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CORVETTE TODAY #128-Learn More About Spring Mountain From Head Instructor, Rick Malone
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May 8, 2025
This week's guest on CORVETTE TODAY was actually on the show in June of 2020...2-1/2 years ago! He's Rick Malone, the Lead Driving Instructor and Director of the Corvette Performance Driving School at Spring Mountain. Rick is back on CORVETTE TODAY to update us on the C8 Owners Driver's School, what's going on at Spring Mountain, in general, and what you have to look forward to when you take their 2 day course. There is so much fun for you and your spouse when you attend their class. Don't miss this episode of CORVETTE TODAY with Rick Malone!
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[Music] welcome to Corvette today the podcast
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out to canadiancorvetforum.com welcoming Corvette owners from around the world my
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guest on this week's show appeared on episode number nine of Corvette today that was back in June of 2020 two and a
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half years ago I thought it was high time we get them back on Corvette today and get an update on what's going on
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he's the chief driving instructor and Driving School director at the Ron Fellows Corvette performance driving
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school at Spring Mountain I am pleased to welcome back my friend Rick Malone Rick it's great to have you back on
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Corvette today awesome thanks for having me back Steve and show number nine two years before it's time to shoot his
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fight isn't it it does my friend it sure does Rick let's talk about you real quick before we get into the real big
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nuts and bowls how long have you been in auto racing and performance driving oh for roughly the older I get it's harder
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to remember but roughly about 50 years now and 65 so about 50 years now I've been involved in that 50 plus years
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that's amazing tell us the story about how you got involved with Spring Mountain well Racing's always been my
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love my I remember when I got out of high school my mom says you're going to college you're going to become a pilot because I wanted to be an airline pilot
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and I kind of threw a loop for her and said you know Mom I want to be a race car driver at a young age is trying to figure out which direction I'm going to
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go I had to have a regular job I had to have income so racing on weekends I got into the liquor beer and wine industry
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for Distributors to pay for my racing so I could have weekends off so I can go racing that's kind of Direction I took
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as opposed to becoming an airline pilot I think I mentioned in my last segment I got pretty ill pretty sick with crohn's
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disease in my mid-20s that kind of changed my direction of my racing I knew it was going to be pretty tough to go
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racing full time when I got this chronic disease hanging over my head right but I kept racing anyway got into my 30s and I
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helped somebody do a school this gentleman the school owners Danny McKeever at the time says you know you'd be really good at this teaching stuff
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you should consider teaching and I'm thinking you know I'm a driver I'm not cut out to teach well a couple years
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later my name got thrown in a hat and lo and behold same thing was said to me you should really consider teaching you be
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good at this so I took it to heart I Remember mid-30s by then and I'm still racing and I said you know what I'm
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gonna retrain myself so I spent about 10 years Moonlighting and learning the teaching business in the automobile
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industry learning everything Logistics registration exercises I just absorbed like a sponge I took all my vacation
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time and sick days and started Moonlighting one day after doing this for a while I'll leave my job at 30
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years and pursue teaching and I did that the age of 48 I was 29 years in my business and I said to them see you
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later I'm waving the white flag and I'm gonna go do something that I always loved which is obviously driving performance cars and teaching people how
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to drive performance cars I knew Spring Mountain was in my backyard I told my wife we probably had to move somewhere
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to some small town where there's a race track and she didn't want any part of that she didn't want to leave Vegas so let's bring Mountain know that hey I'm
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available and I'm going to also go pursue some other schools and see what's out there for me Well Spring Mountain
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after a couple months saw my background and then when I saw my background and offered me a couple of positions here to
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help them out in the sales department and help them out getting corporate events program going which I did and in the interim they have seek out run
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fellows Ron Fellows was looking to partner up with Spring Mountain which he did in 2008 when Ron came on board he
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said they had to make a change and the change was we got to get rid of the chief driving instructor that's running it now and we got to put this guy Rick
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in and that's how he got put into this position by Mr ronfellows back in 2008. that's amazing and in essence you've had
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two full careers one in the distribution business and then in auto racing you know you're absolutely correct I'm going
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on 17 years here now and it's a full second career it didn't start out to be that way but the more I got involved the
