Vitt, I totally agree, but what I seem to be hearing from a number of people here is that they belive it's the car, and that's not the kind of thinking that leads people to seek ways to improve their skills. You run into this when setting up autocross or race car suspensions for people too; The drive will claim that the car has handling problems that are actually due to his own technique (or lack of same), and you can't get the driver to fix the problem until you can get him to see the actual source. Your advice here is good advice, but I have to throw in a few extra notions.

Big, empty, parking lots are great places to slide a car around, but if the parking lot is not gated, it is probably illegal, and potentially dangerous. If you look at the little animated gif in my signature you can see how easy it is to slide the car around and keep it under complete control, even in a tiny gated parking lot, but most people will not have that level of control at first, so it's best to start out in a lot with plenty of space.

A good driving school is infinitely better than solo practice, but there are some basic exercises that can help improve a number of our basic skills. Assuming that one has a safe and legal place to do this stuff ...

Start out with this one: Car stopped, wheels turned all the way to the left or right (full steering lock). Let the clutch out normally and start driving slowly - you'll be turning a very tight circle. Now, start to accelerate *gently*. Continue to speed up, until the car slides or spins out of control, then immediately clutch in and wait for the car to come to a stop. Do this several times, turning in both directions. Do it on both wet and dry surfaces. It's a quick way to get a feel for the amount if grip the tires can deliver, and that's a good place to start.

Next: Get some pylons and set up a large skidpad (just a big circle). Drive around the circle at increasing speeds, until the car is right at the point where it wants to slide off course, and HOLD IT THERE as you continue to negotiate the circle. This may be (and probably will be) difficult at first, but this is the best way I know to learn how to sense the impending loss of traction. The S2000 doesn't give a lot of warning, so your limit sensor needs to be well tuned. Be sure to practice in both directions, and on both wet and dry surfaces. Add ice and snow to the practice list if you drive under those kinds of conditions.

Third: Set up two pylons and learn to "drift" (I hate to use the word becaue it has been mutulated by the sport of drifting, but it's the correct word so I'm using it anyway) a figure 8 around the pylons. Since you will already be able to hold the car on the edge of a slide (from the previous skidpad practice) all you'll really be doing here is adding throttle to *make* the tail slide out more, and this will teach you to both make it slide, and stop it from sliding, at will. Plus (and more importantly) it will teach you to handle the car as it transitions from sliding (or cornering) hard in one direction, to cornering hard in the other direction. As before, do this in the wet and dry, and on ice and snow if appropriate for your situation.

The above will help hone a number of skills one needs to drive a car like the S2000, and they're really basic skills that you can need at times, even if you drive the car like a 60 year old man.
(For the record, I'll be 60 soon. )

Driving like a grandma in the wet isn't always going to be enough, because as others have pointed out, it's all to easy to hit an oil/water mix or other "road hazzard" that can put the car into a slide unexpectedly. Even grandma needs to learn to handle her S2000 in a slide, because if she drives the car long enough she'll need the skills sooner or later.

FAR FAR better than a parking lot is a good school, and the best and cheapest quality schools are held by Evolution. They are intended for autocrossers, but nothing teaches car control any better than autocrossing, so if you really want to learn to drive the car well (at less than track speeds) you just can't beat an Evloution Phase 1 school. If one wants to learn to drive the car well at higher speeds, then both Panoz and Skip Barber (among others) have very good schools.

A good school can be worth more than years of weeked seat time.

 

Going 20-25 mph and hitting a bump in the road shouldn't send you flying into a wall. If that were the case, probably 50%+ of the S2000's made would already have been totalled!

 

[QUOTE=RED MX5,Nov 5 2007, 04:09 PM]
A good driving school is infinitely better than solo practice, but there are some basic exercises that can help improve a number of our basic skills.

 

Sure BillyB, feel free to quote me for any non-commercial purposes.

Have you ever been to one of the Evolution schools?

 

Red- I love reading your posts, so informative. Thanks for being on the forum.

-Matt

 

[QUOTE=RED MX5,Nov 5 2007, 07:58 PM] Sure BillyB, feel free to quote me for any non-commercial purposes.

 

Exactly. There had to be some other factor(s) involved here.

CKit may be right. The bump may have caused a little sidestep at the back that scared the driver into getting off the gas suddenly and unbalancing the car at the worst possible time, but there could be other factors involved too.

LOL, I do think that probably at least 50% of all S2000 owners spin their car at least a once. Some do it in a safe environment to learn to deal with problems, and others do it accidently in the worst possible environments, but I think most of us do it, sooner or later. Fortunately, most people don't total the car when they spin.

 

WhoooHaah:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1phB_a_ttZk

 

Hahaha, I didn't even notice that you weren't here in the USA.

While the second exercise I mentioned previously is appropriate for an autocross school, the fist and last involve sliding the back end of the car around by spinning the tires, and are more appropriate for learning to handle slides than for learning to turn a good autocross time. Many (if not most) autocrossers won't be real fond of the idea of burning up their back tires just to learn to control a slide.

Use a skidpad circle to practice grip sensing, but forget the other two exercises. Instead, use some of the classic exercises like a Chicago Box, chicane, circus, and so on. Set up a mock autocross course that includes all the elements, and focus on each persons weakness, which will often be either bad line or failure to look ahead far enough. If you can get professional instructors from a place like Evolution, each student will get individualized instruction based on their specific needs, so while it might be expensive to fly instructors to your location, it would be cool if you could find someone down your way.

If you can plan your trip to coincide with an Evo school you won't be sorry.

 

And to answer your question regarding all season tires.....

Yes, they make a huge difference. I have had Pirelli P Zero Nero M+S on my 04 for two years now. I drove safely through all those snow storms last year in Seattle. Also, they do help greatly in the rain when temps are cold. Down side is that handling is not as good as with summer tires.