Tell us about when you were nearly a driving god

[dieseluser07]

Coming off a roundabout about to go onto a 2 lane dual carriageway.

I was in the right lane, other car was in the left.

I was overtaking quickly, as im about to pass the car in the left lane continues around the roundabout clueless she is in the wrong lane.

I immediately lift off the throttle and quickly turn the steering wheel, knowing i would get some lift off oversteer, there was no other way i was going to avoid her car as it would have understeered into her, i then got back on the throttle and pulled ahead of her.

That was some good driving god sideways action ill give it that much.

[nunpuncher]

At the age of 18 my red 1.6 205 GTi turned me into a lifelong hero amongst my peers following 3 displays of incredible helmsmanship.

Act 1 involved forcing a 993 to pull over to let me pass on the A82 north of Tarbet.

Act 2 involved an overtaking manoeuvre that included creative use of on/off ramps and a roundabout.

Act 3, unfortunately involves my discovery of lift off oversteer.
I had just confidently past my mates travelling in another car on the dual carriageway approached a roundabout. A quick look right and all was clear so I entered carrying a fair bit of speed. Unfortunately as I entered I was met with another car already on the roundabout travelling considerably slower than I. I vividly recall sharply lifting my right foot off the accelerator while still turning in only for the steering to suddenly go light. Having never even heard the term "over steer" let alone experiencing it I immediately started sawing away at the wheel wondering why the car wasn't responding. Next thing I remember is looking into the shocked eyes of my mate driving the car behind towards me as I rapidly reversed towards the scene of the accident I was about to be involved in.

Miraculously the car survived only to have some cow in a Volvo smash into the back of it writing it off several months later.

[AmosMoses]

19 years of age, Seat Ibiza, greasy roundabout. Epic lift off oversteer, perfectly controlled, until i over corrected and spun the thing a good 540 degrees

[Fastchas]

kuro said:

DickyC said:

Today I drove eastbound along the A38 towards Exeter in my Audi A4 1.8T Quattro. The climb up the hill towards the racecourse is a long and winding road flagged at 50mph max. It could have been made for the Audi Quattro. I know from experience the Quattro and I can go up there at 80. Normally my fellow road users prevent a clean run. But this morning I had a clear shot at it, the slower cars were tidily in the left lane agog at my abilities as I passed.

It's just that following me closely up the hill was an elderly Transit van.

That must have been late morning then as someone else trying the same thing ended up on their roof at 6.30am. It's actually a 70 limit up there but the first bend is flagged at 50 as that's the one that can catch people out.

Most mornings I take a dual carriageway to get onto the M5 at Bromsgrove. The road goes over a hill but takes a long sweeping left hander as it does so. My 320d estate feels a little unstable at anything faster than 70mph here so I back off...but nearly everytime a van or worse, a lady-driven Mokka or similar goes steaming past me on the crest seemingly unaware of physics and the dangers of lift-off oversteer...

[Clockwork Cupcake]

First time out in a Caterham, on track at Silverstone, with an instructor, in horridly wet conditions, having very little experience of RWD at the time.

Got snap oversteer downshifting under braking and caught it with an instinctive Dab of Oppo (tm).

The instructor said over the intercom "I didn't think you would catch that" to which I sheepishly replied "neither did I".

[kiethton]

Bedford in the pissing rain a few weeks ago, in a friends 130i

Started raining heavily for the afternoon and I thought I’d try and teach myself how to drift, else drive in the wet, with all the systems fully off....

Needless to say I nearly caught it, well did at one point!, and it was all caught on camera.

Thankfully as t was a friends car they thought t was him!

https://youtu.be/pqtj3zuqZDQ

[DickyC]

In my Avonbar 1380cc MG Metro, being pursued vigorously along a fast country road by a tiny pre-war sportscar, we came to a series of fast bends. "This will sort the men from the boys," I thought. "You with your pushbike tyres." With the Metro in full, tyre squealing, white knuckle, heart thumping, understeer I glanced in the mirror. The tiny machine was close behind in beautifully controlled oversteer slides, first one way then the other as we flew through the bends.

