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)I’m not advertising the services, just imparting a lay-mans experience to others in a similar position. I’ve read so many times that the best and first upgrade to any new Elise / Exige (or any performance car come to that) is to improve and educate the driver. Excellent, accurate and very profound advice indeed. If you are actually too experienced and skilled for it, fair play to you. If you just think you’re too good to try it, best of luck.
It all started just after midnight on Wednesday morning when I noticed a post from Walshy saying that his Thursday session still had spaces. I contemplated the ‘can I, should I?’ bit for a while, but just thought that I've said all along I want to do one, there is space, it could be a little damp (realistic road conditions!) and I can wangle work so sod it, I'm going
It was a pretty sizeable consideration in my case though because it would mean travelling up from Devon, doing the day and then home again straight after. Tucked myself up in bed stupidly early (for me) at 10:15pm on Wednesday night for a 3am start, but lying there thinking about this and that saw me still wide awake at 1:30am! Managed to drift off for an hour and half before surfacing and hitting the road at 4am. Easy trip up - even the M25 was continuously moving at 7:45am
Walshy was adjusting a few wind-affected cones with the front of his courtesy Pug when I pulled up at North Weald. He then handbrake parked himself alongside his four gathered ‘students’ and we begin
Ever the gent, I conceded to ladies first - one in a 111R, another in a Porsche Boxster S and after setting a guy who had attended twice before in an M3 CSL off on some warm-up exercises, Andy then proceeded to take some time to assess new drivers' basic abilities one at a time
My turn came around - yeay! We set off and first up is the emergency stop. Never hit the brakes hard in my new Elise before, so didn't know quite how much to stand on them, but all was cool and Andy was suitably pleased that the clutch didn't go down too early. (Quick tip here - if you haven't seen the Car Limits DVD, then do so before going as it gives you some handy pointers like the 'clutch not going down too early on a rapid stop' type one!)
It was then off to the ‘hammering down a straight, releasing the throttle and flying around a 90 degree bend’ exercise. As always, Andy lets you start off at a pace you're happy with and then you can increase it as confidence grows. 60 mph is simple. 65 no worries. If this is your first time, 70 starts to get interesting... particularly when the bump in the surface hits hard as you start to turn! So much so that it's soon spin city! I've personally never spun in a car before - it's great to get that experience! Not scary, just educational. It’s important to stress that spinning and losing control is vital to your learning curve. It is induced and encouraged to help you ‘feel’ the car and gain better understanding. It’s all perfectly safe with plenty of run-off area and time to get the clutch in (to stop the engine running backwards) and apply the brakes to bring things to an easy halt
Andy explained that most chaps fall foul of this because they use their super-human strength to grip the wheel and battle it hard. He then tried to get me to take the same corner at 70 with just one finger on top of the wheel to demonstrate how little resistance actually allows the car to show you what it wants to do and enables it to all happen without resulting in a spin. That felt bloody odd hurtling down an airfield feeder road using just one finger to control the car with... needless to say, right at the point of turning in I said "Can’t do that - just feels wrong!!" I didn't doubt Andy's word of course, but in 17 years of driving I'd never attempted such a thing before! Mr Walsh then proceeded to demonstrate... we approached the corner, he flicked it sideways and let go of everything! Sure enough, the car wiggled, sorted itself out and away we went
With this knowledge and a conscious awareness of letting the car move, it was back to the high-speed corner to practice a nice soft touch and develop some feedback inspired control. Andy hops between cars to spend time with each of the four students whilst you all take it in turns to practice what you're focussing on. The good thing here is that his approach allows different drivers with differing levels of skill and adventure to continue at their own pace. Some will get it quickly, others will not have the confidence in themselves or their cars to push the limits... but that is exactly what it's all about - learning about your car but even more importantly, learning about yourself
The Car Limits DVD is titled ‘Bending The Rules’ – I’ve done one of these days now and of course don’t claim to be any expert, although the next stage I guess lends itself to that in as much as Andy gets you to brake hard going into and through corner – not exactly what we’re taught or practice usually. There is indeed a train of thought that says you should get all your braking done in a straight line before entering the corner, but again whilst not professing to be a professor of the art, I guess that’s really geared towards getting prepared for better exit speeds on track. Learning what the car will do under hard braking in a corner is more related to everyday situation and even more pertinently, in an emergency. If you haven’t learnt all about some useful do’s and don’ts, the chances are you’ll do the wrong thing just when you need good technique the most
