Which car control course?
Discussion
Okay, so it's my birthday later this month and I'm looking at doing a car control course but need a bit of advice on which would be best for me.
I've been driving for just over two and a half years, the first year spent in a 1.2 Renault Clio, the rest in a Suzuki Cappuccino. I'm not looking to improve the smoothness of my driving per-se (though I'm sure this would kind of go hand-in-hand) but want to be able to push my car past its grip limits and get some tuition on how to maintain/regain control when I do.
When I got the Capp it had nasty budget tyres on the back and I had a few brown-boxers moments in it due to lack of any RWD experience. I've not had the back end let go unexpectedly since, the Eagle F1s I have on it now are very progressive and you know when to back off, but I'd rather not find myself in a situation where I don't know what to do.
Any suggestions are welcome
I've been driving for just over two and a half years, the first year spent in a 1.2 Renault Clio, the rest in a Suzuki Cappuccino. I'm not looking to improve the smoothness of my driving per-se (though I'm sure this would kind of go hand-in-hand) but want to be able to push my car past its grip limits and get some tuition on how to maintain/regain control when I do.
When I got the Capp it had nasty budget tyres on the back and I had a few brown-boxers moments in it due to lack of any RWD experience. I've not had the back end let go unexpectedly since, the Eagle F1s I have on it now are very progressive and you know when to back off, but I'd rather not find myself in a situation where I don't know what to do.
Any suggestions are welcome
One of the best in the business is Don Palmer. See www.donpalmer.co.uk . I've known Don for 15 years, and have always admired his coaching style. His limit handling courses are excellent.
Kind regards
Steve
Kind regards
Steve
You could try: http://www.carlimits.com/ (Andy Walsh)
I'm booked to go later the in year. Some posts on here discussing the DVD contains good recommendations.
I'm booked to go later the in year. Some posts on here discussing the DVD contains good recommendations.
Based on personal experience of several trainers, I'd recommend www.cadence.co.uk or www.donpalmer.co.uk
I've done loads of driver training (road, limit and track) and I'd recommend joining and completing the IAM training programe first.
For 75 quid or what ever it is now you won't get better value.
More importantly because the training takes place over 8 weekends or so you get time to digest each new technique over a week and practice integrating it into you driving.
However if you really want a limit handling course I'd go for Andy Walsh's Car Limits course mentioned above. (Not that Don's not great - he is - just that Andy's more informal and cheaper and there's only so much one can digest in a day NLP or no NLP. In fact to study more advanced car control I'd use Don Palmer.)
Whatever you do thought you won't regret it.
For 75 quid or what ever it is now you won't get better value.
More importantly because the training takes place over 8 weekends or so you get time to digest each new technique over a week and practice integrating it into you driving.
However if you really want a limit handling course I'd go for Andy Walsh's Car Limits course mentioned above. (Not that Don's not great - he is - just that Andy's more informal and cheaper and there's only so much one can digest in a day NLP or no NLP. In fact to study more advanced car control I'd use Don Palmer.)
Whatever you do thought you won't regret it.
Edited by Triggerwave on Monday 17th September 21:54
POssibly a bit late, but I'd suggest you do the IAM in order to "smooth out" your driving, and then a trackday or airfield day to get the "Pushing the car to it's limits" bit of your ambitions out of the way. This would work out much cheaper than the tailored car control courses and IMO have a much greater benefit to your driving overall.
Until you've done something like an IAM course I think you'd get limited benefit from an "ultimate car handling" style course. Learn how to drive more fluidly on the road before you start considering when it might be appropriate to approach the limits of your cars handling. I'd say you're better off finding out about your and your car's limits in a controlled environment, well away from other road users.
This isn't meant to sound dry, it'll be the best fun you've had with your pants on, but I think it's a more cost effective way of doing things and you'll get more benefit than from 8 hours of no doubt excellent tutition on it's own.
Until you've done something like an IAM course I think you'd get limited benefit from an "ultimate car handling" style course. Learn how to drive more fluidly on the road before you start considering when it might be appropriate to approach the limits of your cars handling. I'd say you're better off finding out about your and your car's limits in a controlled environment, well away from other road users.
This isn't meant to sound dry, it'll be the best fun you've had with your pants on, but I think it's a more cost effective way of doing things and you'll get more benefit than from 8 hours of no doubt excellent tutition on it's own.
