Advanced driver training

[mr2mk1g 10]

And not the boring kind either.

Was given a session as a birthday present and went earlier in the week. Took my track wheels off and put road tyres back on and went through about 3mm of tread in the day. Lots of sideways and spinning action.

Most of the morning spent perfecting taking a 90 degree bend at speed. Starting out at 60mph and trying to turn in without hitting a line on the runoff zone. Building up speed to doing it at 80mph + while still turning to avoid the imaginary wall. Lots of spins and learning how to anticipate, catch and correct the spin. Then doing it at 80 while emergency braking through the corner... and stopping the spin.

Afternoon was understeer/oversteer training, controlling slip angle on the throttle. Lots of counterintuitive things to practice like taking off lock in order to turn harder. Ended the day doing runs of a timed circuit putting into practice everything we'd learnt over the day.

Cracking day, lots of fun, stacks to learn. Highly recommend you look into something local to where ever you are in the world. If you're in the UK, I can highly recommend Car Limits. Instructor is an ex-F1 driver who competes in the Elise Trophy, splitting his time between 4 students on the day. It's even taken into account by some insurers when setting premiums (I'm guessing probably only niche market mind) and current F1 teams come to do exactly the same high speed bend as we were doing.

[airdvr 210]

Sounds like fun. One problem with your newfound skills; those around you don't have them.

Please don't dent the planet.

Destinations by Roxanne

[CanuckInUSA 0]

I have had similar training though I am sure it was a little different in it application. Mine has mostly been on race tracks, starting slow and building the speeds up. But skid pads (not what I went through) have a lot of valuable uses as well and I echo your recommendations that others should try it. Yeah sure the majority of the others on the public roads may not have this knowledge, but the fact that you know how to balance the car in the corners means you have a chance to avoid many issues before they become issues.

BTW ... who was your former F1 instructor? One of my instructors was Allen Berg (likely not as well known as yours?), and Allen competed in F1 back in 1986. Unfortunately he drove for a crappy team (Osella) in a crappy underpowered unreliable Italian made donkey Kart. But he did finish 3rd behind Ayrton Senna and Martin Brundle in the 1983 F3 championships. So he had skill.

Try not to worry about the things you have no control over