What a great event! Very rewarding as an instructor. I truly hope this becomes a recurring event. I took 4 parents for a ride through the difference elements. One was from Washington, DC. One was from Charlotte. One was from Hillsborough and one was from Cary. The lady from DC said that it was a couple of months before they came to DC and she just didn't want to wait that long. The gentleman from Charlotte said they offer a similar program at the Lowe's Motor Speedway but it's $450 because of the cost to rent the speedway facilities. At $60, this course was a steal!!
Ch 17 did a pretty good job with their coverage on the 6pm and 11pm news yesterday. I haven't seen anything from the other TV stations that came out.
My student, Brent, has been driving for 1 year (1.5 years counting time with his permit). In that time he has never had to get on the brakes hard, he has never felt abs kick in, and never been in a situation where his tires have lost traction and he had to recover (all of which he experienced yesterday). He said he had no idea that the car would stop as quickly as it did.
He also couldn't believe the difference steering input made when stoping his car. That was by far the most awesome teaching moment of the entire day. We were on the wet lane change element. Brent when into the element harder than he had all morning (his confidence was building)! When he made it into the lane on the right side, he transitioned his streering input to come back to the center lane, but the car understeered and we continued straight ahead. Brian got on the brakes, but we continued straight. With the front wheels turned and now locked (and the car still headed straight towards the cones!), Brian did just as you'd expect and dialed in event more steering input (all the way to full lock to the left).
So we ended up about 2 feet past the cone wall (Brian's first conage of the day!). We talked for about 30 secs, went right back around to try it again. This time when he hit the right side lane and the car started to understeer, he quickly got the front tires back to straight and then got on the brakes and the ABS quickly brought the car to a stop. Brian said "Holly Crap!, I had no idea steering would have that big an impact on stopping the car." Everything clicked at that moment!
After that, we did lots of other variations within that same element. I'd even tug on the e-brake to kick out the rear end. Brian's reactions quickly changed from over correction to smooth steering and brake inputs. He was really doing an outstanding job of car control before the day was over.
In the afternoon, I asked Miles to remove the cone that blocked the center lane of the that same element. This way we could carry a decent amount of speed into the element in order to let the student feel the car hydroplane and then let them get a feel for the distance it takes to stop the car in those wet conditions. I hope others were able to try that as well. My student told me he felt that exercise was helpful for him.
When I got home I told my wife " Screw the swimming pool, we're getting an irrigated skid pad! It's a hell-of-a lot more fun than a pool!!!) For some reason, she really didn't find the humor in it that I did!
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