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more I liked it a lot of really cool stuff they get to do I'm just having the time of my life right now I'm 65 and I'm
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enjoying my retirement career and like you said it's a second career that's truly amazing and Buddy you've got a
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terrific staff of guys that that are instructors there talk a little bit about the staff drivers at Spring
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Mountain well yeah I brag about our staff I tell folks it's the best of the best you're going to find in the country and the reason being not only are they
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all good drivers but it's the personality that we're looking for we want folks who care about people it has
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some compassion and some empathy you have to care that people learn you have to like people and it's not self-serving no egos here they don't fit to the front
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Gates I'm looking for more of a personality customer service is Paramount here we want to make sure when
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someone gets here they're not ready to learn about driving a little bit about themselves a little about the car's ability and their own ability but we
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want them to have the best experience they've ever had in their life once they come here just come here forget about
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life a little while and just enjoy two days we just don't do that enough in life and that's what we encourage everybody to do once they get here
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absolutely right and classes go year round at Spring Mountain you guys are out there in the desert in Pahrump
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Nevada talk about that and then how many cars do you usually have in the fleet well we had an off season it would be
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July August like Death Valley because it's so hot here that would be off season but just a reminder we do drive
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with the windows up and the air conditioning is on and we do stand in the shade and I'm going to say this it's a dry heat it's a lot different than the
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humidity you can stand in the shade and cool off but yes we do have a fleet of cars and one of the big misconceptions
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is that you have to drive your own vehicle you drive our vehicles that's what you drive we have a large Fleet and
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we're going to take in mind when we do a school of 18 people it takes 30 cars to
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do a school of 18 people and we're capable of running three schools of 18 at the same time simultaneously three
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separate tracks at three separate classrooms three separate sets of instructors three separate sets of cars
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so right there you're talking 90 cars right there alone that's amazing I will attest to what you just said because I
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took my C7 class in late August the dead of Summer and it was really hot but you
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know what you're right it is a dry heat if you're standing in the shade I wasn't sweating and I was really amazed with
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that as well yeah big difference buddy you have a world-class course there there and the track has just expanded as
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well talk about how many miles of track that you've got all the configurations that you can make kind of go over
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everything track related for us well we now with our expansion we have just under nine and a half miles of race
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track so we have four separate tracks the configurations and it's just going
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to be a guess it's going to be over 65 70 different configurations way too many
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to remember them all the schools we use the same configurations all the time for the schools so for the owner's program
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there's four configurations that we use owner schools will always be on those four configurations you come back to a
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level one program we have three different tracks that we use the tracks become larger you come back to a level
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two program we use a little bit larger configuration over level one and then always the same level two track so when
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you come back for different courses you not only advance in levels but you also advance in track size as well and then
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the autocross course gets larger for each course as well very cool you guys had a rare occurrence there Spring
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Mountain and Rick talk about that because you guys had a flood on the racetrack yes we did
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you know a lot of folks would say why do you build in the flood zone and we're not technically in a flood zone but I make a joke and say the whole state of
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Nevada is a flood zone you know when you have mountains when you have mountains and you build in valleys the water's only going to go One Direction is
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downhill and unfortunately we had a 500 year flood five inches of rain and 39
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minutes just concentrated over Spring Mountain the rest of the Pahrump was just fine just one of those freak deals
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that's crazy it took out all three tracks during the school we had day one of the school of course we had to shut
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down but we got to track the very next day one day of business we lost we all got on we had 11 pieces of equipment we
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had blades we have paddle Wheels we have backhoes we had Ganon boxes we had sweepers or water trucks and we just
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started cleaning tracks the goal was to get the tracks cleaned so the students that were up in the air at that time 54
