....Advanced driving tuition tends to be more about roadcraft than such things as gearshift techniques. It usually assumes you have already mastered such things.
A course such as CarLimits may be of some use - You basically explore the absolute limits of your own car under tuition and on North Weald airfield where you can't hit anything. Be prepared for a full day of very severe tyre wear and 11 mpg!!
I’d have to disagree with that comment Red to a certain degree. IAM and RoADA do focus on Roadcraft and the IPSGA system (Information, Position, Speed, Gear and Acceleration). However, you do focus on elements such as smooth gear changing as I’d say about 99% of people who have passed the DSA test cannot gear change properly. This is the sort of gear changing that is still quick but that you cannot feel in the car. My old instructor used to say “imagine there is a pot of paint sitting in the passenger footwell and you don’t want to spill itâ€. The real art is actually making more progress than you did before, but without “spilling the paint†by smooth gear changes.
There is a lot to learn from advanced driving and I think there is a stigma sometimes attached to it. Some people seem to think that it’s a bunch of flat capped old men moaning about speed limits. In my experience, the likes of IAM can be a little bit like this, however once you start doing courses such as the RoADA test and move up to look at entry into the HPC (High Performance Club), you realise that in fact, it’s full of petrol heads!
To give you an idea, I went out with one of the former gatekeepers of the HPC (the guys that decide if you can get into the club). This guy had a standard Golf TDI and we followed him onto the track at Bruntingthorpe to go over to our area where we were doing our activities. I was in a Caterham R300 (300 bhp per tonne) and the other guy was in an M3 (previous version). I kid you not, we could not keep up with this guy in the Golf because on the corners, he was just leaving us for dead. It was a little bit damp but neither of us could keep up. Why? Because he was applying all of the techniques (albeit at a high level) that you learn.
The sort of techniques that you pick up in the higher level RoADA and entry level HPC training are things such as…
Rev matching - You can use techniques such as Heel and Toe (see here
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JliPGde8jMM) which basically allows you to brake and match the revs at the same time. This stops the rear end of the car (diff) locking up. You may have heard that the drifters use diff locking to get the car into a slide and the back end out to drift it around the corner. This happens when you lift off the clutch sharply which snaps when the gear is re-engaged. Therefore heel and toe stops this happening.
You can also “blip†the throttle to rev match and that can be achieved by doing the following. You’re in third gear, approaching a bend, on the brakes to reduce the speed, off the brakes, engage the clutch, select second gear, before you lift the clutch to the biting point you blip the throttle to bring the revs up to match the revs needed when the clutch is engaged. For example, if you’re doing 3000rpm in third gear at 50mph and select second gear, you might then be at 5000rpm. So what you’d do is blip the throttle to 5000rpm and then lift the clutch to engage second gear. This basically stops the jolting in the car and makes for a smooth gear change. If you listen to the DSG box, it blips on the down-change
There are a number of other techniques taught in advanced driving and I’ll not go into all of them, otherwise I’ll by typing all day but a few are:
1. Balancing the car on the throttle. There is a lot of work you can do on the weight shift of a car. Again, going into a corner, a lot of people will brake and make their gear change going in, stay off the power until the apex and then stamp the throttle down again. The faster way is to brake, heel and toe gear change and then come back on the throttle (very lightly though) to balance the car through the bend.
This light throttle balances the weight of the car evenly and sets it up better (especially at higher speeds). If you go in braking and changing gear, all of the weight is on the front of the car which means the rear of the car can be light. If this happens when you turn in, you can put the car into a spin. At low speeds, you’ll not notice it, but once you get to higher speeds, it makes all the difference. Basically the same happens when you lift off on a bend. The weight shifts to the front and you get “lift-off oversteerâ€. Great fun on the track, but not something you want to be doing on the way home from work in rush hour
People also steer too much. You can get away with a lot less steering than you think and actually drive the car on the throttle. Again it's all about balance and application and not something I can really explain very well by typing it.
2. Ever heard the phrase “you must never brake on a bendâ€? Yep me too until one of the advanced instructors said to me “yeah unless you’re using trail brakingâ€. What’s this I hear you ask? Well I’ll not go into it (google it) but it basically allows you to enter and exit a corner on full throttle.
Basically there is tons to learn and I took the decision a while ago that it doesn’t matter how fast my car is, it’s only as good as the driver in it. It’s humbling when you see a guy in a TDI MKIV Golf leaving a guy in his 345bhp M3 in his dust just because he’s an amazing driver!!
I’m no expert, but from what I’ve seen, there is a lot to be gained from learning this stuff. Oh and many benefits as well. Only a couple of weeks ago the HPC invited me and a number of others to go to Millbrook with them. It was un-restricted access to drive around the facility. I went on the High Speed Bowl, wet skid pan, outer handling circuit and the famous Alpine Route.
It was a fantastic day but there were two highlights. The first was getting taken out as a passenger in a 350k Porsche Carrera GT! But the best bit was watching one of the top HPC drivers in my car, chasing the Carrera GT on its hot lap around the Alpine Circuit and the Carrera could not shake us of his tail!! Yeah my car is quick but it’s not THAT quick! There’s no way I could have kept up, but it just goes to show you what a good driver can do!
Anyway, I’ll stop babbling now
