A mate and i took a day trip down to North Weald Airfield for some training with Andy Walsh.
It was a very useful experience, i think i’ve only taken in the tip of the iceburg but Andy gave me plenty to think about, and lots of ideas to try to retrain my driving reactions.
For anyone who doesn’t know, on his airfield day’s Andy lets you try some high speed cornering in a safe environment where you can keep going till you spin, then keep trying under his supervison till you get the hang of what’s happening and what you can do (or more importantly not do) about it. He was great at spotting my mistakes, and hopefully over time i’ll start correcting them.
We also did some work on finding optimum grip levels, controlling the car under braking in a corner, and then tried to put it all together round a cone circuit (after a deluge of rain in our case).
All in all a very useful day, and one i hope to repeat in a few months to keep at trying to remove my bad habits.
A final note, the day ended with a bit of car trouble, a slip joint on my my exhaust slipped a bit too far, i wasn’t able to get it back together at the airfield, but Andy called Paul at PSR Automotive (at gone 4pm) and after a very loud 15 minute trip, Paul had the car up on the ramp and very quickly had it all back together to save my ears (and police attention) on the trip home, then to top it off he refused to take any payment for his help. Thank you very much Paul.