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By Lawrence Ulrich




Buyers of Ferraris or Jaguars are used to perks from manufacturers – including racetrack lessons to help master their exotic machines. But for enthusiasts on a tighter budget, the Ford ST Octane Academy might be the sweetest deal in motoring: Buy a Ford Fiesta ST or Focus ST hatchback, and the reward is a free day of training at one of America’s longest, most-lavish road courses.
The ST Octane Academy is up and revving at Miller Motorsports Park near Park City, Utah, the $85 million, 511-acre playground created by the late Larry Miller, the owner of the Utah Jazz, auto dealership mogul and vintage car collector.
Opened in 2006, Miller Motorsports has been ground zero for Ford driver training, including extreme off-roading in Ford’s near-insane Raptor pickup. Miller’s Boss Track Attack program also highlights the famous loyalty of Mustang fans: 22 percent of people who bought a Boss 302 Mustang, or more than 1,500 students, have made the pilgrimage to Utah to put the Boss through its paces.
Today, it’s all about hot hatchbacks. Specifically, the 252-hpFocus ST and its smaller, lighter sibling, the 197-hp Fiesta ST. We’re just the third group of students at this new program, but the instructors – professional racers who’ve run everything from World Challenge to stock cars – are brimming with enthusiasm and ready to impart knowledge.
The Octane Academy’s bright-red Fiestas and maize-yellow Focuses are virtually identical to showroom models, except for added roll cages, racing harnesses and more robust brake pads and fluid. Oh, and one trick addition, as I learn when I strap into a Fiesta: Hydraulic handbrakes, their machined aluminum levers looking like erector-set parts, to help spin the Fords through turns like a rally driver.
The day begins with the requisite chalk-talk classroom session that outlines the track, safety and the day’s program. But it’s mercifully brief. We’re soon in the cars and delving into the mysteries of car control, practicing rotating the cars around cones at 90- and 180-degrees using steering, clutch and handbrake.
Next comes a stunt-man-style exercise that I’ve never experienced at a performance driving school: Practicing reverse, 180-degree spins. Readers of a certain age would recognize this as the favorite escape move of actor James Garner in the “Rockford Files,” TV series, in which the private detective would rocket his Pontiac Firebird Esprit backward down a street, then execute a perfect half-revolution before blasting off again.
Then it’s time for competitive juices to flow, as we tackle a devilish autocross course: A winding, timed sprint through a sinister gauntlet of orange cones, including slalom and figure 8’s. Knock down, mangle or otherwise molest an innocent cone, and you’re docked precious seconds – enough to knock even the fastest driver off the podium. (I manage to avoid the cones and eke out the autocross win, securing end-of-day bragging rights).
Demonstration of the autocross course at Octane Academy, by Evan Butka via YouTube
Autocrossing is a sport unto itself, staged mostly in giant parking lots, often informal and open to all comers. It’s also the most financially painless way to experience racing thrills. The Fiesta holds a clear advantage on this tight autocross circuit, as a smaller, lighter and shorter-wheelbase car.
That edge helped convince Scott Cross to upgrade from a standard Fiesta to the pocket-rocket Fiesta ST in October — and promptly enter his first-ever autocross, in a casino parking lot in Connecticut.
“I instantly fell in love,” with autocrossing, Cross says.
The Easthampton, Conn. engineer and former Navy submarine crewman is accompanied by his daughter Brandi, herself a Fiesta owner. As for the Fiesta ST, “I had seen the rave reviews, and I just loved the way it handled,” he says.
While the Fiesta is quick and the Focus quicker — at roughly 6.8- and 6.2-seconds from 0-60 mph, respectively — their larger claim to fame is handling that ranks among the very best front-wheel-drive cars. Both ST babies trace that sophisticated handling to the German-born Jost Capito, the former head of Ford’s Global Performance Vehicles. Talk about performance credentials: Though he’s since departed to manage VW’s motorsports, Capito formerly led both Porsche factory racing and Red Bull’s highly successful Formula One team.
After our own refueling at lunch, we drive a Ford Fusion hooked up to outriggers that boost the car’s tires slightly off the pavement, creating a simulation of driving on ice – a good lesson in driving with gentle inputs of throttle, steering and brakes.
Finally, it’s time to hit the big-boy track, the East portion of the Miller circuit. You can feel the anticipation as students trail a lead instructor for roughly a half-dozen laps to learn the track. Another half-dozen laps follow, with the pros riding shotgun and offering invaluable tips. Then we’re turned loose for a generous session of wide-open lapping.
As ever, the track affords an ideal point-counterpoint setting to compare Ford’s dual turbocharged entries in the hot hatch segment. The 2.0-liter Focus’ edge in displacement and horsepower is apparent every time it roars out of a turn and hauls down straightaways. Yet despite its smaller 1.6-liter turbo, the Fiesta presses its own advantages: At 2,754 lbs., it weighs about 450 fewer than the Focus. The Fiesta’s shorter-throw manual shifter makes for faster, sharper engagements. And while both STs are great at mimicking the superior handling of a rear-drive car, the Fiesta is the more balanced: Step off the gas in corners, and the Fiesta is insanely easy to pivot and rotate, resisting the plodding understeer – the tendency of front wheels to push and slide off course – that handicaps most front-drive cars.
On the street, the Focus is roomier, richer inside and arguably more-handsome, the likely choice for people who need more practicality with their power. But as I first experienced while testing the STs in the French Alps, it’s no contest as to which is nimbler and more fun-to-drive: The smaller, more-affordable Fiesta wins.
Fortunately, Ford has given customers two worthy options – and two ways to play at ST Octane Academy. Yes, school participants must pay or make their own way to Utah. But track time is precious, and a full day of this level of instruction would cost roughly $800 to $1,500 at any pro performance school.
Back in the pits, the red-suited students are flashing a collective grin. Those smiles get wider, if that’s possible, when we ride shotgun with instructors for a series of hot laps. Students, as ever, are duly blown away as the instructors show them how it’s done, punishing tires and ripping off breakneck laps with seemingly no effort.
Those pros include Johnny Kanavas, who’s most recently been campaigning a Porsche Cayman in the IMSA Continental Tire Sports Car Challenge. Kanavas sums up the day:
“Not many people expect that an affordable street car can perform so well,” Kanavas says. “People are going to say, ‘Holy Cow, I bought a good car.’”
Some students have piloted those cars to the event, including a Focus ST driven from Nevada, complete with its “JSTAFCS” license plate. And Kanavas offers what might be the best Octane Academy pitch of all: “You get to own one, and then come out here and beat on ours.”

senor honda

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