Sending It Down the Corkscrew: My Week at Laguna Seca with BFGoodrich & Skip Barber

Have you ever driven a real race car on a real race track? If your answer is no, you’re not alone. Most people haven’t, and that’s totally normal. I was part of that group too, right up until this past week, when work handed me an opportunity I’m still processing.

For those who don’t know, I’m a marketing manager at one of the largest aftermarket car parts companies in the US. Because of that, we have relationships all over the motorsports world. We sell a lot of tires, so the tire brands tend to invite us out to some really cool stuff. This time, BFGoodrich invited us out and covered the trip: a driving experience at Laguna Seca, hosted by the best racing school in the world, Skip Barber.

Two Dreams in One Trip

Each of those is a big deal on its own, so let me break it down.

Laguna Seca has been on my bucket list for as long as I can remember. Just seeing it, let alone driving it. It’s the home of the Corkscrew, which is about as badass a name as a corner can get. The story behind how it was built is still wild by today’s standards. Supposedly the construction crew was heading to lunch and told the bulldozer driver to “get down the hill any way you can.” In a world with this many rules and regulations, that’s the stuff of legend.

The numbers are nuts too. The Corkscrew drops 59 feet, about five and a half stories, in only 450 feet of track. Keep going down to Turn 9 and you’ve dropped 109 feet, over ten stories. There’s a reason drivers say it feels like dropping off the edge of the world, and driving it was breathtaking.

The other half of the dream was Skip Barber. It would have been awesome to meet Skip himself, but the man is pushing 90 and probably had other things going on. Who we did get to meet, and I feel so blessed to have even been in the same room, was Terry Earwood, our lead instructor. I could write a whole book on Terry. He was the chief instructor at Skip Barber for decades, has taught more than 30,000 students, and won the U.S. Nationals in drag racing (Super Stock) back in 1973. Getting taught by a legend like that was incredible.

Mind you, I’d never been to a racing school before. I had no expectations and no clue how the program was supposed to work. So I went in expecting nothing, and oh boy, did I get treated to an absolute blessing of a week.

Okay, Except the Travel LOL

The whole thing was fun except for getting there. Early flights and multiple layovers. Perks of flying out of Green Bay haha.

The catch was that checked bags weren’t included. I’ve gotten so used to checking everything that I forgot carry-ons were even a thing. One less thing to worry about, I figured. I’d never really had issues with checked bags anyway. Until now.

We land in Monterey, which is a cool little airport by the way. Super small and direct. I wasn’t expecting to walk off the plane right onto the tarmac, but there’s something kind of luxurious about walking outside at an airport. Back in Chicago, they’d made me gate-check my bag (I complied, no use fighting it lol), so I head to baggage claim and… nothing. After waiting 5 to 10 minutes, I get a text: “We’re sorry, there’s been a delay with your bag.”

How?? It was supposed to come with me, no? Turns out it somehow got routed to LAX instead, and I figured I wasn’t going to see my clothes for the whole trip. All I could really do was laugh about it.

Settling In

We loaded up on the shuttle to the hotel. I looked over at my colleague Michael and we were both wiped from the flights, but excited. At the hotel, they handed us each a $100 meal voucher for dinner. How nice is that! We took it to the resort restaurant. We were staying at the Hyatt Regency Monterey, and all the Pebble Beach signs around had me convinced we were on Pebble Beach. Turns out the hotel sits on the Del Monte Golf Course, which the Pebble Beach Company owns. Close enough haha.

Dinner was spectacular and totally unexpected. I got some incredible sea bass and a five-cheese mac and cheese. Not gonna lie, it was cheesy. But who actually needs five cheeses? What’s wrong with focusing on one or two? Give me some good American cheese and you’ve got a great mac n cheese.

After dinner I answered a few influencer emails, took care of my ambassadors, and hit the bed early. Big first day tomorrow. We were going to Laguna Seca, and I could not have been more excited.

Day One at Laguna

In the morning, part of our group was already in the lobby and I could see it on their faces too. Touching a track this legendary is a blessing on its own. Doing it in an actual track car set up for it? I was speechless.

If you’ve been to Laguna, you know the drive in I’m talking about. It’s gorgeous, and the whole place feels like a state or national park. I kept wondering if you could camp there, so I looked it up afterward: you can. The track sits inside the Laguna Seca Recreation Area, a Monterey County park with campgrounds on the hills around it. I’d camp there in a heartbeat. I also can’t imagine climbing that entrance hill in a manual on race weekend lol. That’s gotta be a lot of burnt clutches, or at least a few scraped bumpers, by the time people reach the top.