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students were up in the air flying in expecting to drive on Tuesday morning and our goal was to make sure that they were driving so we pulled that off we're
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still doing a lot of repair and cleaning now to this date but we only disrupted the program the school programs for one
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day and that was a quite the feat of all the employees getting together and determined to get this track going that's crazy it's amazing mother nature
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stopped by to say hello to you guys that's what they did buddy let's take our first break and
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when we come back we're going to talk more specifically about the C8 driving courses we've got the chief driving
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instructor and Driving School director for Spring Mountain Rick Malone here on Corvette today we all know that Wheels
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Corvette today join the community and now back to the only current podcast
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on Corvette Corvette today with your host Steve Garrett hey thanks for listening and watching
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Corvette today the show that talks about everything Corvette brought to you by wheelcraft want to dress up your
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833-840-5334 I'm your host Steve Garrett with me today is the chief driving instructor and Driving School director
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at the Ron Fellows Corvette performance driving school at Spring Mountain Mr Rick Malone in section number two we're
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going to talk more specifically about the Corvette performance Driving School Rick when someone talks to me about
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Spring Mountain I always say Spring Mountain is like Top Gun for Corvettes because they teach owners how to drive
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Corvettes to the edge of the envelope just like they did in Top Gun and one of the things that stuck with me at the
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seminar that you did at Corvettes in Carlisle was your emphasis on performance driving not race car driving
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that's really important for a Corvette owner isn't it oh absolutely and the first thing we think of when we here at
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driving school we think of racing school we want to make sure that our clients know that we're not trying to make race car drivers out of them yeah are we on a
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race track but we have to practice somewhere on a closed course and race courses are pretty much the only close course you can acquire to do the
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training on so you're right performance driving let's learn the Dynamics of the vehicle we all want to learn how to go
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fast but there's several things that we don't want to learn like stocking fast which is way more important going fast and the Dynamics of the vehicle how to
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help define the laws of physics what tools do we have in the car to assist in helping define the laws of physics and I
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remind folks that a vehicle does nothing on its own absolutely nothing it only does what we ask it to do but more
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importantly what we failed to ask it to do when we failed to ask it to do something is because we don't know what
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to do so we're going to teach you those tools and how to ask the car properly what you wanted to do because it will do
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anything you ask it to do we're full control so that was part of my seminars getting these folks to start thinking
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about how suspension Works how the Dynamics of the vehicle Works how a car turns so much better when we come off
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the accelerator and as drivers especially guy drivers we won't come off the accelerator our answer for
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everything is more throttle more accelerator that has to be the answer what we teach folks is less is more and
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that's the message I was trying to get across in that seminar is we need to understand the Dynamics before we start going fast and before we start
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experimenting with speed and threshold breaking and what have you so that's what we try to do in our program learn
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the Dynamics of the vehicle learn to stop a car learn to control a car before we start to go fast let me refer back to
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it's a Top Gun for Corvettes it's funny you said that because last year we got the honor to coach the Thunderbird
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pilots and their staff wow yes and I grew up with the Thunderbirds here at Nellis Air Force Base so it was
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something for me to work with them they wrote us a nice letter and that's what they said it's like Top Gun and it goes
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you guys teach a lot the way we teach crawl walk run method and that has stuck
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in my mind since their Chief pilot had brought that up and that's what we do here everybody wants to take off running
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first we're going to teach you to crawl then we're going to teach you to watch then we're gonna teach you to walk really fast and then we're going to
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teach her to run in those orders and it is not like Top Gun for Corvettes learn about your own capabilities learn about
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the car's capabilities so when you leave here you have a better knowledge of yourself the vehicle like we just talked
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about and if you choose to do some autocross or some tracking you have some sense how to do it correctly but most
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important safely once you hit the track and that's what it's all designed for that's really cool Rick and boy what a