Edited by WeirdNeville on Monday 24th September 00:50
WeirdNeville said:
POssibly a bit late, but I'd suggest you do the IAM in order to "smooth out" your driving, and then a trackday or airfield day to get the "Pushing the car to it's limits" bit of your ambitions out of the way. This would work out much cheaper than the tailored car control courses and IMO have a much greater benefit to your driving overall.
Until you've done something like an IAM course I think you'd get limited benefit from an "ultimate car handling" style course. Learn how to drive more fluidly on the road before you start considering when it might be appropriate to approach the limits of your cars handling. I'd say you're better off finding out about your and your car's limits in a controlled environment, well away from other road users.
This isn't meant to sound dry, it'll be the best fun you've had with your pants on, but I think it's a more cost effective way of doing things and you'll get more benefit than from 8 hours of no doubt excellent tutition on it's own.
A fair point. I hope no one's got the wrong idea and thinks I want to be going drifting around on the roads. It's about knowing what to do if I do get into a situation, plus being able to have a bit more fun on trackdays. Speaking of which, I'm booked onto one in November Until you've done something like an IAM course I think you'd get limited benefit from an "ultimate car handling" style course. Learn how to drive more fluidly on the road before you start considering when it might be appropriate to approach the limits of your cars handling. I'd say you're better off finding out about your and your car's limits in a controlled environment, well away from other road users.
This isn't meant to sound dry, it'll be the best fun you've had with your pants on, but I think it's a more cost effective way of doing things and you'll get more benefit than from 8 hours of no doubt excellent tutition on it's own.
Edited by WeirdNeville on Monday 24th September 00:50
Myself and another S2000 attended the Car Limits Airfield Training day at North Weald yesterday with Andy Walsh.
What a blast! Great fun, good company and great tuition.
There were four of us in total, the other two being Lewis (in his MR2) and Colin (in his Ferrari 348 TB!).
For those that haven't been on such a course (and to repeat comments others made) this is well worth doing just to experience what the car does and how to control it.
The day starts with a very quick assessment of your driving style with Andy sitting next to you. Basically how you stop the car, how you steer it and how you initially cope with the "high speed" bend.
The morning was spent "tackling" the high speed bend. Having spun rather nicely on the first couple of attempts I was then instructed to steer into using only one finger on the top of the wheel. This started off being quite daunting but just shows how good the castor is at straightening the car up and preventing a spin, if you let it. Lots of practice on this during the morning and it was good to see how everyone's confidence (and speed!) into the corner increased. After a short break we did the same exercise again, this time trail braking into the corner. This felt much more comfortable to me and interesting to see how correct usage of this enabled much higher speeds through the corner (I think I got up to just over 80mph) without the drama of a spin.
After lunch we looked at cornering circles. Two exercises, the first keep the throttle on until you got understeer and then gradually winding off the lock to reduce the slip angle until you got grip again. It's going to take me a while to get this one into my head as my natural reaction was to wind on more lock when the car was understeering (muppet!). The second was keeping the same lock on the steering and then using the throttle to steer the car around the airfield, again something I need to get my head around.
Finally, we got to put this all into practice around "the circuit". Andy starts by doing three laps with him driving, the first to show you the layout, the 2nd his fast lap and the 3rd his "hooligan" lap showing all the mistakes people make. Then you get 3 laps with him sitting next to you and timing it.
You then get another go at the circuit with one of the other guys sitting next to you, so Graham and I passengered each other. Again the laps are timed.
I managed a 1:02.7 (I think!) against Andy's 55 sec "reference" lap. I was slightly quicker than the Ferrari and Colin took all the ribbing in great spirit and pointed out he was considered to have the "entry" level Ferrari (by the purists!) and his front tyres were old.
I'll post a couple of pics of Colin's car (it was beatiful), only done 37K miles, but on it's 9th cam belt! (dealer replacement for which is just over £3K).
I've got some in car vids and the other S2000 on the circuit which I'll post once I've managed to edit them down.
Thanks to Andy for a great day and to Graham, Lewis and Colin for the great company that made for such a fun day out.
If I can remember 10% of what I was taught yesterday it will be a bloody miracle.
What a blast! Great fun, good company and great tuition.
There were four of us in total, the other two being Lewis (in his MR2) and Colin (in his Ferrari 348 TB!).
For those that haven't been on such a course (and to repeat comments others made) this is well worth doing just to experience what the car does and how to control it.
The day starts with a very quick assessment of your driving style with Andy sitting next to you. Basically how you stop the car, how you steer it and how you initially cope with the "high speed" bend.
