HPDE 1 Lead / Follow Program

The NASA Great Lakes region Lead / Follow Program has 2 elements:

1. Required Familiarity and Testing of Drills, Procedures and classroom material PRIOR to the required Friday 1/2 day L/F training program
2. The actual Sat and Sun HPDE 1 Lead / Follow instruction pairing you with 1 or 2 follow students.  We have found high rates of student learning in a 1:1 L/F format on Saturday followed by 1:2 or 1:3 on Sunday.

Familiarity of the program and testing on L/F methods occurs prior to Sat and Sunday.  Because there is so much NEW classroom info and NEW instructing techniques used by the instructor, the following steps must be taken to help you succeed.  Our overall goal is to prepare you to be successful with your student on Saturday.

Step 1.  Watch this Lead / Follow video webinar hosted by MSF as it provides a wonderful background on Lead / Follow along with some good best practices.  There are a few questions on the exam that relate to information provided on this 70 minute video.

Step 2.  Briefly read and become familiar with any of these documents.  All of them are on the famialiarity exam. 

• Drill Descriptions
• Your weekend drill order
• Follow Student Character Roles
• Lead / Follow standardized hand signals
• Session Review:  Book of EOB
• Session Review:  Early / Late Apex Drill
• Session Review:  New Track Drill
• Session Review:  Point, Pass, Hand Drill
• Session Review:  Threshold Braking, Weight Transfer (Cone Circus)
• Session Review:  Vision, Perfect Line Drill
• MSF Lead-Follow Instructing Procedures

Step 3.  Watch this video

Step 4.  Take this familiarity exam.  It will get you up to speed with our L / F program so your Friday L / F training is successful.   The exam is largely based on the STEPS 2 and 3 documents above.

Additional Non-Required Learning resources:

Optional Additional Lead / Follow Webinar

That's it.  Follow the steps and get your Lead / Follow certification.  Going forward we will have this training in both our Initial Instructor training along with re-occruing current approved Great Lakes Instructor.  For vehicle prep please add a large "X" on your back and front windows so both your students and other instructors know who is in control.  We have these for you at our registration office we call "NASA Central".

Contact Eric Meyer for more info

THE INTENT OF THIS DOCUMENT IS TO CONVEY IMPORTANT INFORMATION SO THAT A PARTICIPANT CAN MAKE AN INFORMED DECISION ABOUT WHICH GROUP TO CHOOSE. IN THE INTERESTS OF SAFE, SERIOUS, FUN, DRIVERS SIGNING UP FOR A GROUP FOR WHICH THEY ARE NOT QUALIFIED WILL BE SUBJECT TO PENALTIES, INCLUDING A 1 YEAR SUSPENSION OR FORFEITURE OF NASA MEMBERSHIP. WHEN IN DOUBT, PLEASE SIGN UP FOR THE LOWER GROUP. DRIVERS CAUSING “TRAINS” WILL BE ASKED TO MOVE BACK TO A LOWER RUN GROUP.