In Car Active

DVD tuition - the best way to gem up on track technique

By PH Staff / Wednesday, 14 May 2003 / Loading comments

If like me you enjoy your track driving then part of the attraction - aside from just having a good hoon - is to feel like you're learning something. To that end, many of us have bought the Circuit Guides that explain how to drive the various UK circuits.

Trouble is, mine is still sitting on the shelf. I invariably forget to take the guide to a circuit and if I do remember, it sits with my luggage whilst I'm off chewing the cud with other drivers.

Lazy Bones

At this rate I'm not going to improve my lines as quickly as perhaps I should. That's probably because I'm a techno-junky as much as anything. With an attention span measured in nano-seconds I don't seem to find the time to sit down and study a book of line diagrams and try to imagine myself driving.

The answer is at hand however. Since Circuit Driver and Circuit News merged, they've been working on a circuit guide for people like us - petrolheads who simply interchange their steering wheels with keyboards when they get home.

The DVD they've produced gives a blow by blow account of how to drive a track. The first in the series is Silverstone with Brands Hatch being worked on shortly. It's likely to take them some time to cover all the UK's circuits but I certainly hope they do as it's the best way I've encountered to study technique. Getting instruction at a circuit is always helpful, but often with everything happening so quickly you don't always take home as much information as perhaps you'd like to.

All Angles Covered

With the DVD system, Mark Hales drives the track complete with multiple cameras strapped to his Caterham, allowing you to see what's going on from all angles. You can view the output from all the cameras at once or select one to watch full screen. There's even a helicopter buzzing Hales as he laps the track, giving you a good view of the line he takes from the air.

You can see what his hands are up to, the angle of the wheels and the landmarks that he uses to select his line. No crude diagrams here - you can see it with your own eyes and play it over and over again until it sinks in.

If you really want to gem up on his technique, there's a full Pi data logging system giving you plenty of technical data to match to the imagery. All the while, Mark is talking through his technique and explaining what he's up to and why. It's in car instruction repeatable on demand, in the comfort of your own home. Various modes are offered including one where you click on the map of the circuit and Hales gives a blow by blow account of the corner you've selected.

Other Bits

There's a bit of gimmickery on the DVD too with a Ferrari GTO lapping Silverstone thrown in together with some other guidance on track day technique that will be of particular interest to novices although it's also peppered with a few tips that may interest more experienced drivers too.

Forget the playstation as practice, set up this DVD for continual play on your PC and you'll be taking the right line around Silverstone in your sleep.

We were impressed and we think you will be too, so we're stocking them in the PH Shop.