Seeing the giant Tire Bridge over the track was something special. I’ve driven under that thing so many times in Forza and Assetto Corsa. I easily have 40+ hours on this track in the sim, from training for the PRI Racing Sim experience in 2024 and a time attack trial in a C8 Corvette on Forza. So I knew the layout pretty well, and honestly, the real thing was easier to drive than I expected.

Tires Are Everything

Before we got real track time, we learned about the BFGs our cars would be running.

People say tires are just tires. Throw the cheapest set on and you’re good to go. When I was younger I believed that too. But the older you get, the more you realize that tires are made very differently and you really shouldn’t cheap out. They’re the MOST important part of the car. Why? Because they’re the ONLY four things touching the ground.

That led right into understeer and oversteer. Sure, you hear about those in driver’s ed, but you don’t actually know what they feel like until you’re already too deep in.

So we tested it. One car had another brand up front and BFGs in the rear. The other car had BFGs up front and the other brand in the rear. The difference was jarring. And I’m not gonna lie to you, BFG was the answer.

With the BFGs up front, you had way more control. You could be more aggressive with your steering and feel the “break” point much easier, which is that moment right before the tire lets go. When the rear did step out, it would just kick out like it had zero interest in traction, but you could feel it coming and correct it. Super cool lesson.

In the other car, you learned what happens when the fronts lose grip: you can’t steer anymore. And when you can’t steer, the only fix is to slow down until the tires grab again. Seeing that firsthand was rad. Either way, the end of the car with the BFGs was the end you could trust.

After we broke for lunch, they took it a step further. One car on a competition tire, one on BFGs. The difference was stark, and you could see exactly where the BFGs held on better. It got even clearer once our instructors Terry and Skylar showed us what each car could do before we drove them on the autocross course ourselves. You could push the BFG car harder, because the other brand’s break point was softer.

The Drift Ring

Then they surprised us with a $1,000 drift ring. It’s a hard plastic ring you slip over a partially deflated tire, and once it’s on, you’re good to go sliding! We only put it on one rear tire so we could learn to control a slide with one tire breaking traction.

You learn real quick that after about 10 degrees of steering input, the speed is too much, traction breaks, and you spin. Unless you catch it, that is. I think I did a pretty good job honestly. I was one of the few who could really hold it right at the break point, while most of the class overcorrected and spun out.

Mustang GTs on Laguna

That set us up for the big event: our first time out on track in the Mustang GTs. With Brad and Skylar as our pace cars, we got to REALLY send it.

You quickly learn Laguna is a 3rd and 4th gear track in these cars, though you can sneak 2nd in a few turns to build some momentum. And wow. Climbing the hill at 90 into the hard braking zone above the Corkscrew. Then the whole world drops away and all you see is sky for a second. You just have to trust the car, feel the inner curb as you dive into the swoop, take the exit wide to the left and hook the rumble strips, then hit a short brake zone where you want to stay off the yellow hot dogs. (What a fun name. I had no idea that’s what they were called lol.)

I was geeking. My smile was HUGE. This was a dream come true. I never expected in a million years to be sending a race car down the Corkscrew!

Dinner with a Legend

We wrapped the day with some great banter back in the classroom and found out we’d be hitting the track again the next day. Boy was I excited. But first, they told us to head back, change real quick, and get ready for dinner.

Michael and I changed into something nicer, met back up in the lobby, and took another shuttle to the Chart House on Cannery Row, right on the water. The dinner was insane. Thank you BFG for the steak, honestly!

The best part, though, was getting to talk with Terry and learn about his life and what got him into racing. He got his start because somebody left the keys in a car and Terry just went for it. He told us stories about his favorite tracks, his drag racing days, and so much more. I wanted to ask him genuine questions, and I’m glad we got to see a side of Terry that even some of his friends of 20 years didn’t know.

That’s something I’ve learned: when you get to talk with someone like that, don’t make it all technical. Learn who they are and what parts of their life they value. Those are the stories people love telling and love being asked about. I could tell Terry appreciated it, and I couldn’t be more thankful to have shared that dinner with him and the Skip Barber team.

Huge shoutout to Sue, too! Funny thing: Lime Rock is one of Terry’s least favorite tracks, even though that’s where Skip and the team got their whole start haha. Sue runs the Falls Village Inn just down the road from Lime Rock, with a tap room that’s all about the track. It’s always sold out and has been called one of the most sacred racing bars in the country. If you ask me, that’s a pretty solid title to have.

Grateful

I learned a ton on this trip. I got to learn how to race from some of the best in the country and experience what makes a good tire sing under pressure. It’s one of those humbling moments where I have to remind myself that I’m in a room people dream about being in. A lot of people never get to experience this, hear the stories I heard, or see the track the way I saw it. I’m thankful, and I don’t know how else to say it.