Costs are not all that has changed. When I first started in 89-90 timeframe some of our events were $25 for members and $35 for non-members. If you did not go off the track or lose it at least once during each session you were not trying hard enough.
Now they have all the 2-3 spins or offs and you go home...period. I do tend to not color outside the lines as much as I used to.
Now the track rental has gone up almost an order of magnitude and the insurance costs are sky high (dang lawyers and insurance compaines, can't we just set up a few situations where we can all choose to accept the risk and cut them out of the loop?)
Oh well, until there is something better I'll keep doing it.
I do enjoy instructing but a weekend would be waaaaay easier to not do it. If I got no discount, I'd probably skip it and focus on my own driving. At the instructor school this last weekend I had another instructor in the car pretending to be a student (a really bad student). Turns out he used to race SCCA and earned himself the nickname "Crash". It was a trial by fire type exercise to prepare instructors for the unexpected. I think instructing is a lot like driving. If you don't do it often enough you start to get rusty.
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Rob Channell
One Way Motorsports
1979 911SC mostly stock
1972 911T Targa now with a good 2.7
1990 Miata (cheap 'n easy)
1993 C1500 Silverado (parts getter)