Well had my day with Don last Wednesday
Arrived at the dinner just before 9.30am and after getting a brew Don began his coaching. Now I've read that some people aren't keen on Don's approach as he makes you work for it, no handing of information on a plate here. This I tried to prepared for but its still hard work.
After the dinner it was then a drive down to the bottom of the airfield. Once there Don began setting his cones up for his course. Once done it was time for me to get use to the circuit also gives Don a chance to see what he working with. After a few laps we swapped over for Don to give a demonstration. Straight away it was obvious I had much to discover. Were I would be understeering (Skoda Fabia vRS) around the corners, Don was able to hook the front end right into the apex's. One section was designed to represent a high speed lane change. Here Don was using much less steering effort and was able to get on the power much earlier resulting in a higher speed for the entry to the next.
As mention before, Don coaching works by making you notice the differences between your driving and his. From here Don then goes onto explain the theory behind it. Throughout the day slip angles, tyres, hinting, weight distribution and how the brain works are explained. I even took the lift down a couple of levels and came back up more relaxed
A couple of the area's I found tricky to get my head around was releasing the steering lock, quickly and smoothly. I also seem to have a natural habit of getting back on the power as soon as I'm into the corner. I was shocked to discover how even the slightest amount of Power has a big impact on weight distribution and thus grip.
By the end of the day I was really enjoying myself was even getting to a point wear the rear was starting to move around a little. It then got to the point were Don had to tell me to go home and save my tyres
Speaking of which it wasn't that bad. Couple of days before hand I swapped my rear wheels/tyres from my winters to my old summers. However I was unable to swap the front winters tyres to summer tyres. The front (winters) have suffered from some outer block damage however still got plenty of life left. They even still worked well in this weekends snow
. Rears are getting low but still road legal. The biggest area of the car that seemed to suffer was my front brakes but that's down to cheap motor factor pads.
I have a feeling this was my first of many visits I'm be having with Don. Highly recommend him to anyone.