From a press release issued by Infineon Raceway, which is located in Sonoma, California, in the San Francisco Bay area:

Bay Area Teens Learn Driving Skills at Infineon Raceway

SONOMA, Calif. (IMMEDIATE RELEASE) Nearly 400 high school students from eight Bay Area high schools learned some valuable driving skills this week at AAA¢s High School Safe Driver Program at Infineon Raceway.

The participating high schools were: San Ramon Valley (Danville); New Technology (Napa); Vintage (Napa); Junipero Serra (San Mateo); San Marin (Novato); Las Lomas (Walnut Creek); Petaluma; and Mission Valley (Fremont). The four-day program was also sponsored by the Jim Russell Racing Drivers School and the California Highway Patrol.

Each school had the opportunity to send 50 students to the raceway for a free four-hour session. Students got behind the wheel to learn important skills and techniques necessary to make them better drivers. The course, which exposed teens to extreme driving conditions (skidding, speeding, threshold braking, road obstacles, spinning out of control), also included classroom instruction. The on-track instruction was administered by professional instructors from the Jim Russell Racing Drivers School, which is based at Infineon Raceway. This marked the eighth year of the program, which ran from Monday-Thursday.

“This was a very good experience,” said Al Bahn, Dean of Students at Vintage High. “This program teaches the kids how to handle potentially dangerous situations, and I think they learned a great deal.”

Vintage senior Katie Priebe wished she had taken this class long ago. She was involved in a car accident just six months after getting her license while driving the Silverado Trail in Napa.

“I only had my license for six months before I got in that accident,” Priebe said. “I wish I had this class before. I learned a lot of things today, especially to not panic when I’m behind the wheel.”

“This was the best field trip I’ve had in my four years here,” said San Marin senior Andrew Walton. “I learned many things that will help me when I’m driving. What really stands out is now I feel confident that I can handle a skid properly. I had no clue how to handle that before I came here.”

The students qualified for the program by implementing a safety project within their respective high school that stressed safety while on the roadways. AAA judged the safety projects before selecting the eight high schools.