Advanced driving courses - are they worth it?

[tacoma]

I pick up my first TVR a '98 Chimaera 400 on Sunday, and as you can imagine i have hardly stoppped grinning since the test drive.


I was thinking of doing one of those advanced drining days but want to know if they are worth it and where the best place to go is both in terms of value for money and standard of tuition.

I know this is subjective but i would be grateful for your experiences.

thanks

m

[stuh]

tacoma said:

I pick up my first TVR a '98 Chimaera 400 on Sunday, and as you can imagine i have hardly stoppped grinning since the test drive. I was thinking of doing one of those advanced drining days but want to know if they are worth it and where the best place to go is both in terms of value for money and standard of tuition. I know this is subjective but i would be grateful for your experiences. thanks m

Me and the Mrs did RideDrive a couple of months back. Can't reccommend it highly enough

[groucho]

I'm doing one next month at Silverstone. I will know better on how to comment after that. I'll probably post a thread on what it was like. Definately looking forward to it.

Grouch.

[bogie]

Andy Walsh of www.carlimits.com - done 6 days there myself - about £120-150 a day depending on car club discounts etc.

Saved me and my car many a time on a wet winters morning

[Don]

You're confusing Advanced Driving with Track Driving here...

Sure, the best way to learn "on the limit" car control is to go to a track or airfield and get the car out of shape....and learn to get it back. I'm hoping to join the PH Track Academy sessions and so some more of exactly that.

"Advanced Driving" on-road is a different thing. Its car control elements are aimed at ensuring the largest margin of safety for any particular manoeuvre, improved observation and therefore accident avoidance skills and the extraction of safe progress from the road.

If you want the latter then don't go to a track - it won't help, particularly. Do Ride/Drive. Or, and vastly cheaper, join the IAM /RoADA and get most of what you want/need for about £90!

This includes hours and hours of virtually free instruction!

[bogie]

Andy Walsh does both - on the road to IAM std and on the airfield for car control....both are good, and compliment each other - no good being observant if the first time it goes sideways you panic and lose it...and vice versa...no good being a driving god on track, if you have poor on the road skills...you can never have enough training IMO.

[GarryM]

Don said:

You're confusing Advanced Driving with Track Driving here... "Advanced Driving" on-road is a different thing. Its car control elements are aimed at ensuring the largest margin of safety for any particular manoeuvre, improved observation and therefore accident avoidance skills and the extraction of safe progress from the road. If you want the latter then don't go to a track - it won't help, particularly...!

BUT we're talking about a high powered, lightweight RWD car here. Experiencing what happens when you overstep the mark (which is easy in these cars) is exactly the sort of driver training required.

IAM and the like are excellent of course but extra training on car control is highly relevant for a TVR IMHO.

[Tripps]

I can highly recommend the Ride Drive courses having done one and going on another soon.

Start with a half day, at only £120 it give you a refresher on your driving from a police instructor as much as we'd hate to admit it, we all pick up bad habits. Then as the morning goes on they shwo you observation techniques that can be applied in different situations, police overtaking procedure etc. By the end of the session he was telling me to go faster, as I had improved my obersational skills to allow me to do so.

They also do a combined road and track day at around £330 I recall.

Some on-limit training / practice is ideal too, we did a regional airfield day which had us hanging out tail ends, doing brake tests etc. and many others organise such days.

[PetrolTed]

www.pistonheads.com/reviews/reviews.asp?c=62&id=225

[ntel]

I'm trying to talk my family into chipping in together and buying me a one day ride drive course for christmas (because i'm a tight git). I already consider myself to be a good driver, but hey, don't we all. Hopefully I'll find out if I am in a safe environment under expert tuition.

Its got to be well worth it.

[bridgdav]

bridgdav said:

A few of us S drivers went on the 1st Lotus Driver tuition day a few months back... Write up... HERE Dave

[DanH]

'car limits' is the same as '1st lotus' in case anyone is wondering Done 4 or 5 days myself, although some of them were pure drifting (there's a pic in my profile). Good value at 150 for a day.

[DanH]

Here's some footage of the instructor from car limits. Its from his forthcoming dvd, but its stuff he teaches on the course.

www.graham-walsh.com/carlimits/carlimits.wmv

I won't give the answer away on the forum, but you can pm me if you want it

p.s. you just have to look at all the car stacking threads on rwd car message boards at the moment to know that some form of car control training is worth it. It takes a lot of time to develop though, so don't think you can do 1 day and have even scratched the surface. Its one thing being shown a technique, its weeks of practise mastering it.

>> Edited by DanH on Saturday 23 October 15:19

[bobski]

Me and 'er indoors have both done RideDrives - particularly it helps you enjoy driving by becoming a supreme numpty detector and avoiding scrapes.
Also enjoying the road conditions and knowing your limitations!
I think it's fair to try all these (IAM included and track days) as you can combine the elements.
But RideDrive is excellent for finding your shortcomings and re-testing your whole approach to the road - it's excellent

[montana_t]

Seems apt that I use this post instead of starting the one I was going to last week. I did an advanced driving course sometime ago, not naming who it was, mail me if you wanna know but a very well known and meant to be reputable company, but I wasn't going to say anything until a second friend of mine had the same experience with the same company. 3 very unhappy customers to say the least.

What a waste of money is all I can say. I was taught that TVR's don't have ABS, that the NSL sign is 60mph on a single lane and that a disused airfield covered in rocks the size of Gibraltar would cause severe damage to your pride and joy. Oh and I was told I did very well at letting people through traffic WTF I got robbed and went home nearly a grand out of pocket which included a front end spray job, even though when I saw the state of the airfield I refused to go on it but was talked into it being OK nob.

I’m not gonna go into too much detail here but if anyone wants to know how bad this course was then mail me and I’ll tell you. Seeing that this company gets a lot of good comments and reviews I can only assume that these people did not know how to drive in the first place or I just got a duff tutor. These are also the views of my two friends who did the same course and in a TVR. The tutor was a nice chap though and the company are probably good in some ways but not at providing the kind of advanced training someone who’s been driving for many years and in a TVR expects, well to me anyway. Some people on here will know what happened when I came back from this course so I ain’t bullsh-tting.


>> Edited by montana_t on Tuesday 26th October 20:44