My 15 1/2 yeard old son got his permit today and I proceeded to allow him to drive our race Miata on public roads. The kid took at least 5 years off my life. Never let a newb driver drive a race prepped car with very aggressive alignment settings.

Let's just say that the run to the post office box was more exciting than any motorsports activity I've done in years.
The handling on this car is so responsive (some call it twitchy) that my son could barely keep the car in its own lane of travel.

Too exciting for me.

 

And Welcome to the Teenage Years

 

We actually went to the DMV with my STi, but I wasn't going to let him drive it home yet. He's driven both the Miata and STi at our SCCA track, but never on public roads until today.

BTW he'll be racing in his first Solo event this Sunday, we'll co-drive the Miata in STS class.

 

i remember several years ago when me n my ex was together teaching her to drive 5spd in my wrx, needless to say we arent together any more..lol

 

Funny thread.....the sad thing is that I'll be in your shoes in another year or two. The even funnier thing was that my son actually asked if he could drive our Lexus. Buwahahahaha...nOOb!

 

Bran I didn't know your other kid was a teenager.

Yeah I could've told you not to let some kid drive your race car with other cars driving around on the road. That's just a bad idea. Too much car for a kid to handle no matter how good they can drive on a course. They may have the skills to maneuver the car but they don't have the judgment. For our daughter's first car we will probably do a N/A Impreza or something with a bunch of years on it so we don't mind if she messes it up.

 

haha, yuuuuuuuuuuuuuuup freshman @ Mid Pac. Just great.....!

 

the first time at autocross i crashed joey's car into a mountain. true story. it wasn't any subaru, just a prelude. i got slightly better, but i drove my own car from then on.

 

It was the only car we had available. The wife wasn't home and she had the Lexus IS 300 and he sure wasn't going to drive the STi or the Ridgeline. So the Miata it was. BTW he was all gung ho to drive the Miata as his DD, but after the experience from yesterday, he now wants to drive our Lexus.

 

Ohhhhh nooooooooooo...not another MPI person! I'm a 97 grad.

 

I feel for you guys that have teenagers. I was terrible as a teenager. I don't even want to think about when its time for when my kids start to drive. Especially since I plan on keeping the EVO and GC for a long time.

 

My 15 year old doesn't even have a permit yet, but is consistently looking throughout the internet for Hachi-Rokus. I was brought up in a different era, so I was actually driving by age 12. I might just have to rent a car to teach my son, as I have two vehicles that are not conducive to first timers: a 4runner and an STi.

 

Diego, my offer still stands. You can send him to Maui and I'll teach him to drive manual in my Miata at our track. Just let me know.

 

I tried to teach my wife stick shift on my old GC8.
Got all confused about when to upshift and why you can't just downshift without revmatching and why the car stalls and whatnot.
Had an Exedy stage 1 clutch and Exedy lightweight flywheel in it, so it didn't make things easier for her.
Unfortunately, that's why I don't have the GC8 anymore and it got replaced with the Mini Cooper S.
Family members just shouldn't teach family members... too stressful.

 

My girlfriend asked me to teach her to drive stick, so I had her push her foot against my hand to simulate clutching for about 15 min describing the feel. Then she jumped in my car and she drove me to Safeway and back no problems first try! Even managed to get the car rolling from a inclined stop the first try. Of course after that you could smell some clutch, but hey I was proud as anything lol!