1st Lotus/Carlimits days
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From: Leigh-On-Sea
1st Lotus/Carlimits days
As promised, here's a right up of my 1st Lotus days. I've purposely avoided going into too much detail about the technical stuff as I'll probably get it wrong and do more harm than good. Please forgive my bad grammar/spelling/rambling, I've still got a stinking hangover from last night 
The course is run at North Weald airfield in Essex and is run for either 2 or 4 people. The instructor is Andrew Walsh, who I believe is an ex F1 test driver. It takes place on two large clearings with a connecting road, and depending on the exercise, Andrew will demonstrate/sit with each person it turn before they have go themselves while the others are off practicing or queuing up to have a go.
First off is a simple able to s stop, you build the speed up to about 60mph and slam on the anchors. I think this is to get an idea of how confident you are with the car.
You then off to the second area to do the steering exercise which involves doing a fairly slow figure of 8 around two cones. I was fine until I had to put on more lock than I could without moving the positions of my hands on the wheel. At this point I did a funny sort of shuffle and fed the wheel which apparently is not good as you lose track of where the front wheels are pointing. The method Andrew teaches is called rotational steering and ensures you always know where your hands are in relation to the front wheels. Felt really weird at first, but after a while becomes quite natural.
Next up is 'the corner'. This involves charging up a connecting road at 70mph to a point marked with a cone where you turn left keeping a drain running the length of the clearing to the right of the car. If you don't spin the first time, you keep building up the speed until you do! I initially found it very hard not to slow down just before the corner so it took me quite a few attempts just to get the speed right.
Once I'd managed it at about 65/70 the spinning started. My problem was that I was yanking the wheel and causing the spin, but after a while I got smoother and started making in round. At this point you go even faster till you start spinning again. Andrew then told me to squeeze the brake as I was cornering which sounded like madness, but it worked! He then told me to approach even faster and do an emergency stop while I was turning, I was convinced it would just carry on in a straight line with the ABS going mental, but it just went round the corner and stopped with no drama at all. He explained that this was only possible because steering had gotten much smoother and so wasn't overloading the front tyres.
Next thing was the circles exercise. Andrew explained a bit about how tires actually work, optimum slip angles, understeer and oversteer etc. He asked me to put half a turn of lock on and slowly increase my speed until the understeer started. I then had to slowly unwind the lock until the front of the car stopped sliding. We then did the same thing but without moving the steering wheel used the understeer to increase the diameter of the circles until we went round the outside of one of the cones. Finally we practised accelerating away from the corner without going on the gas to early and causing yet more understeer. The point of all this is (as I understand it) is to find limit of the grip and what it feels like when your at the optimum.
While Andrew goes on to the next person, you get to play around with the circle exercises yourself. I managed to tw@t a cone while trying to understeer round it because the natural reaction is to back off when it starts getting close, the front grips and you head straight into it. No damage though, very soft cone
Next up is emergency stops. Yet another cone is positioned on the side of the clearing, you build your speed up to 70mph and slam on the brakes when level with it. Andrew demonstrated first, showing how much shorter the distance is when you 'beat' the ABS by easing off when you feel the pedal start to shudder. Then it's a case of doing it repeatedly trying to reduce your own stopping distance. I was crap at this, kept lifting off altogether when the pedal juddered. Not good!
The last bit is probably the most fun. A simple course is marked out with cones and you do timed runs using all the techniques you've learnt. Andrew does a few runs first, showing you how it should and shouldn't be done, including one lap almost completely sideways. You also passenger in other peoples cars as you can learn a lot from watch other peoples mistakes! I started off trying to better my times, but in the end it just degenerated into getting the back out as much as possible. On the first day we all swapped cars at the end, driving an Elise back to back with an s2000 is very interesting, another thread perhaps!
On my second day there, it was much the same but I got more time playing about whilst he taught the first timers. Instead of the circles exercise we had a look at my heal and toe-ing, which is fundamentally OK but I need work on just lifting the revs up rather than giving it an almighty bootful! As there wasn't much to do there, we did some left foot braking, using it to reduce understeer and help the car around the corner. I also progressed the emergency stops by using heal and toe, and then in neutral with the left foot. There was a big improvement over the first day.
