Testimonials

Scott Gress
scott@gress.org
www.Gress.org
NASA SpecE30 #6

I find, as I sit down to write this, that my sentences radiate the over-the-top enthusiasm that one would attribute to an overzealous marketing department. Spend a couple days working with Mike on your driving skills and you'll sound like his overzealous marketing department too.

Spending time with Mike is effective. There is no substitute for hour after hour of total focused 1:1 time. You could do 40 track days on your own and not gain the insights that an hour with Mike will provide. Sure, there's usually a hotshoe at the track that can run a session with you and show you some variations on "the line". But with Mike you will spend far more time on the kind of subtleties that casual tips won't address. And it is those subtleties, that you are unlikely to learn on your own, that separate the rear third from the front third of the pack.

Spending time with Mike is cost-effective. Because Mike has low overhead, you will find him the least cost solution for personal coaching. Mike's coaching provides tremendous "bang for the buck". Aspiring racers and performance drivers often talk about going to one of the professional schools that cost thousands of dollars. For that kind of money you could work with Mike twice a month for a year. The pro school is a foreign environment where they watch a dozen drivers from the side of the track and try to cram years of subtleties into a couple days. With Mike you would be in your own car, getting full attention, and being introduced to new skills at a pace that they can be absorbed.

It doesn't matter what kind of car you drive, nor where you do it. Mike has gone to a new track, jumped into a model of car he's never driven, and run the best qualifying time against a national class field. He is that good. He's the 2008 NASA Spec E30 National Champion for a reason.

Spend a couple days with him. It will cost you roughly the amount of a track day and your skills will bound forward 40 track days. Then you can email me and exclaim "Scott, you were so right."

Brian McDaniel
brianmcd@vt.edu

I would highly recommend driver coaching with Mike Skeen to anyone looking to take their driving to the next level. I did a full day of coaching with Mike at VIR, and I dropped over 2 seconds off my lap times. Mike used a combination of in-car instruction and data acquisition/analysis to help me find where I was losing the most time. Mike drove my car around the track so we could compare my data to his. I had run data acquisition before, but I now know that I wasn't getting near the full benefit out of the data. Mike showed me where he was faster, but more importantly, why he was faster and what I needed to do differently to get up to speed. He also showed me> data analysis techniques that I didn't even know existed. The data analysis lesson was worth the cost alone.

The benefits of a day of coaching don't end when you leave the track. Mike gave me a lot of things to work on, which has made subsequent track ventures much more productive. I picked up another second at VIR in my next outing by practicing the things we talked about.

A coaching day with a pro driver like Mike is like looking at the answer in the back of a text book. Yes, you could log thousands of track miles trying to figure out everything on your own, but it's a heck of a lot easier when someone just tells you the answer. Pro coaching is without a doubt the most efficient way to drop your lap times.

David Sinnot
President, ProActive Networks & Security, Inc.
www.prosecure.com

Mike Skeen. Did I know of him? Not really. I had heard rumors that he had been on a series sponsored by Speed TV (but have never seen it) and I had heard that he was winning races in the NASA Spec E30 class from a buddy that had just started racing in that class. I had never met him.

For me it all began at a BMW driving school at VIR in 2006 - and I was immediately hooked. I have now experienced three wonderful years of BMW, THSSC, and NASA driving schools at VIR, CMP, Rockingham, Roebling Road, and Road Atlanta. In NASA I found that I ran out of instructor quickly - in the SE, group 2 is instructor optional, group 3 is solo. I drive comfortably in group 3, but there is so much to learn! There are times when it's nice to be alone with your car, and there are times when it's nice to have a coach in the right seat.

Before I go to a new track I like to watch video of someone driving it, and some of the video I watched was Mike's. I liked his line and his smoothness with the controls. He was able to show me around the tracks before I physically drove them. And I still hadn't met him!

When a track is new to me I also like to hire a personal coach. Everyone that has been in this sport knows it takes seat time to learn a new track - adding a personal coach to the mix accelerates one's learning curve dramatically. The last new track for me was Road Atlanta, and I signed up for Friday as well as the weekend. I also hired Mike for the Friday based on a recommendation of a friend, and was extremely impressed with his knowledge of the track, his skill in communicating the nuances of the track to me, and his calm and positive suggestions throughout the day. He was able to reduce my stress level tremendously. He passed an incredible amount of information to me simply and clearly. With his help I was comfortable the rest of the weekend in group 3. But he didn't end there - before the sessions started he transferred his data acquisition system into my car. A week later he sent me a report that described, in detail, the comparison of my data with his. Same weekend, same track, slightly different car (his is a Spec E30, I have a reasonably well prepped E28 - they should be close - but then he did win the weekend race...) I could clearly see where I could make up time.

He has what I believe every great coach should - the combination of a pleasing personality and being a clear and positive communicator.

If you are looking for a coach, I highly recommend Mike.

Fred Switzer
Professor of Psychology, Clemson University

I highly recommend Mike Skeen as a driving coach. I found Mike’s instruction to be some of the most valuable time I’ve spent in the car. I noticed immediate improvements not only in my lap times but also in my understanding of what the car was doing and why. I have to admit that I was surprised to find that our time analyzing and discussing the Traqmate data was equally valuable. Mike was able to look at my data and point out a number of things that I had missed while we were in the car. Mike is not only a good driver but a good teacher as well (and I should know, I’ve been in the teaching business for 20+ years). Money and time well spent!