Wouldn't you know it? I was a mere mortal in the presence of a real driving god.

I slowed down a bit to let him past.

[Prizam]

Prizam said:

rossub said:

I drove on a frosty back road this morning without winter tyres and I didn’t crash

I did this today, in a TVR. to be fair though, it was a little twitchy.

As a follow-on to this... I was in the TVR yesterday because I had a lunchtime MOT booked. It wouldn't normally leave the garage on a cold day.

On route to the MOT station, I went over a lovely piece of A road tarmac, very recently resurfaced. 3rd gear and I booted it. Only to light up the rear tyres in the cold and perform a slight straight-line drift. I held it and made a rather sharp mental note that the upcoming twisty bits were likely very very slippy.

Pootling along under the speed limit (no one behind me), I came over the crest of the twistys and again, felt the rear try and step out. (new tyres too i might add).

Go to the MOT station alive. no, really, I didn't die.

Lovely pass with no advisories, though I didn't quite manage to do 1,000 in a year. I went on my way.

Returning to the slippy road, I found a newish VW Polo well and truly embedded in a tree. The guy was out and looked ok. The tree had a little bark missing. The car was never going to go on the road again.

I proceeded carefully!

[coppice]

Racing a Mach 1 Mustang , whose name sat badly with its pace, in dad's Mk 2 Vitesse .

Overtaking a 911GT2 one lap and a GT3 the next in my VVC powered Caterham at Croft . My euphoria evaporated soon afterwards , when I was overtaken at huge speed by a rallycross prepped Nova, two up ...

A sublime non stop (except for fuel) which started at 4.30 am on a May morning and ended 520miles later in NW Sutherland in my R400 Seven - and a very fast evening run between Sisteron and Grasse in an Uno Turbo

[Reark]

Driving along a nice B road at a ‘decent’ pace when a seemingly nondescript focus comes right up behind me. Decided to put into practice my newly learned skill of heel-toeing to get away from it in the bends....... not happening! Then when we got to a straight it belts past at what must have been 3 figure speeds... I end up catching it at the end of the road due to a trail of cars behind a tractor and to my complete bewilderment it’s not Jensen button in a tuned sleeper, it’s Susan, mum of 3, with the seat as far forward as it goes basically leaning over the fking steering wheel.... fml

[QuattroDave]

P5BNij said:

I drove an Inter-City HST 125 at 128mph once. Thread done...?

I thought class 43's had a top speed of 140mph but only for very short periods, its cruising speed was 125mph!

[legless]

On an early start for work one cold morning about 10 years ago, I woke to a thick carpet of snow. Living only a mile from the M40, and knowing that my destination wasn't far off the M42 in Solihull, I decided to go in anyway.

Predictably, once I was on the M40, it was fairly clear and 70mph was more than doable. At the end of the M40 I carried this speed up the sweeping uphill right-hander of the sliproad onto the northbound M42. It was only when I was committed to this that I realised that the gritters must have continued onto the M42 south, because the snow suddenly became very thick and very slippery, and I was turning into the bend at c.70mph.

Physics took over and the car started over-rotating clockwise, and I found myself flying sideways at great speed up the sliproad with a great view of the Armco. The car continued turning and my steering inputs made precisely zero difference to the situation. I'd resigned myself to the fact I was going to crash.

I managed a full 360 degrees before the tyres found purchase again and I found myself in lane 1, travelling in the right direction and under control, going considerably slower than I was before.

I'd managed to accidentally pull off a perfect 360 degree spin at high speed on an icy sliproad with absolutely no damage except to my nerves. I wish I'd had video footage of it.

[NickGRhodes]

I once drove a 205 GTi at a track day in the wet with P6000 tyres without spinning.

[P5BNij]

QuattroDave said:

P5BNij said:

I drove an Inter-City HST 125 at 128mph once. Thread done...?

I thought class 43's had a top speed of 140mph but only for very short periods, its cruising speed was 125mph!