After hurtling into the bend at 85 and hitting the brakes hard whilst turning to induce under-steer (i.e. you steer left but the car goes straight on) it was time for Andy to introduce the next stage. Fast in, brake hard whilst turning and lift completely off the brake pedal… the back overtakes the front and you spin again! We then develop this a stage further. Fast in, turn whilst braking hard, to induce under-steer, lift off to start the back coming round, brakes on again to counter that movement and so on… next thing you know, you’ve taken the corner whilst braking hard and controlling the attitude of the car with the brake pedal alone. Again, this isn’t aimed at quick lap times on a track, it’s about feeling, understanding and practising the technique so it’s there for you when you need it – or at the very least, all goes into the mix for building sound educational experience for you with your car
Slip-angle theory is then introduced and this basically centres on the point whereby forward momentum overcomes the steering ability of the front wheels. Turning the wheel more has no effect once the threshold has been exceeded and this demonstrates how futile extra steering input is when the ‘optimum slip-angle’ has been exceeded. You get to feel that point through the steering wheel and how to appreciate what it’s telling you. You experience how you can increase and decrease the diameter of the constant circle you’re driving simply by adding more or less power to make bigger and smaller circles without actually turning the steering any more or less from the half lock you’re holding
The post-lunch session is a coned out circuit – start here, around that one, back to this one, through those two etc etc. Andy drives you around slowly at first, showing you the route, braking and turn-in points and so on. He then displays his talents once again by doing it at pace and making it all look very easy
He closes by saying ‘Oh by the way, it’s not as easy as it looks!’ …you don’t say?!?! Then it’s your turn to have three laps at it – which of course you spend just trying to remember which way you’re going and forgetting all your braking and turn-in markers! Then the other drivers have their turn. After this, you all have more laps at it and get to passenger with each otherWalshy builds this up as ‘having a bit of fun after lunch’ - and it is… it is just fantastic. I’ve driven some good cars in a fairly spirited manner in my time – but have never done anything like that. Getting it sideways to take hairpins after inducing spin and powering through is just stunning. I’ll state again that this is of course tremendous fun, but it is all about practising, feeling and understanding car control as well as being incredibly educational both in terms of technique and finding out about yourself. (Hearing the guy with the M3 CSL making noises under G in the corners and saying “I think I’ve bought the wrong car” was rather rewarding too!
)4pm rolled around and that was that… apart from the 5 1/2 hour trip home again in heavy traffic and torrential rain
the M4 near Bristol was more like the river Severn. After the days experience, did I feel more confident in those conditions? Well no, not really, but then again I don’t get easily scared and always have consummate respect for these cars in those conditions. Simple. (Does anyone else get those ‘Seriously guys, take it easy in the wet’ PH posts flashing through their minds in these circumstances.? I hope so)What was very, very apparent though was the feeling when I eventually hit the A and B roads nearer home of how much more ‘connected’ and ‘at one’ with the car I felt. That feeling was tremendously rewarding… I mean seriously rewarding, even though I wasn’t driving faster, I felt I was driving better. Do I now think that I can hurtle around the bends quicker and take more risks than I did before the training day? No of course not. Anyone who comes away thinking they’re now simply an even better lunatic has missed the point totally
One thing has struck me however and I make an analogy with football coaching – you can teach players correct techniques etc, but how they apply that in split second during the heat of the moment is what separates the great from the mediocre. I feel the same here – how do you know what to apply and when to do it? And in what amounts? Sometimes you may want to add more steering when in fact a little lift off the throttle would help… or even a touch on the brake etc etc. I can only surmise that practice, practice, practice is the way forward on that score – and even then, that’s only of you’re planning to hit the track and have a suitable facility / area at which to do it. Deliberately getting sideways at silly speeds on the open road is just asking for trouble – loon about all you like for sure, but don’t create a situation where you can bring innocent others into it. Despite not fully grasping an exact correlation of how it all goes together just yet, I am still in absolutely no doubt that it has helped enormously on many levels
In summary – I spent 585 miles and practically 17 hours in my car and loved every minute. The car, the trip, Walshy, the training, the experience – everything! If you’re considering it - just do it. If you haven’t thought about it yet - just do it! I’ll be looking to do another to cement all my thoughts and rehearse and develop good technique and of course activity days whereby you get to practice without the instruction (I think!) would obviously come in very useful… now, how can I get North Weald on the back of a lorry to Devon..?
