and with other teams. Each of them had been racing at least 20 years and were enjoyable and skilled in their art of driving and teaching.
The cars we used were stock Boss Mustangs and LS Bosses, albeit with a roll cage, the AC removed, aluminum overflow tank, and floating rotors (stock calipers). I drove a 13 Boss, actually in the color I own, and it shows the attention to detail these guys put into the program. All of the cars in the program, the Bosses, GTs, and the FR500s, are stock engine cars, trannys, shocks, axles, and so on. What’s amazing is that most of the cars are hitting 20k miles, all track miles in this program, and are still on stock engines. Clutches have been replaced, bodywork done, tranny rebuilt, but it appears the driveline can take some abuse. Fuel, gas, brake pads, tires is the general routine maintenance according to the briefing from the mechanic.
How’s the track experience? Great – Miller is at a disadvantage compared to our Southeastern tracks in that there are no landmarks on the track. It’s about like driving an infield at a roval with respect to markers, but the track is much better. The track is generally run in two configurations, East and West, and the first day we did the West track. It’s technical, but fast in places, and requires concentration. The Bosses did far better than I would have expected given we were running on BF Goodrich Sport Comp 2s, a street tire. Haters gonna hate, but given the weight of this car, and the speeds you hit in it (444 hp), the tire does extremely well. It corners at 1.08G in this tank of a car, fades a little, but lasts a long time while getting the job done. Yes, I would like some 17” tires like this in ITS. They’d work well, and I bet there are better tires like this on the market.
I’d say on day one we got about one hour of open track time, that is, where I was in the car going as fast as I could and letting it all hang out. Not too bad. Sure, some of the exercises and so on were a bit basic, but it was still enjoyable being at the facility. And, the one on one coaching with the instructor in the car was valuable. I learn a few things and added some more corners and moves to my bag. I’m pleased to see that the basic Boss is a track worthy car (needs pads, ducts, camber adjustment, and fluids) and I now know about how far it can be pushed – pretty damn far in comparison to my race car.
Day two had us in the Ford FR500, a factory built race car Ford tried selling for a while but it wasn’t very successful. It has a functional wing, 325 hp engine, better tires (Shaved R1s), more aggressive springs and shocks. Brakes are the same, tranny, rear end the same, but it is about 400 lbs lighter than the Boss.
We had much more track time on day two. I was worn out, and all total had about 2.5 hours of free balls-to-the-wall track time. We had some ride alongs, instruction, and so on but there were only two students in this class with one instructor, so we were able to do basically whatever we decided to do as a group.
Our instructor was Byron Payne, and he was very good at his craft and interesting to talk to. We spent a lot of one on one time with him and he learned us quite a bit about race lines, racing, and the instructing business he’s into. In short, being a professional driver is a cut throat business, turned out he’s written a book about it, Passion for the Ride, and I plan to give it a read. He started out in open wheel cars at 14, has driven all manner of cars since, Grand Am stints, some F1 car instruction for a school in CA, Military instruction for SEALs in Humvees, etc., many interesting paid jobs.
[ame=http://www.amazon.com/Passion-Ride-Byron-Payne/dp/8461663233]Passion for the Ride: Byron Payne: 9788461663231: Amazon.com: Books[/ame]
Again, great day. The FR500 was more capable than the Boss, I think mainly due to tires, but not so much so that you wouldn’t be having fun in either car. The FR500 was shaper, a bit more twitchy, and more like my IT car but still it’s all shades of fun.
Overall, the Track Attack deal was a hell of a program and Ford/Miller really set the bar high for this sort of thing. I had a great time, learned some new tricks, and couldn't be happier to have taken part in the experience.
One last thing. Lots of swag was given out, tons it it - Boss pistons, pictures, tshirts, and so on, mostly Ford, but a lot of NASA too. NASA is strong out here, and the guys in my class, and the guys in the large class that started on my day two, were exposed to the NASA stuff and predictably, interested. They have cars perfect for DE stuff, are doing their first track events, thus it is a prime op for hook them for racing, auto X, or performance driving. NASA was there in force in the literature, stickers, decals, and making sure the new track guy had a place to turn if s/he was interested.
I forgot to mention the school skid car:
That there is one hell of a teaching tool. Using the independent weight jacking on each corner you could set the car up to behave however you'd like. We spent about 45 mins in this car, 15 mins each, and piloted the car through a cone course. We'd jack the car for oversteer, understeer, and then very neutral but loose on either end, that is to say, just no traction. Fantastic learning toy.
