Street Survival – Now Available in Spring!

For the last 8 years or so, we’ve had a Tire Rack® Street Survival teen driving safety course in Iowa each fall. We have a NEW angle on it this season – in addition to the fall events in the Des Moines and Quad Cities areas, we’re also doing a spring school at the Iowa Speedway parking lot in Newton.

Date for the event is Saturday, May 18. Our chapter is leading the effort on this one, with help from the Des Moines Valley SCCA folks for equipment and some volunteers. DMVR’s club racers will be competing on the infield road course that day, while we use the parking lots to teach teens to learn a lot more about car control and accident avoidance than they ever saw in driver’s education. Plans are to use a break in the racing action to also take the students out for a parade lap around the track behind the pace car!

The course is aimed at ages 15-21; students must either have a driver’s license or have held a learner’s permit for at least half of the period required before licensing by the state of issue. Students learn what it feels like when the car is about to lose traction, and learn how to avoid or correct the problem. Street Survival is an excellent prep for winter driving in Iowa, but also applies to many other instances where dealing with traction is an issue – gravel roads, rain, or emergency situations.

Check out http://streetsurvival.org/ for more information about the course. The site includes a very good video showing how the training is done in the student’s car by a trained instructor on a closed course.
Registration for students is on the Street Survival website under the Registration/School Schedule tab, Iowa Speedway student registration. For local information, the contact is registrar Becky Brighton (streetsurvival@bmwia.org).
Please help us to publicize the event to parents of potential students: contact friends, family, and co-workers who have young drivers in their households – the life you save may be theirs!

We are not going to have as many of the usual volunteers available from DMVR because of their race commitments this time. So we really need additional help from Iowa Chapter members as in-car instructors and as volunteer workers at the event. Please contact Becky or myself with any questions about how you can help or what it takes. Street Survival is a great way to contribute back to our communities – let’s all make it a ‘smashing’ (pun-only, not literal) success! Staff volunteers register on Motorsportreg.com – look for it on their schedule as the Iowa Chapter event on May 18.