I strongly recommend it to anyone and everyone
(Source: www.seloc.org)
(Source: www.british-cars.co.uk)
(Source: www.british-cars.co.uk)
For those that don't know it, Crail is a disused airfield in the east of Fife, right on the shore. It is used for a number of motorsports events, including track days, 1/4 mile drag racing and club hire for events like this one. See www.crailthrash.co.uk for more details.
The goal of the day was to improve driving skills and explore the limits of the Elise's handling (and my driving).
I shared the day with another pupil (in this case my neighbour in her brand new WRX Subaru). We had the whole day at Crail, sharing Andrew's time in equal measure. The weather was superb, cold but bright.
To start with we played with setting out a little track on which we would later put our newly found skills to the test.
Then we did some braking practice. The goal of this being to keep the wheels on the verge of locking up by varying the pressure on the pedal smoothly to maintain maximum decceleration. Andrew showed me up straight away by undercutting my braking distance from 60mph by a good 20 feet, though I had reduced the deficit to just 10 feet by the end of the day. In a similar exercise we attempted to attain the maximum speed over a fixed distance and still stop before overshooting the end marker. As a result I am more confident and smoother in my braking.
Now it was time to take to the track. I drove a couple of laps to allow Andrew to assess my technique. The two main problems were steering beyond the first revolution and my dangerous heel'n'toe technique. The steering was easily fixed, though hard to master - Andrew explained how rotational steering enables you to turn from full lock to full lock more smoothly and with fewer crossings of the hands. It takes some getting used to, but I am now beginning to get the hang of it, doing it more or less automatically in most situations. The heel'n'toe is harder; I still find it awkward to make this work, though I have been successfull in unlearning my old technique, which had to happen first!
We then took advantage of the sliding oval that is available at Crail. It allows the driver to experiment with both understeer and oversteer, provided you have the guts! The fact that the oval has somewhat solid looking tyre walls around it certainly helps focus the mind.
At first I was struggling to setup oversteer. Once again Andrew swapped into the driving seat and showed how it is done. Armed with the knowledge that it was possible and that we wouldn't die I was more committed to finding the oversteer and did manage to do so. Once you know how to set it up, it is indeed there on the S2 and can be used with dramatic effect :-) However, the main purpose here is learning to (a) convert understeer to oversteer in order to help power out of corners and (b) to get used to the oversteer so as to be able to control and counter it when required.
Having reached the limits (almost literally :-)) of the oval we moved back to the track and performed a series of circle exercises, culminating with some hooligan oversteer antics - thoroughly recommended!
We then set up a tightening slalom course which we used to explore the pendulum effect - superb.
Then we attacked the track once more, this time with both cars on the track with Andrew driving the Subaru and me driving the Elise. Of course it was not a race, and Andrew has to consider the well being of his borrowed car, but the two cars were well matched on this short circuit. We had to stop when the sun was too low on the horizon for their to be safe vision; perhaps just as well as the WRX's brakes were smokin' hot!
It was a good humoured day with an excellent instructor. Andrew is calm and offers well thought out advice on how to improve your driving to make it faster and more importantly safer.
I would recommend it to anyone who wants to explore the limits of their car and/or their abilities. Crail offers a safe venue at which to do this, provided you are sensible.
I am looking forward to doing the on-the road performance driving next year.
