The thrill of racing

Landscaping company owner Greg Monk makes the three-hour drive from Florence, Mont., to Stateline Speedway in Post Falls each summer Friday to pursue his dream of racing stock cars.

Competitive Edge Racing School is the only racing school Monk has attended where he is actually taught and allowed to race other drivers rather than to just follow an instructor’s car around the track. He said he loves the thrills racing provides.

“I own my own company,” Monk said. “It’s one of the only times I turn everything off is when I get in that car.”

Competitive Edge owners Randy and Jeneane Koch opened their school at the Evergreen Speedway in Western Washington, but later moved it to Yakima and then to the Stateline Speedway five years ago to take advantage of better climate and proximity to a major airport.

“We needed to find a place that has good weather and is easy to get to,” Jeneane Koch explained.

Now they teach hundreds of students each year, with options ranging from short thrill rides around the track to racing introductions to a weekend amateur racing series where the school provides the car, mechanics and fuel. Individual instruction is also available.

Driving 10 laps around the track runs $99. A two-session, 50-lap class costs $399. The full 14-race series is $6,500. And there are other options, including corporate racing events.

All options include classroom time reviewing the basics of driving, going over track lines and strategies.

“We’re going to put them in race cars that are nothing like their street cars – cars that handle and corner on a dime,” Randy Koch said of the pre-driving instruction. “You have to crawl before you can walk before you can run.

“The majority are here for the fun of it,” Randy Koch said. “We call it the ‘Bucket List,’ after the movie.”

Those who want to go further, however, can learn more.

Randy Koch is a former professional race car driver whose goal was once to race the Indy 500. But after a serious crash in 1992 shortly after his first child was born, Koch decided it was time to pursue running a racing school instead.

“I found that I had a unique ability to explain to people what they are doing on the track,” he said, adding that there is a lack of mentoring in the racing world. “If I had known then what I know now, I probably could have made it.”

Randy Koch originally tried teaching road racing before Jeneane Koch convinced him teaching stock cars was a better idea, especially with NASCAR’s popularity.

The “Championship Race Series” appeals to drivers who don’t want the hassle of buying a car. Randy Koch said he doesn’t know of any other U.S. racing school that offers a similar experience.

“You don’t have to own the car. You don’t have to work on it. You don’t have to do anything,” Randy Koch said. “You show up and put on your suit and helmet and you race one of our cars.”

Monk said that can be a big advantage since buying a stock car can cost at least $16,000 and that’s not counting the fuel and repairs.

Most of the students are men (the school had 105 men show up for a Father’s Day special earlier this month), but women do very well, Jeneane Koch said.

Women tend to pay more careful attention to the instructions, she said, focusing on following lines and driving with precision. The men, meanwhile, often just want to put pedal to metal.

“Usually by the end of the day the ladies are passing the men and the men are getting furious,” Jeneane Koch said with a laugh.

“Auto racing is perceived as being a very aggressive sport,” said Randy Koch in agreement. “But it’s not all rubber on the road and testosterone. Auto racing is like a ballet.”