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tribute to you guys and the staff that you've got having the Thunderbirds there teaching them and having them basically
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tell you you guys do the same thing that they do that's phenomenal that was amazing I got goosebumps right now just
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saying it it's exactly what they said we're like wow that's quite the compliment that's quite the compliment indeed buddy when you buy a C8 Corvette
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Chevrolet pays for 60 of your introductory class kind of go through what a new associate owner has to look
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forward to and the time frame with which they need to sign up for classes when they come out to Spring Mountain for the
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first time yeah and it's about 66 percent as two-thirds of the tuition that GM will pick up so it costs a
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Corvette owner first time owner has to be the first owner brand new car it costs the consumer one thousand dollars
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to attend Spring Mountain and then they have one year the delivery date to take advantage of that offer and you don't
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have to wait if you buy a new car please don't wait till you get a notice all you have to do is call up the sell staff at
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the wrongful performance driving school and with your VIN number they can start the process right there that's what we
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suggest you will get notification in the mail but you don't have to wait for that just go ahead and call us with your VIN number and then as a two-day program one
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night is included in one of the condos that's part of the program you can purchase a second night if you wish breakfast and lunch are included dinner
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is on your own and throughout those two days we're gonna not only teach you about car control and vehicle Dynamics
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like we spoke earlier we're going to go over all the electronics in your car there's several classroom sessions dedicated just to go over all the
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electronics how to use the different modes how to use Z mode how to use track mode sport mode Turing mode my mode
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weather mode we're going to teach you a little bit of tech talk basic stuff checking points how do I change my cabin
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air filter my engineer filter how do I check my oil in a convertible some basic stuff like that and again by the time
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we're done you not only will enjoy driving your Corvette you'll also drive it with confidence and you won't be so
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nervous driving it knowing that we've given you the tools to keep that car in complete control at all times especially
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emergency situations if you have to have emergency braking or car poles out in front of you you're not going to be
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afraid to use the brakes and most folks are afraid to use the brakes because they haven't been in an emergency situation where they had to use it
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aggressively so when you leave here we want to make sure that you're not afraid to use those brakes if there's an emergency situation that occurs in front
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of you or something very cool yeah buddy let's talk about the class curriculum because I'll tell you what it freaks
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people out when I tell them that they cover up the front windshield of your Corvette and you learn to drive the car
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looking to the sides of the car yes visual scanning will solve 95 of all
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drivers issues Street retract why we just stare out that windshield and we just look over that hood and we have no
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clue what's going on around us we teach you to look around the a-pillars those are the pillars that go next to the windshield they're the size of my arm in
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the 60s and they'll hide a semi truck today move around the rear view mirror that's inside the car move around those
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mirrors on the outside the all these things are blind spots use your side mirrors because you need to look where
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you want the car to go not the direction the car is going so that's why we use the side windows a lot to get the information to our processor as soon as
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your information gets to your process of your brain your brain will send those messages right to extremities and you'll react but your extremities won't know
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what to do if they don't have the information and we do that by scanning so we cover that windshield with the sun
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shade and force you to use your side windows there's plenty of information out there to get and again it's designed to get us to start turning our head
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start rotating our heads and be aware of what's going on that's around us in the car 360 degrees not just just off that
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windshield that's really cool yeah Rick also talk about the different levels of the Corvette performance driving school
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that a Corvette owner can attend there at Spring Mountain because there's more than just the two-day introductory class
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talk about that and the pricing as well for the two-day introductory class for a cash pay is 36.95 and again we're going
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to talk a lot about the Corvette and not a basic skill sets and talk a lot about the car but let's say you don't own a
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Corvette you don't want to learn about the car if you're just a driver you just want to come and do a driving school that would be our level one program
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that's 40.95 for two days as well again we're going to go over car control pretty much the same stuff we're going
