The SoloPro Driving School has been coming to Calgary for six years now, and this year, not because of my own great motivation, I was given a chance to partake… and I learned something.
Every event that I attend, I try and take something away from it that can be applied to future driving… but it’s rare these days that I find something concrete. When I do find something, often what I think I’ve found doesn’t apply itself well to following events. After nearly twenty years of autox, how much could I really have left to learn?
But learn something I did. I’ve always felt supremely confident in transition, but less so when it comes to asking a car to take a set and hold it through a longer corner. After a pointer relating to braking (less brake over a longer period) I noticed a consistent drop in my times. And given the number of runs done in my car by various drivers over the course of the day, they were GOOD times…
At the end of the day, I felt like the car was a bit of a slut, but it was a good thing. Tire temperatures were once measured in the range of 170degrees, which is as hot as I have ever measured. The sway bar change I made after last event seems to have had the desired effect: making the car less twitchy in transition, but more neutral mid corner. No one offered me any suggestions on vehicle set up, or pointed out various faults that they felt like they needed to drive around. Also, being more than 6ft tall, it impresses me that the car can comfortably fit both myself and real horse jockies/race car drivers.
I’m still not wholly in love with a couple features of this car, but it’s very hard to argue that it is not friendly on track.
SoloPro Driving School website: http://soloprodrivingschool.com
Photos credit Nick F.
That’s a real nice way of calling short people ‘short’. 😉