Originally Posted by
Jakeys
You had the R in the understeer recovery? We had the Golf GTi for that exercise. The Golf R was for the cornering theory, definitely the right car for that job.
I figured I'd do a write up cause I know when I wanted to do the Driver Experience I had no idea what to expect. May be helpful for any other SA peeps considering it next year.
I went in Thursday's arvo session, I have never been on track myself before at Mallala (Or any track except go karts) and I found the experience very fun. Day was meticulously organised, coffee was **** but sandwiches and soft drinks for lunch and some cakes and **** after the track time, instructors were helpful and friendly, kinda cool to meet Steve Pizzatti, the group and exercise schedule/setup worked really well, overall a great day. Spent lots of time in cars, no instructors in the car they just radio comms to you to give you instructions or pointers. I went in a little unsure about what to expect (Nobody wants to be the one guy who spins or goes off) but once I got there I realised that just being an enthusiast, experience cruising and going for hills runs at night, in the wet etc. that's already a lot more skill than most of the participants had so the way the day was paced it was a total breeze and nothing at all to have worried about. It would be almost impossible to screw anything up especially for anyone interested in cars enough to be on this forum. I'd definitely be up for the Evolution course next year.
In terms of exercises...
Emergency Braking / Polo GTi
Start at the cones, drive to 50km/h and foot to the floor emergency brake at the mark. Repeat at 100km/h. Total breeze, this would be a breeze and not very informative for most here but apparently a lot of normal drivers don't seem to have confidence in emergency braking. Heard instructions to the other cars like "you need to brake harder to need ABS", "you braked at the wrong time there" and "you need to apply about 40% more brake" which is pretty shocking when the instruction is just push the pedal as hard as you can. Also most people when asked how much further the 100km/h car would stop than the 50km/h thought it would only be double.
Standing Water Understeer / Golf GTi Performance Pack
This was pretty nerve wracking, basically turn 2 at Mallala they flood it with water and you get the instruction "Full throttle, and when you reach the entry at the cones, go full lock into the corner." and that's it. You start with ESP off, and you're like "Full lock, no way" but they've planned it so the car just understeers it way through the corner. Pretty fun. You go again with ESP on and I think the idea is to see how much better it corners but because they tell you to go full lock we ended up almost driving into the apex, you need to react quickly. Instinctually having some understanding of how the car handles we just opened up the steering and went through a lot quicker than I expected the car would be able to! Very fun one. Surprisingly not many people had issues with this, a few people too afraid to gun it and then lift off oversteering and other weird stuff but nobody went off.
Slalom / Scirocco R
Self explanatory, bunch of cones on a more or less straight part of the track, drive through them as fast as you can. The instruction given was minimal, just don't brake and feather the throttle to transfer weight effectively. Difficult on the first run until you get a feel for it, I chose to go at it hot straight away but ate two cones trying to keep it as sharp as possible. They suggested I relax my arms a little and pay a little more attention to the passenger side as that's where the cones were, did that and nailed it next run. A few people were not comfortable with the slalom and just drove through around the cones at a regular pace rather than try and push the car through them. The Scirocco felt very light and lively through here.
Corner Theory / Golf R
This was my favourite. Gun it down the straight, brake for a hairpin, outside cone, inside/apex cone, outside cone again, and then a left hander where you need to ease the throttle, supposedly although we learnt if you're game you can stay flat. As the instructor is not in the car and nobody is in front of you this is really the only part of the day where you can honestly push a car to its extreme if you are willing, although ESP needs to be on still. I found with this that you needed to brake a lot later than the marker they tell you to, otherwise you are entering the corner too slowly. After a few goes I was clipping the apex and the outer edge rumble strips beautifully, the Golf R felt unbelievably composed here, even torturing the tyres and running out to the edges of the road on the edge it was so smooth. It felt like my car actually, with a bit less weight. The turbo wasn't as obvious as the Scirocco and although faster than the Scirocco because of how composed it was, it actually felt slower.
Hot Laps / Golf R & Scirocco R
2x laps around the track in a Golf R and 2x laps around the track in a Scirocco R. Unfortunately you go in a procession with all the other cars and an instructor in the Polo GTi ahead of you who will slow to the pace of the slowest car, which means you all must go more or less as slow as the slowest person regardless of track position. Even if everyone is perfect, you're going as slow as a Polo GTi. This sort of ruined it for me because the person in front of me was braking too much and not getting on the throttle anywhere near enough, plus completely missing their lines. So this was more of a casual cruise around the track at half effort. I get this is a day for everyone of all skill levels so I'm not blaming or anything, but it was a little disappointing. I think the Evolution would be a lot better here.
All in all, a fantastic day. The GTi's I have no real comment on other than they were better than expected. The Golf R surprisingly felt pretty much exactly like my R36 does, and the Scirocco felt very light, lively and on edge. The turbo delivery seemed more evident in the Scirocco as well, I could feel where it came on a bit more. I found the Scirocco just overall a bit more intense at lower speeds but that made me less confident in its abilities, I like higher speeds and higher composure so I definitely favour the Golf here. I'm biased though because it felt very very similar to the R36, I know my passenger Resch owns a Scirocco and he preferred the more fun feeling Rocco.
I'd actually be interested in doing Evolution at Phillip Island next year. And they gave me a hat and I actually discovered I maybe don't hate hats after all.
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