Come and Try
If you want to have fun and learn a bit more about safe driving on the road a Come and Try day at a race track is a good place to start.
Whilst there are many aspect of driver training, roughly summarised as Attitude, Awareness, Anticipation and Actions, an instinctive knowledge of what to do and when to do it is present in many ways across all aspects.
And have a bit of fun along the way. Driving above the road speed limit feels good to most people but doing so safely is vital. But some can have fun without troubling the far end, or even the centre, of the speedometer. And that’s just fine.
Track day training does not have to mean driving like crazy with smoking tyres around corners. At our Come and Try days that sort of behaviour is discouraged.
The emphasis is on learning how to sit in the car (sounds simple, often wrong), how to position the car on the road/track for a corner (also sounds simple, also often wrong) and how to actually turn the corner (perhaps not so simple but equally often wrong).
Generally our untrained instincts want to turn into a corner too early comprising the ability to a) pick the entry point in the first place, and b) adjust the vehicle’s path when we find out we have misjudged the entry point or something unexpected happens. Even at legal road speeds on the public road these errors can be costly and doing it well is more satisfying.
Our intrepid instructors guide the driver on how to do this properly. It usually takes a few laps before the adjustments start to become muscle memory after which further refinements and increased speed (if desired) can be added in.
If you don’t want an instructor, no one will force you to have one.
At the end of the day we had a lot of happy drivers who have enjoyed themselves and learnt a lot. And, some rather tired but happy instructors to who we are very grateful.
From an instructor
I think my highlight of the day was coaching a young bloke in an AU falcon. He was very receptive to feedback and we were able to accurately manage his expectations of the car and its capability. As a result he was able to get out there for multiple sessions, driving within his and his cars limits and having a great time doing it.
Again thanks for organising and getting us involved.
Igor Kay #151
A fine collection of cars lined up to drive around the iconic Thunderdome banked oval behind a pace car.
Thunderdome Parade Laps
Calder Park’s Thunderdome is banked high speed oval built for the brief period when American NASCAR style racing was popular here. NASCAR evolved in America during the alcohol Prohibition era from the hotted up cars used by boot leg booze smugglers to out run the Police in order to get to the State line first and out of their jurisdiction.
Modern day race cars run in close formation at speeds over 300 km/h but we don’t do that on our parade laps.
However, even at a more leisurely pace, driving on a banked track is quite an experience. Despite having been out of action for far too long, the Thunderdome retains an amazing atmosphere. You can quite easily avoid looking at your speedometer and imagine yourself in the thick of the action.
And, if you so inclined (no pun intended), you can casually drop into a conversation “Oh yes, I’ve driven at the Thunderdome”.
Lawrence Glynn #3