To summarize, I probably got more out of these two days than I have out of about 5 track days. To me, it's about taking a step back, admitting my car control (and understanding of it) is cr@p and starting again with the basics. It's things like understanding that fishtailing is the result of over correcting a slide because you don't know where the front wheels are in relation to your handing. This really hit home on the second day when I was being a hooligan round the course in the wet - the second I stopped using the rotational steering technique the car was all over the place, when I did use it, I could get the car back from some quite silly angles. The slamming on the brakes while cornering at high speed was also a bit of revelation, although hopefully I'll never have reason to do that out on the road.
I'm now a lot more confident with the car and understand better what makes it bite and what you can and can't do with it. I don't think I'm driving any faster on public roads, but I've got a better understanding of what I'm doing and the cars doing. I'm less tempted to hang the back out on roundabouts because although I've improved, I know I'm not good enough to catch EVERY slide!
I've still got loads to learn and unlearn (e.g. a tendency to get back on the throttle to early without even knowing I'm doing it) and am keen to go back at least one more time before I start doing track days in the S. I wish I'd done this before doing any trackdays, it may have saved me from writing off my beloved Mk1 MR2
The course is run at North Weald airfield in Essex and is run for either 2 or 4 people. The instructor is Andrew Walsh, who I believe is an ex F1 test driver. It takes place on two large clearings with a connecting road, and depending on the exercise, Andrew will demonstrate/sit with each person it turn before they have go themselves while the others are off practicing or queuing up to have a go.
First off is a simple able to s stop, you build the speed up to about 60mph and slam on the anchors. I think this is to get an idea of how confident you are with the car.
You then off to the second area to do the steering exercise which involves doing a fairly slow figure of 8 around two cones. I was fine until I had to put on more lock than I could without moving the positions of my hands on the wheel. At this point I did a funny sort of shuffle and fed the wheel which apparently is not good as you lose track of where the front wheels are pointing. The method Andrew teaches is called rotational steering and ensures you always know where your hands are in relation to the front wheels. Felt really weird at first, but after a while becomes quite natural.
Next up is 'the corner'. This involves charging up a connecting road at 70mph to a point marked with a cone where you turn left keeping a drain running the length of the clearing to the right of the car. If you don't spin the first time, you keep building up the speed until you do! I initially found it very hard not to slow down just before the corner so it took me quite a few attempts just to get the speed right.
Once I'd managed it at about 65/70 the spinning started. My problem was that I was yanking the wheel and causing the spin, but after a while I got smoother and started making in round. At this point you go even faster till you start spinning again. Andrew then told me to squeeze the brake as I was cornering which sounded like madness, but it worked! He then told me to approach even faster and do an emergency stop while I was turning, I was convinced it would just carry on in a straight line with the ABS going mental, but it just went round the corner and stopped with no drama at all. He explained that this was only possible because steering had gotten much smoother and so wasn't overloading the front tyres.
Next thing was the circles exercise. Andrew explained a bit about how tires actually work, optimum slip angles, understeer and oversteer etc. He asked me to put half a turn of lock on and slowly increase my speed until the understeer started. I then had to slowly unwind the lock until the front of the car stopped sliding. We then did the same thing but without moving the steering wheel used the understeer to increase the diameter of the circles until we went round the outside of one of the cones. Finally we practised accelerating away from the corner without going on the gas to early and causing yet more understeer. The point of all this is (as I understand it) is to find limit of the grip and what it feels like when your at the optimum.
While Andrew goes on to the next person, you get to play around with the circle exercises yourself. I managed to tw@t a cone while trying to understeer round it because the natural reaction is to back off when it starts getting close, the front grips and you head straight into it. No damage though, very soft cone
Next up is emergency stops. Yet another cone is positioned on the side of the clearing, you build your speed up to 70mph and slam on the brakes when level with it. Andrew demonstrated first, showing how much shorter the distance is when you 'beat' the ABS by easing off when you feel the pedal start to shudder. Then it's a case of doing it repeatedly trying to reduce your own stopping distance. I was crap at this, kept lifting off altogether when the pedal juddered. Not good!
