Our Programs
Register for our two-day, GRIP on Life Parent/Teen Advanced Training Program operating exclusively at Virginia International Raceway.
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The Teen Program
The objective of this program is to mentally and physically connect teenage drivers with the automobile to help them develop a crash prevention mindset and a car control skillset that enables them to become the Ultimate Control System in any vehicle they choose to drive.
Maintenance Clinic:
Students gather around a car to learn how to check fluids, inspect and identify fluids that may leak under a car, learn about brakes, tires and the dash warning lights associated with operational systems on today’s vehicles. It’s a hands-on clinic to help them better understand the importance of maintaining a vehicle and detect when something may be wrong that could affect their safety.
Classroom Sessions:
Students will attend several classes during the weekend. Each session is designed to mentally connect students to various aspects of vehicle operation and control to help them learn what enables them to safely control an automobile in any driving environment or circumstance. The emphasis is on preventing crashes.
Behind the Wheel:
Students will be exposed to numerous driving exercises designed to physically connect to an automobile by teaching them spatial awareness, situational awareness, and car control. These exercises include parallel parking, reverse slaloms (using only mirrors), as well as understeer and oversteer recovery. They will experience threshold braking, high speed braking, braking in curves, avoidance exercises and slaloms to learn how speed and weight transfer affects traction and steering. They’ll also learn how to properly recover from dropping 2 or 4 wheels off the pavement at speed.
Additionally, at most events, we have a semi-truck brought in and students learn what it takes to maneuver and stop a big rig. They are also given an opportunity to climb in the cab to see what truck drivers can’t see when other vehicles get too close to them.
The GRIP on Life program also helps parents learn how to become a “Coach” for their novice driver.
The Parent Program
Attending parents are not spectators in this program, they’re active participants!
The parents’ role in preparing a teen driver for licensing is significantly important. Traditional driver education classes focus on teaching the rules of the road and prepare teens to pass the licensing exam but it’s the parent’s responsibility to teach their teen “how to drive”, safely and responsibly.
Sadly, most parents don’t have access to the tools and resources needed to develop the coaching skills required. As a result, supervised driving during permit logging sessions creates tension in the car, escalates emotions and heightens fears and anxieties that lead to a toxic learning environment.
Our program provides parents with the tools and resources to calm their fears and anxieties, reduce emotions, remove the tension and create a learning environment that’s productive, safe and successful. We help parents learn how to become a “Coach” for their novice driver.
Classroom sessions include:
- The history of our driving culture and what it means for today’s teenage drivers.
- An introduction into the type of mindset every teenager needs to develop.
- A plan to help you instill a new mindset in your teenager.
- Critical steps to improve your coaching abilities during supervised driving periods.
- An overview of the entire teenage classroom presentation.
The parent program operates separately from the teen program and attends classroom sessions, drives most of the exercise’s teenagers are required to drive, and they get an overview of the maintenance clinic and the classroom presentations their teens are exposed to during the weekend.
We share critical research data to help parents better understand the risks they face as a novice driver along with instructional techniques to reduce those risks. We also provide you with tools and resources to carry on the principles we’ve taught your teenagers after leaving our event.
Graduate Course: At the end of every event, parents are allowed to ride with their teens through all of the driving exercises they’ve been practicing so they can see how their teens skills have advanced throughout the weekend.