Trip to the skidpan

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Mon 10 Feb 2003 18:15
Trip to the skidpan - peterb
We went to the skidpan on Saturday. National Driving Centre in Croydon (found easily by web search). Not a particularly glamorous location, but an interesting, well-run and fun experience.

We drove a front drive Primera with ABS switched on and off and a rear drive Sierra without ABS. We had 30 mins in a classroom plus 90 or so in the cars. Cost was £120 for the two of us.

Instructors were both ex-Police and the skidpan and training are apparently modelled on Hendon. Slipperiness comes from an oil/water mix and there are different road surfaces. The pan itself is quite small, but I never found this to be a problem and they made a fuss of it being purpose-built.

The course covered various techniques, including:

- thinking about ?exit routes? (e.g. mounting a clear pavement) rather than just braking;
- learning to feel when the back is going to let go;
- correcting rear-wheel skids in both FWD and RWD cars;
- taking effective lines into and out of corners to minimise chances of skid;
- using ABS effectively to steer around an obstacle;
- cadence breaking;
- steering out of a locked-wheels skid by releasing break pedal.

We learned a lot and had a good time. Mrs B, who was reluctant to go, has been telling all her friends about it.
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Tue 11 Feb 2003 09:30
Trip to the skidpan - Graham
So a thumbs up then.

I take the Mrs later on in the year. Thanks for the feedback.
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