This was back in 1983 when I was a mere eighteen year old secondman travelling in the cab from Swansea back to Paddington with three drivers, one of whom was on his very last run before retirement, he put me in the chair for a short while and I managed 128mph between Swindon and Didcot before shutting off for a temporary speed restriction


(I think from memory the needle 'stop' in the speedo was somewhere around the 130mph mark back then)

Edited by P5BNij on Wednesday 12th December 19:27

[Shuvi McTupya]

F4R said:

A few years back I was in my E46 328i and a Fiat Panda 100hp came steaming up behind me so I dropped it a cog and pulled away from it on the straight. Then some corners came up, which I thought would make the Panda completely disappear.

Oh no, this thing wouldn't leave my bumper.

192bhp vs 100bhp and I couldn't lose it.

If i were to tell a story in this thread it would also involve a Fiat Panda that was tailgating me while i was in my V12 Jag..."you cheeky little st" I thought to myself.."eat my dust, sucker" I dropped into 2nd gear and gave it full beans expecting him to fade away but I could not shake him. It was most disheartening

[FiF]

It was during that dreadful winter of 78/79, Sheffield gritters were on strike, and I was out after midnight, probably coming back from a girlfriend's, when decided to have a little play on the packed snowy roads.

All going brilliantly, I was the love child of Ari Batsmen and Michele Mouton, when on some unsuitable suburban road in the region of Dore/ Totley overcooked it on a downhill right handed.

Managed to catch it, but now realised that on polished packed snow facing negotiating a slalom formed by various parked cars on alternate sides with accompanying massive snow piles from various drive clearances.

Recall furious wheel twirling from lock to lock. If anyone were watching maybe they could have believed it really was the above mentioned Ari/ Michele progeny. Truth was it was the result of an extremely fortunately timed tank slapper.

[DickyC]

legless said:

Spinning

This reminded me of a story told by the owner of a 6.3 litre Virage Volante in the 90s. He was joining the M25 from - I think - the M11 very fast and lost it. Unfortunately he had passed a Police car on the slip road and thought there was no point in slowing down. He spun across the M25, missed everyone but hit the barriers very hard. For reasons unrecorded the two police officers present didn't charge him and he wondered whether they thought he had suffered enough. One of them said, "When you went past us you nearly sucked the windows out of our car." He had the car repaired as a Vantage Volante before the factory built the handful they made at the end of production. On a tour of the AML factory I mentioned the badly damaged Virage Volante rebuilt as a Vantage Volante and the guide gave me an old fashioned look. "Other than the engine and gearbox and a few bits of the interior it was a new car."

[Shuvi McTupya]

kiethton said:

Bedford in the pissing rain a few weeks ago, in a friends 130i

Started raining heavily for the afternoon and I thought I’d try and teach myself how to drift, else drive in the wet, with all the systems fully off....

Needless to say I nearly caught it, well did at one point!, and it was all caught on camera.

Thankfully as t was a friends car they thought t was him!

https://youtu.be/pqtj3zuqZDQ

[blearyeyedboy]

Elsewhere on the A38 between Exeter and Plymouth driving my beast of a car, a bug-eyed Toyota Corolla 1.3...

Late at night on a deserted road, I saw the eyes of a fox glinting in the middle of lane 1. With lightning-quick reactions that never existed only a cocky 23 year-old can (claim to) possess and a desire to be kind to animals to unsuccessfully try to impress women out of the goodness of my heart, I successfully steered around said vulpine creature.

I had just long enough to feel smug about being some Benevolent Driving God Who Saves The Animals when what I presume was a rabbit went "crunch" against the front towing eye.

So not only did I save Basil from doom, but I fed him too. Whoops.

[cerb4.5lee]

I remember pulling up alongside another Xr4x4 when I had mine at a set of lights. I glanced over to the lady driving it and I thought I'm sure I can get off the line quicker. Revs fully up and I dumped the clutch...she left me for dead! I caught her up at the next set of lights and I noticed the boost gauge(It was a twin turbo version). She wound her window down and she said I'd done quite well! I'm certainly a long way from a driving God!