2025 Jerry Wolf Spring Classic
by Jeff Woodard, HPDE chairman
Click on image above to view Friday Gallery Session
No two events we host at Mid-Ohio are the same, and no two days are the same, even on the same weekend. What does remain constant is the incredible people who attend every time we host a weekend, and I need to say thank you to every driver who attended. We love putting on each event and are so grateful to everyone who trusts us to give them a great weekend. If it weren’t for our drivers and their dedication to our club, it wouldn’t be the incredible event it has become.
Click on image to view 2025 Jerry Wolf Spring Classic - Blue Session
As is typical, we had to wait to get through the gate on Thursday afternoon, but with around-the-clock access to the paddock, everyone could come and go as they pleased. It was quite nice to have everyone hanging out at the track each evening with no pressure to be off the property at a particular time. Many camped at the track for the entire weekend, using the shower facilities in the administration building. Mid-Ohio continues to make improvements at its facility, both on and off track.
On the track, they shaved off some of the surface at what we designate as turn 7, resurfacing the entire turn. Strangely, they have also done a patch of re-surfacing through turn 1 that left drivers struggling to balance the difference between the two surfaces mid-turn. Off track, they have completed repairs on the stairs to the viewing areas over the garages and have replaced paddock pavement that has been breaking up. There is still a lot to do, but we have to say thank you to the owners for putting the effort and the money into improvements.
Click image to view 2025 Jerry Wolf Spring Classic - White Session
For those of you who may be reading this, searching for some insight into what happens at High Performance Driver Education events, we now have a solution for you, but you must join us in October to get a taste. As a revived initiative this year, PCA has agreed that we can once again do “Track Experience” drives. These drives allow anyone attending who is at least 18 years old to ride with an instructor in our novice group. We have designated two instructors at each event to provide these drives, and they thoroughly enjoyed the smiles from each participant. To everyone wanting to give it a try, there are a couple of caveats to the program. You are required to attend one of the daily novice classrooms, and there is a $20 donation. At this event, we donated $200 that was raised to the Summer Kenard Memorial Fund for the fallen officer in Bellville, Ohio.
Click image to view 2025 Jerry Wolf Spring Classic - Red Session
I can give you a lot of insight into what HPDE is and what happens at an event, but until you get into the car and leave pit lane, you can never understand the sensory nirvana that happens each time. It is why we have drivers that have been doing this for 30 years reporting weekends at tracks from the U.S, to Europe, and Australia.
To take full advantage of the time we’re allotted on track our days start very early. Drivers tend to start pulling in around 6:30 in the morning to go over their checklists and make sure that their cars are ready for the first run of the day. Much has changed from twenty years ago, when 45 minutes prior to the track going green, you would have dozens of cars at idle with an occasional throttle blip to get some heat into all the systems. Today’s machinery is pretty much ready to go within minutes, so the paddock tends to be quiet until a few minutes before 8 a.m.
Click image to view 2025 Jerry Wolf Spring Classic - Green Session
I’d like to say that driver’s meetings are more like a family reunion, but only if you get all of your relatives up really early on their day off! The guidelines for an HPDE are universal, but there are some day-to-day changes that must be covered each morning. We must address problems that we are experiencing, changes to the track, and even weather conditions. Standing in front of roughly a hundred and fifty drivers early in the morning, you can feel the anticipation. The energy is electric as we bring the day into focus. Some have never been on a racetrack prior to that first morning, and others can’t remember what It was like to have never been on track before.
When the first group leaves the pit lane, the HPDE team takes a short breath and does a quick evaluation. Our primary goal of having a safe event is indicated by the constant cacophony of clubsports, cup cars, and street cars filling the air, which starts with that first group. We meet in pit lane to make sure that everyone is in place and review any comments that we picked up from the drivers that morning. If you are one of our drivers, we love to have solutions for some of the bumps in the road we face each day. By 9 that morning, we are hitting on all cylinders. We have visitors signed up for the track experience, we have 2 classrooms in full swing, full run groups heading out, and a previous group heading back in at the same time.
Click image to view 2025 Jerry Wolf Spring Classic - Yellow Session
A special thanks to the half dozen instructors who come up to instruct and not to drive. These instructors are willing to do nothing but jump in and out of cars all day long, working with all of our drivers. Another big thank you to those volunteers who monitor all our drivers heading out and returning. They make sure that everyone is strapped in properly and that the right drivers are heading out with the right groups. From the time that our drivers and their friends arrive at Mid-Ohio, our team is available to get them through registration, host a Friday night pizza party, and generally keep everyone moving forward. I also want to thank those drivers who frequently step up to help throughout the weekend when they see something that needs to be done. They don’t do it for recognition (none of us do), they just do it because they are family.
To give you an idea of how big the family is, I’ll tell a quick story. A couple of years back, we had a group out of Denver with 6 drivers who wanted to make the trip to our spring event. They were a great group, and we all made introductions throughout the weekend. This was the only time we had met, and it was very brief. A few months went by, and Becky and I were at COTA for the F1 race. I had camped overnight with the intent of getting into the track early and setting up a spot for our crew at turn 6. It allowed us to see everything from T2 through T11 and a couple of the turns on the back side of the track. I hadn’t been there 15 minutes, and I heard my name. It was the crew from Denver, amazingly finding the same location as a great spot to catch the action.
Some day I’ll get out to “High Plains Raceway” to spend some time hanging with them at their home track. If you’ve never been part of a track family, give it a try, we’re always looking for new members and are happy to show you around. Our next event is October 3-5 at Mid-Ohio and is simply called Autumn Thunder. If you’ve not signed up, now is the time to do just that. We hope to see you there!