I'd opted to do the course in my own car partly because of the differences between my 111s and his own standard Elise (extra padding on the seats being a special consideration when you're sitting on 'em for 6 hours!) and partly because I wouldn't feel comfortable "raggin' the arse off" someone else's car. I was also secretly pleased not to be driving around in a car with bright yellow wheels that look like they've been taken off a Tonka toy… ;-)
One thing that makes the course particularly useful is that the format of the day isn’t set in stone. Andrew assessed my ability early on and tailored the lessons to suit me; I chose to do a mix of the advanced course and the high performance techniques. We did a lot more town work than the usual performance course because I decided it reflected my day-to-day driving conditions better – the congested roads of East Anglia do not even begin to compare to Wales! The roads around Swansea are fabulous, but I didn’t have any time to appreciate the views because practicing the new techniques I’d learnt required 101% of my concentration – a reminder that driving any car perhaps deserves more than the 10% attention most of us pay on our daily commute!After he’d taught me the essential skills I had to get used to (particularly observation, downshifting and road positioning) not once did Andrew urge me to “slow down” or “look out!”; he patiently dealt with all my questions and mistakes (oh, apart from the time I didn’t spot the 30 limit signs off a roundabout – oops!). I added quite a lot of rubber to the skid mark strewn “emergency stop” route before I got used to stopping properly – an essential skill that’s probably often overlooked until it’s too late. I will be finding a quiet road I can continue to practice this one, but I doubt I’ll be able to find anywhere that has quite so many dozy sheep standing on it.
The demonstration Andrew gave of what my car can do in capable hands was gob smacking – better than a whole day at Alton Towers! I had wondered if his demo would make me think “I can do that”, but exactly the opposite has occurred in my mind – it was quite humbling and made me realise that throwing a Fiat Panda around when I was 17 did not make me an expert in car control…I got back to Cambridge tired and sunburnt but still grinning at the 500+ miles I’d driven that day.
Was it worth the £120 tuition fee, £70 worth of petrol and lives of some twenty thousand innocent flies and moths? Absolutely! Book now before he realises his prices are too low and puts them up (and no, I’m not on commission).
(Source: www.british-cars.co.uk)
I made just about every mistake going (including forgeting which side of the road I should be on :o), but he remained calm & patient throughout."Course" is a bit of a misnomer really - he'll cover any techniques you want to cover & give you feedback on your driving.
At the end of the first day I was suffering from sheer fatigue (3 nights of minimal sleep the previous days were catching up too). So Andrew took over and gave a demo down a twisty & narrow road. Wow! That demonstration really showed me the sheer grippyness & braking power of the Elise. We had some great fun around a roundabout too.
On reflection, 2 days was too much. I should have done the 2nd day sometime ater when I had time to absorb what he told me on the first day. Oh well, nevermind, I guess that gives him the opportunity to make more money outta me at a later date :o)
Driving backwards and forwards across the Brecon Beacons was one of the highlights - it was worth it just for that.
As I had a lot of the technical stuff covered we sort of went straight to day 2 of the 2-day course. I have a bad habit of tensing up when pushing hard and being fairly oblivious to what's going on behind me and in my peripheral vision. We spent a lot of time on that and general observations as well as some areas of the IAM course. ...
That might sound dull but there's more crossover than you might think between advanced and high-performance driving. Driving faster is one thing but I think it's important to improve your safety and awareness skills at the same time. ...
We covered 250-260 miles in all and I'm sure it will take several hundred (if not thousand) miles more some of the lessons to fully sink in and become second nature. That's the thing - even if you think you know it all (not that I did) you will discover areas of your driving to think about that you didn't even know existed. ...
At the end of the day, Andrew will tailor the course on the day to suit you and what you want to get out of the it. It certainly is excellant VFM and frankly I'd quite happily spend money for a day's blissful driving in glorious weather with like-minded company.
During the afternoon I covered some of the performance aspects, no doubt if you are a seasoned track-day driver you would do far more of this, but as I said before the beauty of the course is it is tailored to the individual.
Many people (like me) on the BBS have said they haven't yet taken part in a track day, I think this day is an excellent stepping stone and will now be looking to move on to the track (with instruction) myself.
I would certainly recommend this course and pass my thanks once agian to Andrew for giving me such an enjoyable day.
Got a good feel for the car though and after spending 6 hours or so in the drivers seat, gave me a lot to think about and to put into practice at home. Overall it was a real eye-opener to my everyday driving and was a great introduction to the advanced course! I think I'd have got a little more out of the performance side after driving my own car for a few months, but the whole approach to driving quickly, and doing so safely was something Andrew got across very well and which I now feel much more confident with. Anybody thinking of the best way to spend their £££'s to get the most from their car, driver training is undoubtedly the best way to go! Andrew's car is a standard S1 and his "demonstration" in the afternoon blew me away - I didn't appreciate a car do do that - (and the road was damp)! All in all an excellent day - well worth the dosh, and something i'm looking forward to doing again.
Not much more to add to what has already been said above.
Thank you Andrew!