Great fun. I was driving an old Escort MkII rally car with 130 bhp - might not sound like much these days, but boy was it lairy! I've never done anything like this before, but somehow I think this won't be the last time. A surprise present from my other half, it was booked a while ago and today was the day.
There were four of us there. The afternoon started with the instructor telling us how the car would behave, what techniques to adopt, etc. As soon as I sat in the driver's seat I promptly forgot every single piece of advice we'd been given and just hooned it. The course was so twisty that it was impossible to build up any sort of speed, but of course that wasn't the idea. 50 mph was about as high as it was possible for me to get on a course that consisted of bends, sharper bends, hairpin bends and almost-270-degree bends - having said that, I don't think I saw the speedo more than once! I hardly touched the brake pedal once on the first round, and I managed two full circuits before spinning off halfway round the third. Had a few wobbles along the 30-yard straight (the only straight bit) when I came out of the bend too hard, then later spun off at the same spot as before on the fourth lap, which annoyed me a bit.
My own cars both have fairly progressive accelerators and fairly sharp brakes. The rally car was the opposite - accelerator only needed about a quarter of the pressure to send full power to the rear wheels, while the brake really had to be stood on to get a reaction. Essentially, all my usual driving instincts and habits had to be unlearned in a hurry.
After the first session, the instructor pulled no punches - I was steering one-handed, not accelerating in the right place, not braking at all. Was I sure I actually had a licence? Smartass. I then awaited my next turn while the three other guys took theirs, and decided that instead of just blattering around I would try to learn something and control the car instead of it controlling me. Each one of us got a fair bit of verbal, but it was all good humoured and part of the craic.
When the next go came, I concentrated on my steering and made sure that I kept my hands at three and nine o'clock, crossing over each other rather than feeding the wheel through my hands, steering one handed, etc. It made a big difference. I was starting to get a better idea of controlling the power from the rear, but I (literally) wasn't getting to grips with the varied surfaces - the gravel wasn't too hard to manage, then the surface would change to a short stretch of tarmac, then wet gravel or mud, then tarmac or gravel again, etc. It was the wet surfaces I had the most difficulty with, not slowing down enough before sliding into the bends, twice ending up with the body of the car turning round the front wheels and facing the ditch. The feedback from the instructor pretty much reflected what I thought. However, he also said it was a big improvement on the first go and that the main thing to concentrate on for the third and final round was controlling the car at higher speeds and judging my braking into the bends and acceleration out of them.
Third go I was determined not to spin off. I was still having tremendous fun, but this time I was serious! I got the speed up a lot of the time and am pleased to report I did make it through the whole round without losing it. However, there were still a few hairy moments where I knew I wasn't going through the bends right, or else getting through because I was braking too hard before the bend and just steering rather than sliding through. I felt my biggest difficulty was still judging the reactions of the car on wet and slippery surface. The instructor said my main weakness was not judging the braking distance correctly, but that my steering and accelerator use were constantly improving.
Overall, I guess I didn't do too badly - I scored either 7 or 8 out of 10 in every category, although I suppose I might have scored a little better if I hadn't thrown caution to the wind in the first session. Not that I'm bothered though, I had a fantastic time and that was the plan all along. Mind you, I haven't watched the in-car video yet ...
The day finished with the instructor taking each of us round the course, putting us in our places by going at about double the speed any of us had been doing - fair enough I guess, he's the professional. He then gave us a debriefing as a group afterwards, which was pretty merciless! Apparently, Ballymena was a safer place because I wasn't there that afternoon ...
Thinking about it on my way home, what was foremost in my mind was that I have a lot more to learn about driving than I thought, which is probably a good awareness to have. And also - I want another go!
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andymc
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