Took the B8 up to northern NH this weekend for a winter safe driving course at the Team O'Neil rally school. Awesome time, would recommend this to anyone. Great group of instructors running the gamut from experienced part-timers to current pro rally drivers. Little bit of classroom time, mostly in the car between skidpad, slalom, accident avoidance, and finishing off with a couple laps around a mini rally section. Great low risk environment to learn car control. Although one Corolla went into a berm hard twice, minor damage, and a teenage girl put her dad's MDX into a ditch. Went up with two buddies, one in a B7 S4 the other in an Outback. Lots of Subies out there. Anyway enjoy the pics, didn’t get a ton of action shots as we spent most of the time either driving or riding with other students/instructors.
And a couple of their Audi Quattro rally cars. You can really see the skid plates in the botton pic.
Also couldn't figure out how to imbed this video on photobucket but here is me on the slalom. The vids don't look that exciting honestly but it was a ton of fun.
Hehe, well low risk is a relative term. You can decompose any risk into probability and severity - the probability of an incident at something like this is non-trivial, but the consequences are fairly low vs say a track day at a road course, or a winter accident at highway speed. Can't really avoid snow up here so it's prob best to be prepared. Plus, sliding around on snow is a blast!
I bet that was a blast. I grew up in Wolfeboro, NH, so I learned how to drive in snow from the start. It always cracks me up in the Seattle area when we get 2 inches of snow and they call it the "Snopocolapse" or "Snomageddon." I just drive my Audi right up and down the hills w/o issue.
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Well it's hard to convey the takeaways from something like this over a forum. But they focused on recognizing the various types of skids and how to shift the weight of the car to compensate. So for example, you're going around a turn but the car isn't turning. That means you are understeering, so the front wheels are loosing traction. So, you want to shift weight to the front of the car. You can do this by lifting the throttle, or tapping the brakes, or initiating a steering input. Vice versa for oversteer, where you generally want to move weight to the rear wheels by gently getting on the gas and countersteering. These are generalizations and I am not a performance driving instructor, so take it with a grain of salt. Don't take this as a substitute for proper training if you are into this kind of thing.
They also focus on trying to give just one input at a time. So, for example, going through the slalom the sequence is typically gas, lift, steering input, unwind steering so car can find traction, gas, repeat.
And finally, always be looking where you want to go. So, if you lose control and are skidding towards a tree, DO NOT focus your eyes on the tree, look past the tree and that will help you correct.
All common sense stuff that anyone into driving will be familiar with, but it's really helpful (and incredibly fun) to practice at low speed (didn't spend much time out of 2nd gear) on a low traction surface.
Thanks for the details mate; definitely taken with a grain of salt.
Information you mentioned is quite interesting imo and makes me want to learn more; appreciate the time you spent type it up.
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That's why I refuse to drive in snow, period.
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