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Learning to "Drive" - Track / Rally Schools North West


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Been wanting to look into this for a while now but I'm in need of some advice. I'm a bit of a novice when it comes to actually driving properly. I'm wanting to increase my knowledge of the cars handling with a physics lesson, carrying speed through corners, oversteer, understeer etc and wondered about the best way of doing this. Seems like there's 2 obvious options, a day at a track under instruction or a day at a rally school? I'd then look to take my new found talent of being the next Jason Plato and attend a few trackdays.

 

I live in the South Lakes so happy to travel around the North West / West Yorkshire etc and wondered if anyone had done something similar and recommend anywhere?

 

There's these guys who Google threw up near the top who seem to have the right approach:

 

http://drivertuition.com/index.htm

 

Or a rally school near Bradford:

 

http://www.extreme-rally.co.uk/

 

Any advice or information would be much appreciated.

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Either of those you have already searched, or even both if you can.

 

No amount of extra tuition, guidance is an issue and always helpful.

Novice Days as suggested above I hear are good too.

 

Skid Pan days can be quite good for gaining the experience and better understanding of over and understeer too.

 

Then the Advanced Driving Test can be good for aiding driving techniques for the road and free, just the test to pay.

 

All are excellent fun, so enjoy. :)

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Rally days won't teach you much about circuit driving. I've done one in a Group N Impreza which was masses of fun, especially the handbrake turns, but it's a very different discipline. I'm not saying that none of the skills can be transferred over (certainly balancing the car is a great skill to acquire), but if you want to do track days I'd be looking at something circuit-specific.

 

I can't recommend anything up north for lack of knowledge, but what I can say is that Andy Walsh at www.carlimits.com is the best instructor I've ever had. You'll learn more there in a single day than a week elsewhere, and he's a top guy as well. It's a trek from you, but grab a cheap hotel the night before locally and it'll be worth every penny. Get a few other Zeds on the day too and you've a little mini-meet, with a competition at the end on the course he lays out. Tuition isn't cheap, but this is WELL worth it.

 

 

Trackday tuition isn't really the way to go here, they'll teach you about the lines on a track and a basic understanding of braking/apex/acceleration points, but that doesn't sound like what you're after initially. A must do as a second step after, though!

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Either of those you have already searched, or even both if you can.

 

No amount of extra tuition, guidance is an issue and always helpful.

Novice Days as suggested above I hear are good too.

 

Skid Pan days can be quite good for gaining the experience and better understanding of over and understeer too.

 

Then the Advanced Driving Test can be good for aiding driving techniques for the road and free, just the test to pay.

 

All are excellent fun, so enjoy. :)

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Rally days won't teach you much about circuit driving. I've done one in a Group N Impreza which was masses of fun, especially the handbrake turns, but it's a very different discipline. I'm not saying that none of the skills can be transferred over (certainly balancing the car is a great skill to acquire), but if you want to do track days I'd be looking at something circuit-specific.

 

I can't recommend anything up north for lack of knowledge, but what I can say is that Andy Walsh at www.carlimits.com is the best instructor I've ever had. You'll learn more there in a single day than a week elsewhere, and he's a top guy as well. It's a trek from you, but grab a cheap hotel the night before locally and it'll be worth every penny. Get a few other Zeds on the day too and you've a little mini-meet, with a competition at the end on the course he lays out. Tuition isn't cheap, but this is WELL worth it.

 

 

Trackday tuition isn't really the way to go here, they'll teach you about the lines on a track and a basic understanding of braking/apex/acceleration points, but that doesn't sound like what you're after initially. A must do as a second step after, though!

 

Yes, something like this sounds ideal. From their website:

 

Smooth acceleration, cornering, balancing the car on the throttle, trailing throttle, trailing brake, left foot braking, what it feels like to experience understeer, oversteer and how to feel them and correct them, gear changing, heel and toe, skid control, spin avoidance and even how to control the rotation of your car and get it back inline from 90 degrees....

....to name but a few, along with some of the more entertaining, rather than educational manoeuvres.

 

That's exactly what I was trying to articulate in my original post. That is a proper trek though, if anyone knows anything similar up North, please let me know.

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