1st Lotus Driving School
1st Lotus Driving School
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Discussion

icraigmy

Original Poster:

1,653 posts

253 months

Wednesday 20th September 2006
quotequote all
Anyone done the airfield training course with the 1st Lotus Driving School.

Any good points or bad points !!!!!!!

Tripps

5,814 posts

302 months

Wednesday 20th September 2006
quotequote all
I've been on an airfield day with CarLimits earlier, who are part of 1st Lotus (AFAIK both are run by Andy Walsh)

We had a great time and it's the first time I've really had the chance to push the car to and beyond the limits, and having the safety factor of nothing to hit makes it easy to up the ante and push harder to find those limits.

I'm not sure what occurs on the 1st Lotus days that is different, but we started the day with high speed cornering techniques, then braking, followed by various steering techniques to fully understand under/over steer. The final session of the day was a timed auto-test where you'd negotiate a short track with a passenger - great and competetive fun.

There is also a section to play (read doughnut) while the individual sessions are taking place, just in case you've got some spare rubber to make use of!

I'm planning on going on another day later this year and highly recommend them.

lazyitus

19,931 posts

296 months

Wednesday 20th September 2006
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I did it a couple of years ago.

Andy Walsh is a top driver - he showed me things in the Griffith that I didn't think possible.

I think it's well worth the money just to enhance safety let alone if you want to improve track times.

thumbup from me.

He teaches very basic things aswell as the more difficult stuff. Its all in the technique, you see.

bridgdav

4,805 posts

278 months

jsr

1,155 posts

280 months

Wednesday 20th September 2006
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I did the 1st Lotus airfiled day almost 3 years ago when i first got my chimaera. It's well worth it. I did the 2 person day to get more instructor time. The other guy there had a lotus elise and my 400 out performed it in EVERY test/exercise. It's only when you do something like this that you realise the full potential of the car.

I will be looking to go again sometime in the new year.

Car limits is the same btw.

CraigAlsop

1,991 posts

298 months

Wednesday 20th September 2006
quotequote all
I did a day with Andy Walsh up at Crail Airfield (near St Andrews) & found both Andy & the course excellent.
He tailored the course to suit individual expectations - 1 of the 4 of us wanted to learn left foot braking; I wanted to get comfortable with sliding my Chimaera at decent speeds in order to learn what the car felt like on & past the limits.

Best bits - beginning of the day, getting a passenger lap in my Chimaera & seeing 130 on the speedo before he braked & grinned at me. "B*gger!" I thought - "this corner ain't gonna happen" - but it did

Worst bits - end of the day, finding that all the tires were now barely legal.

Strongly recommend it!