The morning was spent "tackling" the high speed bend. Having spun rather nicely on the first couple of attempts I was then instructed to steer into using only one finger on the top of the wheel. This started off being quite daunting but just shows how good the castor is at straightening the car up and preventing a spin, if you let it. Lots of practice on this during the morning and it was good to see how everyone's confidence (and speed!) into the corner increased. After a short break we did the same exercise again, this time trail braking into the corner. This felt much more comfortable to me and interesting to see how correct usage of this enabled much higher speeds through the corner (I think I got up to just over 80mph) without the drama of a spin.
After lunch we looked at cornering circles. Two exercises, the first keep the throttle on until you got understeer and then gradually winding off the lock to reduce the slip angle until you got grip again. It's going to take me a while to get this one into my head as my natural reaction was to wind on more lock when the car was understeering (muppet!). The second was keeping the same lock on the steering and then using the throttle to steer the car around the airfield, again something I need to get my head around.
Finally, we got to put this all into practice around "the circuit". Andy starts by doing three laps with him driving, the first to show you the layout, the 2nd his fast lap and the 3rd his "hooligan" lap showing all the mistakes people make. Then you get 3 laps with him sitting next to you and timing it.
You then get another go at the circuit with one of the other guys sitting next to you, so Graham and I passengered each other. Again the laps are timed.
I managed a 1:02.7 (I think!) against Andy's 55 sec "reference" lap. I was slightly quicker than the Ferrari and Colin took all the ribbing in great spirit and pointed out he was considered to have the "entry" level Ferrari (by the purists!) and his front tyres were old.
I'll post a couple of pics of Colin's car (it was beatiful), only done 37K miles, but on it's 9th cam belt! (dealer replacement for which is just over £3K).
I've got some in car vids and the other S2000 on the circuit which I'll post once I've managed to edit them down.
Thanks to Andy for a great day and to Graham, Lewis and Colin for the great company that made for such a fun day out.
If I can remember 10% of what I was taught yesterday it will be a bloody miracle.
Here's an edited video of the "High Speed Bend" exercise, including Andy showing how it should be done, with and without brakes. The first two clips are me demonstrating how not to do it.
Please keep the comments about the huge forehead in the rear view mirror to yourself, I knew there was a reason I wanted to wear a helmet
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=baOcac9dpwM
Please keep the comments about the huge forehead in the rear view mirror to yourself, I knew there was a reason I wanted to wear a helmet
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=baOcac9dpwM
Last set of vids:
Andy sets the "reference" lap and then hoons it, I then try my hand.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KWMyueuiyG8
("feet off the pedals" is still ringing in my ears)
Throttle touching sounds like a criminal offence
I've watched this a couple of times and the thing I notice with Andy is the decisive use of the steering, brakes and throttle, i.e. he slows the car just enough, steers the right amount and then gets back on the throttle at the right moment.
There's no brake hard (oops too much), back on the throttle (oops no grip), back on the brakes, adjust the steering, apply the throttle (oops too much), back off the steering to get grip and then back on the throttle.
I think this is a good demonstration of "smooth"!
This time Graham passengers and I'm on my own:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KqlovPn-po0
and finally, Andy in Graham's car with Graham then trying to match it including a couple of "parking" incidents!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3863NuvSRzw
Andy sets the "reference" lap and then hoons it, I then try my hand.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KWMyueuiyG8
("feet off the pedals" is still ringing in my ears)
Throttle touching sounds like a criminal offence
I've watched this a couple of times and the thing I notice with Andy is the decisive use of the steering, brakes and throttle, i.e. he slows the car just enough, steers the right amount and then gets back on the throttle at the right moment.
There's no brake hard (oops too much), back on the throttle (oops no grip), back on the brakes, adjust the steering, apply the throttle (oops too much), back off the steering to get grip and then back on the throttle.
I think this is a good demonstration of "smooth"!
This time Graham passengers and I'm on my own:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KqlovPn-po0
and finally, Andy in Graham's car with Graham then trying to match it including a couple of "parking" incidents!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3863NuvSRzw
jgsquash said:
("feet off the pedals" is still ringing in my ears)
Throttle touching sounds like a criminal offence
It takes a lot of self control when under pressure to be quick not to press the accelerator mid corner but you'll suddenly find that your car seems to have a lot less understeer than it used to Throttle touching sounds like a criminal offence
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