Meet Professor McKeever and His Amazing Rust Remover

There’s a graying population of civilian racers who have attended several driving schools over many years, know Laguna Seca and remember Riverside when, and have taken a race-prepped Corvette close to 200 miles per hour. They’ve even touched the lower rungs of a podium finish or two.

But we really don’t know what we’re doing.

Be honest now.

“Not the honesty thing again,” moans Jim Herman, 54, of Santa Barbara, an Alfa Romeo and BMW club racer on weekends, an attorney weekdays and owner of a BMW M Coupe. “OK, could be that we’re better at appealing the results than driving the cars.”

Herman admits another flaw: his penchant for fast starts followed by a rapid fade to the rear.

“I’ve done all the stupid things except run out of gas,” agrees Rick Wynne, 42, of Los Angeles, another lawyer, another club racer and owner of an Acura NSX. “When I think I’m at max, I see someone blowing by, on the phone and going 600 rpm faster.”

Hence Wynne’s half-serious desire to author a book: “Racing for Dummies.”

The third member of this league of racing lawyers is John Reitman, 42, also of Los Angeles. He shares a car, a recovering and race-prepared BMW 325i, with Wynne and claims he is the team’s driving mechanic.

“I know how to change a wheel, and have just moved up to changing a tire,” he says.

Then there is me.

My racing career began shortly after the Civil War, a journey from cotton Sala racing suits to Simpson Nomex. I’ve campaigned a Sebring Sprite at Mosport near Toronto, a Ferrari 348 at Sears Point north of San Francisco, a Lotus 23 at Phoenix International Raceway and a Formula Ford at Riverside.

Along the way I have picked up more bad habits than trophies. Races were spaced so far apart that organizers forgot my qualifications and I was carded at every event. Many physical activities and conjugal pleasures are matters of intuition, but motor racing isn’t anything like riding a bicycle.

*

And so we gathered at Willow Springs International Raceway in Rosamond, four amateurs denying their years but out to improve instincts, remove spots from rusted skills, be guys and bare our souls at a one-day remedial racing school.

Our professor is Danny McKeever, founder and dean of the Fast Lane Racing School at Willow. Even the other driving academies--Bondurant, Russell and Barber--consider McKeever’s one of the finest. He has raced sports cars, was chief instructor for the California Sports Car Club for 12 years, has owned his own schools for more than a decade and is the driver sliding sideways in the wet and coming to rest alongside another Mustang in a current Ford commercial.

“Two takes,” says modest McKeever.

We are suitably impressed.

For 14 years, the wry and personable McKeever, 59, has directed the stars as driving coach for the annual Toyota Pro-Celebrity preliminary to the Toyota Grand Prix of Long Beach. Anthony Edwards, Richard Dean Anderson, Jay Leno, Jason Bateman and Rick Schroder are among his alums who have learned the shortest, quickest lines through corners fast, slow and tricky. McKeever has been a personal trainer to Tim Allen, Craig T. Nelson, Gene Hackman and Bruce Jenner as they transitioned from celebrity drivers to very serious and highly competitive weekend racers.

McKeever’s services are varied and pricey. His clients range from a teenager referred by her parents because they recognize a dangerous attitude when they see one to young bloods with eyes unwavering on Indianapolis and Daytona. You can learn in your own car or in one of McKeever’s wonderfully stiff, beautifully behaved, race-prepared Toyota Celica GTs.

A three-day course that will take a novice to club racer costs $1,895. A single day of exclusive one-on-one can run $2,500. But a group rate for advanced drivers and all the track time you can stand--about four hours in the high desert during midsummer--can be had for $500.

“Everything is priced on my personal premise,” McKeever says. “That is: ‘What do we need to do to prepare you for exactly what you want to do?’ ”

*

McKeever and I have driven belted and helmeted alongside each other, instructor and postgraduate student, for several refreshers through the years. Sometimes he smiles. Once in a while there’s a thumbs-up. He has been known to cover his eyes.

He has read my driving, and here’s the good news: “You are not afraid to drive the car and drive it fast. Your car control is decent. You really just have to get concentration and discipline up and start putting in good laps, time after time.”

Then the bad news: “You’re working the car and steering wheel too hard. You need to improve your lines through the corners, braking, shifting and where you are putting the car on the track. You tend to brake too late and then have to gather the car up, get back on line and start making corrections at the exit of the turn. Not a good idea.”

Suitably humbled, appropriately silent and mildly embarrassed before this court of my peers, I concentrated on the Gospel According to St. Danny:

“The hardest thing for me to teach, and the hardest thing for you to learn, is where are the limits? Of you and the car. Today, we are going to see if we can take some steps to reach those limits.

“It’s not a speed and working thing. It’s a feel thing. So I’ll be watching your grip on the steering wheel, watching your body language for signs of tension, how you hold your head, how you use your head and where your eyes are going. I want to see good braking and downshifting. Brake to clutch, gas to brake, brake to gas. All to be done very quickly, very smoothly.

“Speed comes with technique, and all of these small things will add up to you being quicker.”

And so a sweaty, dry-mouthed ordeal began. Nothing to fear, nothing to panic and pucker about. Those kind of nerves were extinguished years ago when this whole business of merging man with a machine began making sense. Now it’s a matter of chipping away at bad habits, and getting a groove.

Herman, Wynne and Reitman went out to play with their own toys. McKeever drove the Celica, showing me how. In fourth for Turns 1, 2 and 3; downshifting for 4 and the uphill left-hander. Back into fourth for Turn 7, and into fifth to take No. 8, a right-hand sweeper, flat-out. Downshift for 9, let the car unwind to driver’s left, then into the pit straight.

I drove McKeever, showing him that I was listening.

McKeever climbed into the pace car and I chased his tail, wired to his bumper, dogging every line through each corner, finally feeling the choreography and groping closer to those limits.

Then practice, lap after lap, carving the same line, etching shift and braking points and taking no notice of the sweat soaking through a three-layered driving suit. Because it was happening. I could hold the constant radius of Turns 2 and 3, steering not by the wheel but by throttle; a heavier foot to turn in, lift slightly to increase the arc.

And, finally, foot buried, flat-out in fifth in a perfectly balanced car, 110 mph through Turn 8. A time to whoop. A need to go out and do it again. All day and for a lifetime. Because you were playing a rhythm, and the race car seemed happy with that.

*

There was satisfaction, even some thumbs-up, from McKeever on our graduation laps.

“From where you started today, about a 60% improvement,” he says. “On those last laps you went through every corner perfectly at least once. Now we’ve got to get where you can go through every corner perfectly every time.”

I settled for that.

Because earlier in the day, exiting a corner too fast, I dropped a rear wheel off the edge of the circuit. The Celica went berserk, bucking, kicking up a dust storm, straining to swap ends. Corrections had to be firm but slight. Catch the lateral motion by steering. Watch for the whip as suspension energies snapped from left to right.

Then back on the gas to balance and calm the car and return its motion to flat and forward.

That’s when McKeever spoke a phrase that is every racing driver’s blessing from his betters: “Good catch.”