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to go over the owners program with car control and vehicle Dynamics with the exception of the C8 we're not going to
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cover the electronics and the tech talk and what have you but let's say somebody did their owner's program and the first
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time they did something and you just did marginally okay on the track and you want to return you probably want to
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still come back to level one even though some of the basic exercises are going to be similar on day one on day two you're
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going to go to open laughing where you're out there on your own and we don't offer that in the owners program so if you did okay on the owner's
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program and you want to take that next step we encourage you to do level one now after level one there's a level two
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program we call that advanced mapping for people who've already been tracking they already hold the racing license or
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they've been to our owner's program they've been to level one now they're making the next step will be to a level two but then again let's say you came to
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the owners program first time ever you liked it you didn't do too bad then you start autocrossing your car your local
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region maybe you started doing some track days and you're keeping your skill set sharp and it's even possible to advance to level two essentially you've
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got some track experience so we kind of take it on an individual basis and we do keep notes so it kind of depends on
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what's going on with your life you may do owner's program level one level two go around the chain or somebody could
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advance from the owner's program right to level two it just kind of depends if that makes any sense that makes sense for sure but you do have to complete the
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introductory course before you sign up for other courses right yes you do yes you do but it's level one owner's course
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one of the two introductory courses you need to and then if you're not sure we just chat on the phone and find out
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what's going on in your life and where you've been and we'll try to help you make that decision we won't leave you hanging dry it's not really cut and dry
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there's a lot of variables that go into play so it's really tough to put it right in and say it has to be done this way if that makes any sense absolutely
23:24
yeah Rick talk about the driving experience with a C8 Corvette versus other Corvettes like a C7 C7 ZR1 or a C7
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Z06 because the difference is truly amazing with this mid-engine car it is and you have to start all the way from
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the C1 from the very very first car in 1953 with the six cylinder two-speed automatic 300. you know every time they
23:46
come out to New Generation just when you think they made the car that the best they could make the engineers figure it
23:52
out now let's jump to the C4 that was the first major change the car was a big difference over C3 then the latest C4s
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they got better then c5s came out like wow it just made this car even better yet then the C6 came out a little
24:03
heavier still a little better car then you're thinking like well now with the EPA ratings coming up and the smog
24:09
emissions and all that is a VA even going to be around for C7 but look what they did they came up again they came up
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with cylinder deactivation mag ride suspension and that C7 over C6 what
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Leaps and Bounds better I mean just needs some bounce and then just when you thought they couldn't make that C7 any
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better with each model for the Z06 and the Grand Sport and the ZR1 they keep making each one of those models even
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better yet the zero one the outgoing c7s man that card is so amazing 755
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horsepower and easy to drive then you're like they're gonna have to top it with the C8 because this C7 is pretty darn
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good well the C7 was a home run the C8 is a grand slam it's a total grand slam
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the car is easier to drive you feel connected it's easy to see at that front
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windshield the visibility just over the top the car pivots just right underneath your butt okay went to four coil springs
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on each Corner as opposed to inverted monoliths so now the ride Comfort on the highway is almost as comfortable as a
25:06
Cadillac wow I'm almost speechless they just made the car amazing then you're like well how can they make this car any
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better well Ron Fellows and I got the opportunity to drive the Z06 two weeks ago at Laguna Seca and both of us came
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out of the car we lost for words Ron fellow's words were it's a true race car the C8 was a home run it's a Z06 as a
25:25
grand slam they just did it again the engineers at GM are pretty darn smart and they aren't taking second place to
25:31
anybody they get it figured out and they produce a vehicle that's world class and Kristen Koenigsegg just said two weeks
25:37
ago if you saw that on the internet Christian Conan said his words were GM built a mind-blowing car and those are
25:44
pretty strong words coming from Christian Conan said and it was just announced that you guys are going to be
25:49
starting your Z06 driver school coming up next year correct we are and we're excited about it it's going to start in
25:55
April we don't have all the details yet we do still know it's going to fall just like the Stingrays thousand dollars for
26:01
the consumer GM pays two-thirds of it and if you're a ZO6 owner you get to drive a zero sense we'll have more
26:08
details later with the curriculum and all and what have you it's all being worked on right now and we should have that released here within 30 or 60 days
26:14
that sounds great that's outstanding well buddy let's take our final break when we come back we're going to talk about the entire Spring Mountain
