Competition Skills Driver Training

The following article has been reproduced from the Oct/Nov 2009 edition of the Club's Behind The Wheel magazine.

It outlines one driver's experience of his day at the track (in a not so typical car!) and gives the reader a good idea of what to expect on such a day. 

My ‘Competition Skills’ Driver Training Experience

By Ian Williams

As the 16th August 2009 was going to be the last ever HSV OC organised event to be held at Oran Park, I thought that it would be a great chance to get acquainted with my Clubby’s new 6.7 litre twin turbo'd motor and improve my driving “skills” in the process. With over 540kW’s at the rear wheels on 15psi boost, my Clubby is just too powerful to try out on public roads.

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For the day I set my TEIN suspension to full hard as I use softer settings on the road. I also turned my boost controller off which dropped boost to 10psi. The resulting 460 rwkW’s meant that the Clubby would still lose traction in 3rd gear when the turbo’s spooled and the boost came on, but at least it became more managable on the track. J

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The Sunday morning proved to be clear and fresh, and I turned up at 7:30am with the other drivers to sign on and have our cars scrutineered by Chief Scrutineer Brett Gilles and his team.

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 As the event was held under a CAMS permit, cars had to comply with basic CAMS safety requirements. I bought a piece of blue “contact” to make a blue triangle which I placed on the back mudguard to show where the battery is, and installed an approved fire extinguisher in the cabin. I already had clear VentureShield urethane film on my forward glass (as well as my paint work to protect against stone chips) so overall I found it was quite easy to prepare my road car to meet the CAMS requirements.

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 The Clerk of the Course, Fletcher Carr, commenced proceedings with a Drivers Briefing session during which he introduced the Chief Steward, Bruce Pattison and then handed the session over to our Chief Instructor, Craig Hilton.

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 Craig ran us through the program and re-enforced the safety requirements for the day. He then took us on a walk around the Oran Park South circuit, showing us the optimum lines, the apex’s, braking and turn in points, most which had already been marked with witches hats. I found this walk very informative. At Wakefield Park for example I would use the ripple strips whilst cornering in the Torana I used to own, but I saw that there was no way my Clubby could handle these Oran Park ripples.

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 I also got a better feel for the road surface, where it went off-camber and how to best approach the “blind” corners – all of which would have taken me heaps of time to get used to, and it definitely helped prevent me from making mistakes in the process.

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 The first session I had Brett Heeley as my instructor and his experience with turbo cars gave me the confidence that I needed. Initially he drove a few laps and showed me how to apply the power smoothly to avoid loosing rear wheel traction. Brett re-enforced the points that Craig earlier made on how to circulate quickly and then handed the driving over to me.

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 I was surprised how well the Clubby handled at speed and soon got the feel of things, although I kept chickening out down the main straight, braking a fair bit before the braking marker before Turn 1. Brett was quite patient with me and I progressively built my confidence as I got the hang of applying the power without losing the rear end.

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 In the second session, my instructor was Steve Hodges. I got held up in this session with some slower cars, but in this session Steve showed me how and where to brake in order to shift weight on to the front tyres to prevent understeer just before turning into a corner. I was surprised just how effective this technique was. I’ll be practicing that a lot in the future. Again I was chicken down the main straight and kept to around 170 kph.

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 In one way I was glad that these sessions were only 3 hot laps long as we finished each session just as my street tyres were starting to give up.

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 In the third session, I really got the hang of things. Not only could I now use my power to quickly catch other cars between corners, but I found that I could get around the corners nice and quickly as well. This is where my fun really begun!

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Dave Monaghan was my instructor for this session and he told me not to brake until I reached the brake marker cone that had been placed at the end of the main straight. I was real nervous about that as I thought this marker had been set up for cars doing “normal” speeds (160-170kph) down the straight. Dave said to “trust me” and I thought I would, after all if he was wrong I would end up taking him out too!

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Entering the main straight, I have to wait until the car is completley straight before I gas it in order to make the wheelspin controllable. So with Dave's "promise", I held it on full throttle right down the straight and hit nearly 220kph before the brake marker quickly arrived.

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It was real hard for me to hoild my nerve and brake so "late". Turn 1 looked so close at that speed. The Clubby braked like a dream. The ABS came on, and with no lock up I was able to enter Turn 1 right on the line that I wanted, which set me up perfectly for the other corners. I just couldn't believe how well the Clubby braked from 220 clicks!

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Things happen so quickly at that speed. It had been a large leap of faith in Dave’s experience and was well worth it. Thanks Dave – I have never had so much adrenalin hit my system before and I liked it!

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Unfortunately I lost all boost at the end of this session, so that was the end of my day. The problem appeared to have been caused by a piece of internal weld that had not been properly ground off from the inside of the custom stainless steel intake that I had made earlier on this year (not by Autotech). This caused a bird strike which disintegrated the impeller in the driver side turbo. L

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The day continued after lunch with the removal of the witches hats that guided drivers toward the best line, and then drivers were let loose without instructors to see just how well they performed solo.

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This training session gave me a much better feel for the Clubby, and a respect for just how well it can go around the track on street tyres.

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My thanks go out to all those people who volunteered behind the scenes to make it such a great day. Your efforts were really appreciated by all the participants.

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 I commend a competition skills driver training day to anyone who wants to understand how their car can perform in a safe and controlled environment, and at speeds that are no where near legal on public roads.

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 The day is not hard on your car if you don’t want it to be, and you will learn new skills from an experienced team of talented instructors. It is certainly a terrific way to learn to “live your dream”. IW

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 Photos by John Smith of Photos n Things 0414 940 541