The last bit is probably the most fun. A simple course is marked out with cones and you do timed runs using all the techniques you've learnt. Andrew does a few runs first, showing you how it should and shouldn't be done, including one lap almost completely sideways. You also passenger in other peoples cars as you can learn a lot from watch other peoples mistakes! I started off trying to better my times, but in the end it just degenerated into getting the back out as much as possible. On the first day we all swapped cars at the end, driving an Elise back to back with an s2000 is very interesting, another thread perhaps!
On my second day there, it was much the same but I got more time playing about whilst he taught the first timers. Instead of the circles exercise we had a look at my heal and toe-ing, which is fundamentally OK but I need work on just lifting the revs up rather than giving it an almighty bootful! As there wasn't much to do there, we did some left foot braking, using it to reduce understeer and help the car around the corner. I also progressed the emergency stops by using heal and toe, and then in neutral with the left foot. There was a big improvement over the first day.
To summarize, I probably got more out of these two days than I have out of about 5 track days. To me, it's about taking a step back, admitting my car control (and understanding of it) is cr@p and starting again with the basics. It's things like understanding that fishtailing is the result of over correcting a slide because you don't know where the front wheels are in relation to your handing. This really hit home on the second day when I was being a hooligan round the course in the wet - the second I stopped using the rotational steering technique the car was all over the place, when I did use it, I could get the car back from some quite silly angles. The slamming on the brakes while cornering at high speed was also a bit of revelation, although hopefully I'll never have reason to do that out on the road.
I'm now a lot more confident with the car and understand better what makes it bite and what you can and can't do with it. I don't think I'm driving any faster on public roads, but I've got a better understanding of what I'm doing and the cars doing. I'm less tempted to hang the back out on roundabouts because although I've improved, I know I'm not good enough to catch EVERY slide!
I've still got loads to learn and unlearn (e.g. a tendency to get back on the throttle to early without even knowing I'm doing it) and am keen to go back at least one more time before I start doing track days in the S. I wish I'd done this before doing any trackdays, it may have saved me from writing off my beloved Mk1 MR2
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From: Lothians
very interesting.Sounds like the most useful course I've read about on the forum.
Interesting that bit about slamming on the anchors in a high speed corner.
On my performance on-road driving course at Knockhill the guy was teaching me to use limit points and carry a lot more speed through the corners than I had previously. I said, what about if there is something on the other side of the corner - I can't brake on a corner? He said, you've got ABS, you'll be OK. I thought he was mental, but clearly not.
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From: omnipresent
Originally Posted by neil_s2k,Oct 22 2004, 09:12 AM
This is the guy who I was trying to organise for Crail. We'll have to do this course next time he's in the North
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From: United Kingdom
Originally Posted by grahamewings,Oct 21 2004, 09:36 PM
I was fine until I had to put on more lock than I could without moving the positions of my hands on the wheel. At this point I did a funny sort of shuffle and fed the wheel which apparently is not good as you lose track of where the front wheels are pointing. The method Andrew teaches is called rotational steering and ensures you always know where your hands are in relation to the front wheels
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From: Leigh-On-Sea
Originally Posted by zero_to60,Oct 22 2004, 10:39 AM
what is this rotational steering method? I guess this is why open-wheeled cars are a bonus....you can actually see where the front wheels are pointing!!
You hold the wheel at 9 and 3 O'clock and don't feed the wheel. When you arms cross, you remove the lower hand (left if you're turning left and vica verca) and move it to the opposite side of the wheel and sort of flip over the other hand so your holding the wheel at 9 and 3 O'clock again but you've got a whole turn of lock on.
I think when I said you know where the front wheels are pointing it may have been more accurate to say you know how many turns back to straight ahead, but with a bit of practice it sort of becomes instinctive.
I also think the small steering wheel and quick rack on the S make it really easy to learn, I've yet to try it on another car.
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From: wimbledon
Great write up Graham. Really interesting. I am going to have to go on one of these. If it was dry would two days totally trash a new set of tyres?
The braking on a bend is interesting, as is the left foot braking to help turn-in.
From reading your write up it makes me realise just how much I have to learn about driving before I could even consider myself half decent and how little I know.
The braking on a bend is interesting, as is the left foot braking to help turn-in.
From reading your write up it makes me realise just how much I have to learn about driving before I could even consider myself half decent and how little I know.