Which advanced driver training?

[Callan.T89]

Hello all. I have recently bought my first decently quick car (Audi S4 V8) and while I consider myself quite an aware and skilled driver the shear size and power of the S4 (compared to previous MK2 Golf GTi's etc) does tend to push my skills a bit further than I'de like.

I was going to join the IAM and do that course but from what I have heard they are a bit less car and performance driving orientated than I would like.

Question is: is there a course that teaches you to handle your own car properly at speed? Without ruining the tyres and brakes on the track.

[S. Gonzales Esq.]

There are lots of performance-oriented courses and tutors out there - have a search through the older posts here.

Doing IAM might also be a good idea though - you can learn to handle the car at the limit, but there's a lot more to good driving than that.

[waremark]

Is Malvern in reach? If so, look at http://www.bespokedrivertraining.co.uk/

The principal Mark Kendrick is highly regarded.

[BOF]

^^^ Wot he said...

Buy the DVD and have a look...

BOF.

[pistnskint]

I did a day with Mark at B'thorpe in an S3, was excellent. He is a great teacher.

[SVS]

waremark said:

www.bespokedrivertraining.co.uk/

The principal Mark Kendrick is highly regarded.

I highly recommend Mark Kendrick from personal experience
He's certainly performance oriented, if that's what you want

Failing that, www.ridedrive.co.uk offer a range of performance-oriented courses

[BenElliottRacing]

Callan.T89 said:

Hello all. I have recently bought my first decently quick car (Audi S4 V8) and while I consider myself quite an aware and skilled driver the shear size and power of the S4 (compared to previous MK2 Golf GTi's etc) does tend to push my skills a bit further than I'de like.

I was going to join the IAM and do that course but from what I have heard they are a bit less car and performance driving orientated than I would like.

Question is: is there a course that teaches you to handle your own car properly at speed? Without ruining the tyres and brakes on the track.

I would expect any performance driving course to put wear on your brakes and tyres - you cant work on your technique at speed without using these items more harshly than when you were driving slowly. Drivers behave differently at different speeds. You may have an approach to a corner nailed at one speed - add 5mph to the approach speed or take the braking 10meters later and that can all change.

I always try to do training on brake intensive areas in short bursts with a good cool down in order to keep the wear to sensible levels. Tyres wear can be helped by pumping tyres up harder to help stop the sidewalls rolling too much on cornering excesises.

It can be cheaper to hire a car to do the training in. Track club offer a Clio or Caterham for about the £500 mark which can be cheaper than new tyres/brakes for your car.

[andy_s]

waremark said:

Is Malvern in reach? If so, look at http://www.bespokedrivertraining.co.uk/

The principal Mark Kendrick is highly regarded.

Thirded, or where ever we are now.

[Martin A]

Callan.T89 said:

Question is: is there a course that teaches you to handle your own car properly at speed? Without ruining the tyres and brakes on the track.

If you are already using the correct road technique (learned in your Golf) then there should be no problem with the increased performance of the Audi. What is most likely is that if extra speed is bringing problems, then your original technique may well benefit by being altered. Quite often the change is quite subtle but can make a big difference.

High speed tuition (10 tenths, balls out, limit of grip) on the road in such a car is going to be a no no with professional instructors. What anyone such as myself or any of the other coaches mentioned would want to know is what is the purpose of the exercise. By that I mean is it for road or track? Driving fast in complete safety on the road will be a different style to driving quickly on the track although obviously the vehicle dynamics are exactly the same.

Your original post seemed a bit ambiguous to me so I thought I'd try to pin you down a bit more so that I and others on here can offer more words of wisdom.

HTH

Martin A

pm me if you want an informal chat