Just got home from a Rally Taster session at rallyschool's Whitchurch site. I had a voucher as a gift from SWMBO and the lad for my birthday. A total of only 5 laps (plus a final ride with the instructor at the controls) on an old airfield course. Car used was a 'V' reg Focus. They water sections of the track to keep it slippery and there are two hairpins where you have to do a hand brake turn. It was probably a mistake to drive there in the MX5 as I found the Focus pretty lacking in feedback. First two laps went without incident, but as you might guess over confidence set in on the first lap of the second session. You never know how fast you can go until you fall off, or in my case, how hard you can brake without unbalancing the car beyond my skill to recover it and doing a 360. Cue a course marker tyre being propelled down the next straight an impressive distance and dented pride. As they said in the briefing, you won't go quick unless you get the braking right. Got it back together a bit better for the next two laps, even doing a half decent hand brake assisted turn on the last lap, and managed to get comfortably beyond the 'pass' mark. I'd like to do the hill climb drivers school at Prescott, but as they don't offer 'borrowed horse and your own spurs' tuition I better give it a miss on this showing. -- +-------------------------------------------------------------------+ | Pete Fisher at Home: | | Voxan Roadster Yamaha WR250Z/Supermoto "Old Gimmer's Hillclimber" | | Gilera GFR * 2 Moto Morini 2C/375 Morini 350 "Forgotten Error" | +-------------------------------------------------------------------+
I did a half day near Chipping Norton a couple of years ago and the passenger ride at the end was an eye-opener. No matter which way the car was going, it was pointing somewhere else while the landscape scrolled horizontally past the windscreen. Madness. I spent weeks afterwards drifting my 306 on roundabouts before I made myself stop before it ended in tears.
Indeed. This was far from a forest stage and it wasn't what I would call 'white knuckle' because it was all conducted in second gear, but the sheer rapidity of transition between braking/turning/accelerating was humbling. -- +-------------------------------------------------------------------+ | Pete Fisher at Home: | | Voxan Roadster Yamaha WR250Z/Supermoto "Old Gimmer's Hillclimber" | | Gilera GFR * 2 Moto Morini 2C/375 Morini 350 "Forgotten Error" | +-------------------------------------------------------------------+
It is, or at least was, not uncommon for drivers to go over blind brows sideways if they have no idea what the road does next. That way they're set up for a corner in either direction.
I did a day up Silverstone rally school recently and this was on the agenda. Didn't stop grinning for days.
Istr Cowan or Hopkirk got a bit careless in the Outback; after miles of the telephone poles being beside the road, a humpback bridge intervened and they took it at full belt - unluckily the poles carried straight on after the bridge and the road veered sharply right. On a more prosaic note - I was grateful for a farmer's foresight in leaving his field gate open after I took a humpback bridge at speed somewhere in the Western Highlands.
I do believe that's what's known as a Scandinavian flick, first popularised by 'flying Finn' Timo Makinen in the BMC Mini Coopers of the 1960s.
You are entirely correct. Mad bastards those scandanavians and driving on ice all the time means to them gravel is a high grip surface. Fraser
