Hi all,

when our car gets finished (!) it will be way more powerful than anything I've driven, and the first rear wheel drive / not power steering car the wife has ever driven!

Has anyone got any suggestions of a performance driving course that we could both go on before its finished - then obviously we'll go for the track day option once its done...

Thanks

Chris

[Edited on 1/3/06 by chrsgrain]

I would strongly suggest either Don Palmer or Cadence driver training. I know both organisations well (but am not affiliated with them).

They are both able to test for entry into the High Performance Club which is a very highly regarded driving club. Their standard of training is very high regardless of whether you had interest in the club or not.

Don Palmer
Cadence

I did a 1 day course at North Weald airfield when I got the Elise so that I could learn how it should be driven and hopefully avoid some of those scary moments!

The day is run by Car Limits and the instructor is Andy Walsh who has been racing cars for along time, for those of you who have seen the Caterham with the V8 bike engine on track video then it's him driving it.

All the details are on the site www.carlimits.com but all I can say is that it is a superb day which teaches you alot but still retains a very relaxed fun atmosphere.

Best bit was when he tells you how it should be done and then gets you to try, he then jumps in the driver seat and shows you what your car can do!!! very scary but awesome driving!!

Anyway, all I can say is it's well worth doing in my opinion.

HTH,
Rich.

I've also done a carlimits day and it was very rewarding.
Andy is a fantastic instructor and taught me alot of really good things.

how 'bout this

http://www.pistonheads.com/trackdays/index.asp?storyId=13155

Do you want to learn limit handling type stuff or road driving?

Have been driven round bruntingthorpe by Don Palmer and he knows how to get silly angles of dangles out of a car. Have also heard good things about his course - GFs brother has done a limit handling course with him. I'll probably see if GFs father will take me out to better my road driving (He's a fairly well known police class 1 instructor for both bikes and cars) I must also try and blag some more limit handling training at work....

The Andy Walsh days are better value but I did a discounted day with Don Plamer and learnt quite a lot.

With Don you need to tell him what you want to learn. I was unsure of high stability and quick steering manouvers in my supercharged Celica. So we basically chucked the car about at high speed so I could experience what the cars does. Most surprisingly to me was that the car naturally sorts its self to quite an extent due to the suspension geometry.

Hmm I even have a couple of clips....maybe I should post them sometime.