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and now back to the only current podcast on Corvette Corvette today with your
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host Steve Garrett hey thanks for listening and watching Corvette today the show that talks about
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everything Corvette brought to you by wheelcraft want to dress up your Corvette with bright Chrome or black
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chrome wheels visit wheelcraft.com and learn about their Advanced PVD chrome finishing they can refinish your wheels
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or offer a wheel exchange for most models and it comes with a five year warranty visit wheelcraft.com or call
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them at 833-840-5334 I'm your host Steve Garrett we have Rick Malone with us Rick is the
30:17
chief driving instructor and Driving School director at the Ron Fellows Corvette performance Driving School in
30:23
Spring Mountain in this third and final segment we're going to talk about the whole Spring Mountain experience because it's an amazing experience Rick first of
30:31
all Spring Mountain is not just for Corvettes you have other GM Brands as well for classes talk about some of
30:37
those other classes like Cadillac yeah we have the Cadillac V Performance Academy it's also an owner's program it
30:43
works just like the Corvette program where if you purchase a Cadillac ct5d or c dt4v Black Wing Cadillac case for 100
30:52
of the program and it comes with uh one night stay here in our condos and you get to drive the ct5v Black Wing if you
30:59
purchase a ct5 or the ct4 V Black Wing so it's only for the Blackwing series only and they come in 10-speed
31:06
automatics or the last six-speed manual that you can buy new from GM that's really good to hear the GM is still
31:12
producing a manual transmission yes absolutely and that's going to be the last one from what they're saying anyway
31:17
the ct5 black wings 668 horsepower and the curriculum is pretty much the same
31:22
as the Corvette program it's all based on performance car control braking all
31:28
that stuff very cool now most people don't realize this Rick but Spring Mountain is a world-class facility the
31:33
accommodations are amazing talk a little bit about the country club atmosphere there at Spring Mountain and the luxury
31:39
apartments the Corvette owners get to stay in while they're there for the driving course yeah while they're here from the driving course they can get to
31:46
stay right on property we've already got 40 units available currently till the hotel gets built so some folks may have
31:52
to stay off site we give them an option just right down the street at the Holiday Inn and even if you do you still get breakfast and lunch it's still taken
31:59
care of by Spring Mountain so again you can stay running about condos right on site we encourage you to get here the
32:04
day before so you can relax and get a good night's rest and then again have breakfast right here in our clubhouse the wives can take part we got swimming
32:12
pool we have a Jacuzzi they can book a massage we do have some more amenities coming some updated amenities coming up
32:18
that will be announced here in the future but yeah you get to stay two days here at Spring Mountain and we try to cover everything that's really cool and
32:24
if the spouses want to join in on the classes they can sit in on the classes isn't that correct yeah they can and we
32:30
really encourage your spouses if they drive the car on day two we go over the electronics or the vehicles how all the electronic AIDS work so we at least
32:37
encourage them day two between eight and nine o'clock to sit in that class and they can sit in as many as classes they
32:42
like and they can also ride shotgun with select times that we have where they can ride with an instructor right on the
32:47
track so they can experience what their spouses are experiencing and we use the same car that the spouse is using so
32:52
that way their session gets recorded on the PDR the performance data recorder as well very cool now you can also purchase
32:59
a Spring Mountain membership or buy land right around the track touch briefly on that too because some people might want
33:05
to do that over there at Spring Mountain yeah so it works just like a golf country club where Initiation fee Gets
33:11
You Through the gates and our current Initiation fee is 75 000 which is fully transferable and that gets you through
33:16
the gates and then once you through the gates you have other options like you can rent garage space you can do
33:22
long-term rentals on condos there are homes that you can purchase and home sites on the property that you can
33:28
purchase and build your own home on and while you're a member you can get up to 16 or more in track days per month we
33:35
guarantee at least 16 or more wow that's amazing buddy if someone wants to sign up for classes at Spring Mountain give
33:41
the website and the phone number where people can reach you the phone number is area code
33:47
775-720 two seven six three six three and that's our main number and you just
33:53
listen to the directory for directions or you can reach us online at racepringmountain.com and that'll also
34:00
get you to our website as well perfect Rick thank you so much for taking the time to be back on Corvette today we've
34:06
got to get you on again sooner than two and a half years buddy yeah I can't believe it's been that long it's been a
34:12
real pleasure talking with you and it's great to see you at Carlisle as well but I can't believe that two and a half years has gone by already so you're
34:18
right we need to do it sooner absolutely buddy thanks for being on Corvette today thank you very much Steve thanks for
34:23
listening to Corvette today and please be sure to tell your family friends and other Corvette enthusiasts about the
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Corvette Today podcast and thanks to our sponsors wheelcraft want to dress up your Corvette with bright Chrome or
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black chrome wheels visit wheelcraft.com to learn about their Advanced PVD chrome finishing they can refinish your wheels
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35:15
with Steve Garrett if you'd like to contact Steve with any thoughts on the podcast or ideas for guests on Corvette
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today you can email him at Steve Garrett DJ gmail.com
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that's Steve Garrett DJ gmail.com Garrett has two r's and two T's or
35:33
connect with Steve on social media on Facebook Twitter or Instagram using at
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Steve Garrett DJ thanks again for listening to Corvette today [Music]
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