New Services: Track Driving Instruction & Car Setup

[Paul Gibney - Lancashire AO]

HUGE  Thank's to Adam for some much needed tuition round Three sisters tonight.

New intercom system really helped, not looked at lap times yet but felt a lot quicker with Adam telling 

me where to put the car on track. A few scary moments but thats what its all about isn't it !

Thank's again Adam looking forward to the next one.

I  would recommend Adam's services to anybody.

[AdamR]

Not a problem Paul, thanks for being an 'intercom guinea pig' - really glad both the technology and the tips were useful!

 

If anyone else comes along to the Three Sisters days and I'm there, I'd be happy to jump in with you for a session, no charge of course

[AdamR]

Bit of a heads up - I'll be at Donington next weekend (Saturday 14th, a track day organised by Circuit Days), if anyone else is there I'd be happy to jump in with you for a free 'taster session' if you wish Could be especially useful if you haven't been to Donington before, there's a few bits and bobs that can be explained within a couple of laps that will help with both pace and safety.

[Cleggy the Spyder Man]

managed to miss this post - good luck Adam

[Maurici- CleaR Motorsport]

Well.

 

As some of you know, I'm the  lucky new owner of Adam's car. 

 

The detail how this car is developed is amazing and I can say that is the BEST CAR I've ever driven.

 

So, no doubt about the Setup jobs of Adam.

 

Apart of that, and again I think nobody doubts it, Adam is a Great person, is very pleasent spend time with him, while he is working and explaining you exactly what is he doing and how you will get you in the sterring wheel.

 

Tons of knowledge, the right tools and good skills, as per very good person... so, all my best wishes for this Adam.

[AdamR]

Cheers Cleggy - and huge thanks Maurici! I look forward to working with you more soon

 

 

Ok, this one has been a bit of a slow burner, but finally I have something extra to add to the original post...

 

Some may have seen 'The Munter', a track prepped MX-5 I built for under a grand (http://forum.wscc.co.uk/forum/index.php/topic/114492-my-latest-project-a-month-and-%C2%A31000-to-create-an-mx-5-track-car/) - well part of the plan for it was to make it easy to drive so anyone could hop in, have some fun, and learn a good amount in a short space of time. I'm happy to say my 'recipe' seems to work.

 

 

The car has a completely standard engine, so 114bhp claimed when it came out of Hiroshima in 1992 - about 85bhp at the hubs now - weighs 800kg without occupants, and handling-wise the only mods it has are blue springs on it and yellow shocks   Not sure of the brands, but I guess the shocks might be Koni and the springs generic lowering springs. I left the standard anti roll bars on the car, so the whole thing is pretty soft and compliant. This, combined with the superb suspension geometry that Mr Mazda came up with, and a decent geo setup (which I have developed from the race car), makes it very easy to drive on the limit and gives the driver a lot of confidence in doing so.

 

One of the guys at work, Mark, expressed an interest in having a crack at some track days, so I decided he could be my guinea pig... With just a small amount of training and a minimal amount of track driving experience, how fast could my 'recipe' of an easy-to-drive car and some instruction make him?

 

Well - we both got to Anglesey this weekend just gone and I was pretty surprised when I got round to watching the videos. On his second track day, with approximately 90 minutes of track driving experience in total, ever, Mark was just 1.6s behind me on a lap of the Coastal Circuit, and could do that consistently within a couple of tenths! Translating this sort of pace into a race-spec MX-5 would put him on pole in MaX5 (one of the UK's MX-5 race series) and providing he had some racecraft, would easily pick up podiums and wins... The other two series - 5Club and BRSCC - are highly competitive, but he would straight away slot into the mid-pack driving like this.

 

 

 

(Apologies for the quality of the video - it was so windy, 50mph+ - that salty spray from the sea was covering the car, track and camera lens!)

 

 

Here is my attempt for comparison:

 

 

 

So, how was it done?

 

Well my recipe is as follows:

 

1) Make the car easy to drive. There is no point having a car that can lap in - say - 1 minute dead if it's so hard to drive that you can't use all the performance, and therefore cross the line at 1min20. You are much better off making the car a little slower - say an ultimate time of 1:02 and giving the driver confidence to get the best out of it, then he can get round in 1:10 or 1:05. This is where the MX-5 excels, especially without rock hard shocks and anti roll bars. Any car can be set up with the same principles...

 

2) Monkey see, monkey do: Show the trainee what the car is capable of. The amount of times I have been able to chop multiple seconds off someone's lap times just by me showing them what their car is capable of is remarkable. This works best for novices, but still holds true for those with more experience.

 

3) Real-time coaching: There's no point coming back into the pits and saying 'Do you remember, 3 laps ago at Corner X, you got a bit of oversteer and you did Y? Well you should have done Z...' - it's too late. The assistance needs to be immediate, clear and concise. On a similar note, the sessions need to be short and focused, there's no point just driving round and round without actively trying to make improvements each lap.

 

 

Using Mark as a guinea pig in the MX-5 has hopefully illustrated what's possible - so on this note, I am now happy to offer instruction in the above car if anyone wishes. It would be on a 'bend it you mend it' basis, but with spares so cheap you could stuff it in the tyres and it'll still cost less than a set of decent brake pads for a Westfield... All you need to do is turn up - I will provide the hemlets (with intercoms), gloves and rain suit if required, fuel, brake pads, tyres, mechanical support and of course instruction. Cost is circuit and date-dependent, but you book the track day, then I bring the car and above kit, charge a modest sum to cover consumables and fuel, a fee for my instruction, and that's it.

 

A quick bit of maths indicates that you could end up with a whole day's instruction at a full open pit lane day for under £400. Please give me a shout if you're interested

 

Cheers!

Adam