The ability to write a check for a very expensive high performance car does not mean that the talent to drive it comes with the ability to afford it. Case in point; this last Wednesday, in the early morning hours two “gentlemen” made a conscious decision to race their high performance cars on public roads. The out-come, (almost inevitable and most certainly predictable) left one driver dead, his unfortunate (and most likely unwilling passenger) injured and luckily only so-in that the Ferrari that he was driving is now in two very separate pieces.

The driver of the second car (a Porsche from what was reported) left the scene of this fatal accident. He- had also made a conscious decision to race on public roads and is therefore, in our opinion, as culpable as the driver of the Ferrari. It has also been reported that the driver of the Porsche has had numerous previous driving violations and citations- more on that later.

Rather than a Dennis Miller rant - going on and on about how racing on the street is an obvious danger to many more than just those participating, not to mention just bloody stupid-we thought it better to offer observations from years of legal racing and the teaching high performance driving skills to owners of cars just like this one and at the same time offering sound suggestion to those who are fortunate enough to acquire them.

One could argue (we will) that the largest percentage of drivers who own high performance cars have no real clue as to their cars performance potential nor do they possess the needed skills to drive the car well. Ego (not always bad) and ambition may have put them in the fortunate position to acquire the car. Ego (always bad) tells them that because they can afford the car, they have somehow and miraculously become a great driver and in many cases; just overnight.

There are but a handful of truly gifted drivers with natural God given driving talent; they are paid a great deal of money to race cars for a living; on race tracks! For them, the ability to control an automobile at speed is somehow natural. For the rest of us it is a learned skill. Let us repeat that- FOR THE REST OF US IT IS A LEARNED SKILL!!!!!

Having spent many years racing sports cars and teaching others how to drive cars well (in the appropriate place) there are a number of observations that we and our fellow instructors can share with you.

First and foremost, and, at the risk of sounding repetitive, the ability to afford one of these cars DOES NOT automatically make one a Michael Schumacher. There is no miraculous acclimatization of learned driving skill just because one has bought a Ferrari, Lamborghini, Porsche; ad infinitum.

If one has been successful enough to acquire one of these cars, might we suggest it a very good idea to spend a little more of that hard earned money, take some time and be open minded enough to be taught how to drive it well. We can hear the egos already- we have first hand experience in hearing them proclaim…”I know how to stand on the gas and the brakes. I’m a great driver, I’ll show you, and no one is going be able to teach me crap”! Perhaps now might be the time to take another look at the picture that accompanies this article.

Perhaps the most significant observation that we can share with our readers (and we are certain that our instructor friends would agree) is -when those who own these cars do attend well managed, disciplined and organized driving schools, their attitudes change- and quite quickly. They learn that they are not the drivers that they thought they might be. They find that there is a great deal to learn and that driving really well is something that is never mastered completely; there is always more to learn. Students learn a new respect for the performance level of their cars. They also find a new respect for speed and come to understand that in the wrong arena, on public roads, extreme speed, especially competitively applied, is completely inappropriate.

There is a change in those who attend well taught driving schools- most certainly a change for the better as it relates to how people then drive on public roads and highways after attending these classes. This would seem to prove that high performance driving schools not only improve ones ability to drive and control a car, but, more importantly that one fully comes to realize that an “appropriate” place to drive fast does indeed exist. Students of these schools generally become safer, more courteous and far more aware of what is happening around them. No one can tell us otherwise…we have experienced this first hand.

We have observed the attitudes of full blown egomaniacs change in a very, very short period of time (usually less than two hours) and the need to prove anything to anyone on the street going away as well- most of the time; there are those who we just can’t help….get a bus pass, buy a limousine.

Driving is a privilege, it is not a right. People like our “Porsche” guy, who have reportedly had numerous confrontations with the authorities due to their unsafe driving practices, should lose the privilege to drive automobiles-forever and it should have happened long ago!

The Ferrari driver-he may have been a nice guy, but, the simple fact remains that his conscious decision to race on public streets killed him. What we do find more disconcerting is that the decision was made with someone else’s life in his hands; the life of the passenger and the lives of everyone else with which the road was shared.