FTO Drivers Club, Western Australia

[RichardH]

Life has been just crazy lately - for everyone, from the sound of things. So it's no surprise that we've not had event planning occur... The last one was a whole month ago!

So let's get the ball rolling again, starting with an MC Motorsport idea...


We don't just have to do the common-or-garden course challenge at MC's. We have flexibility to design something a little different. We could sit down with John Clark and put together a specific program like the following...

***

Split the group into two... say 8 cars in each. Get 8 cars on the tarmac at once, lined up around the top corner. Other 8 drivers spectating.

Set up a sweeping corner... traffice cones on the �inside�.

Fire one car at a time around the corner, with instructor seated comfortably as passenger... setting the corner entry speed, and then giving instructions on mid-corner action. Throttle off, throttle on, throttle steady, light braking, etc. The objective would be to set up different understeer/oversteer or weight transfer mid-corner.

The results would vary from steady handling exercises (holding a line, throttle steering) through to getting the entire back end breaking away and applying opposite lock and avoiding a spin... with the amusing likelihood of a full tankslapper just a late-correction away, hehe.

We could then change the �corner� to left-right �S� and attempt it at say three different speeds.

Then, a handbrake turn exercise if it�s wet.

Finally, we could set up a course that has all of the above, and try two quick runs through it each and log the times.

***

Your thoughts, folks?

- Rich

[marke]

sounds good to me, as long as everyone is willing to pick up a lot of cones

[RichardH]

I'm thinking there would be significantly less conicide (hehe) if we only mark out the "inside" of the corner. You would then have the line you needed to stick to (or attempt to stick to), but that the car would always push, spin or have the back step out *away* from the line of cones we put out.


I may not be explaining this well. I'll try a different approach.

- You line up at the far end, around the usual 180-degree "corner", right-to-left. So you're in the very far corner of the DTEC tarmac rectangle.

- Instructor says go. You motor out, get to 60km/h, with a line of cones on your right, going diagonally towards the opposite corner.

- Around the middle of the rectangle, the line of cones cones curve off to the right. You follow the curve. Weight transfer, left front tyre loads up.

- Instructor says "throttle off!". You back right off the throttle. The back end of the car immediately slides out to your left, and you're dialling in loads of opposite lock, and looking out the left window at where you're going.

- After you bring the car under control, or at least to a screaming halt, you take it slowly back to the far end, and join the end of the queue.

- Next car takes off.

- Your next run will be at 70km/h, same drill but staying on the throttle and attempting to hold the line this time.


Make sense?

- Rich

[BASSULA]

hrmm sounds like fun.. but I need to get my car fixed up first b4 I think about things like that and get the finances back in order after a 2 week trip to bali!!

[Zan]

Heya Rich

Sounds like great fun. But it will come down to cost if I can attend or not.


-zan.