Lotus Driver Training Courses

[turboguru]

anyone done these?

I remember they used to be offered at Hethel but am not sure if they still are and how much they cost etc.

I have done courses with Ride Drive before and was impressed but still feel I need to be a better driver to enjoy my car more safely.

[shangani]

Don't bother with Hethel for the moment - much closer and really good are training days with Andy Walsh (www.carlimits.com). No chance of damaging your car, great fun and really useful.

[S Works]

Agreed, £ for £ time spent with Andrew is universally accepted as the best mod you can do to your Elise

[DanH]

Hethel courses do cost more, but even less chance of damaging your car as you use theirs

[turboguru]

cheers guys, I will speak to Andrew in the new year and go from there.

I must say I like the idea of using someone elses car to learn in though

[[k]ar|]

Guys, another option is the Robb Garrett "Ultimate Car Control" course that was plugged (with hefty fee discount) on PH. I went the other weekend and it was fantastic! You can run in your own car and/or their Mercedes, and the technique taught seems to work very well on the Elise. I'd recommend it heartily.

I didn't take my Elise as it had only just had the steering rack replaced the day before, but I certainly shall be taking it next time! The course is run again in January, and there is also going to be a refresher course later in the year. All the work is done on a huge tarmac apron at the Transport Research Laboratory in Wokingham, so there's nothing to hit apart from flimsy cones and the surface doesn't seem overly abrasive and is clean.

[k]

[bjc388]

I've been on both courses and IMO they have a different emphasis and of course the teaching styles of the instructors are different too.

I went on both the Lotus courses whilst I was running my own car in ... Lotus supply a 120bhp car to teach understeer and oversteer (in other words you have permission to be a complete hooligan), a 111S for the braking exercises and a 111R for the slalom and track driving tuition. On the driver experience day there are 4 students to 1 instructor. On the Intensive course the slalom and braking exercises are combined and there are only 2 students on the day. Alistair McQueen is an ace instructor.

You also get actual time driving on the full Lotus test track at Hethel during the afternoon.

The Walshy day is also fantastic ... different exercises and different challenges to getting the same theories and principles across but this time in your own car (which is probably useful if your car is non-standard).

Both equally excellent and both offer gentle encouragement to push/extract more and more. IMO some of the best performance upgrades I've invested in ... and rather uniquely I can take the benefits with me to any car that I drive ...

[lawrence5]

Lotus driver training was £400 when i did it and I think it has gone up since. I also had Al McQueen instructing which is fantastic. But at the time I had an S1 but did the training in an S2 111s - something to be said for doing it in your own car. Wet turning circle is the best - got front tyres on the rear.... lift off and she snaps like a croc.

Alternatively for now join your local cruise and throw it around a wet empty car park

[S Works]

Karl, how much is the course mentioned above?

[shangani]

S Works said:

Karl, how much is the course mentioned above?

Yup - second that - Wokingham is 5 miles from me.

[[k]ar|]

Details of the next course here:

www.pistonheads.com/calendar/event.asp?i=1311

It's arranged by UKBob on the forum, and it's a fantastic day, combining fun and learning. When I turned up, there were a bunch of TVRs, a Noble, then and my father and I in our Audi A4, feeling a bit, errr, underpowered . However, the course have a rather nice Merc C-class coupe, a new-shape SLK, a brand new Brabus Smart FourFour (which we destroyed by ripping two engine mounts out of), and an AMG A-class to use instead. It's actually a good thing that I didn't take the Elise, as since the rack was replaced, there is now a vibration through the steering wheel at speeds of 80-90, so something is still not right.

However, I heartily recommend the course - it seemed well thought out, well prepared and professionally run. The instructor Cate, in particular, is fantastic - a very talented and able teacher. And I'm not just saying that because she said I was best driver of the day .

The technique taught felt completely counter-intuitive to me until I sat down and thought about it, at which point it made perfect sense. It's all based around stabilizing the attitude of the car, maximising grip by using and transferring it's own weight. I caught myself unconsciously using the techniques taught on the way home, and when I tried them in the Elise, they seem to work extremely well, just as Robb said they would when I told him I drive an Elise.

If you want to do loads of drifting, powerslides and stuff like that, this isn't the course for you, but if you want to learn how to get loads of grip, corner more quickly and more neatly and thereby drop your trackday laptimes, this is the course for you. It's also great for on the roads, teaching you how to avoid low-grip situations in the first place, and how to recover them if you mess up.

[k]

[S Works]

How many people vs. instructors are there on the day?

[[k]ar|]

On my day, there were about 10-12 people, three tutors in three cars and Robb teaching from the sidelines. We all had about 4 runs in the cars in the course cars in the morning, then about the same in early afternoon, before people starting taking to their own cars. If you take your own car you will definitely get more laps in, but even if you use theirs, you don't come away feeling short-changed.

[k]

[S Works]

Looks like fun but seems expensive compared to a Walshy Day. With 2 activity days coming up in Jan and April, and intending to do another training day in between, I think I'll give it a miss. Thanks for the info though.