I am planning to book the full day 'tailor-made' advanced class in May and want to understand just what is included in the morning skills sessions and afternoon track sessions. I've reached out to the academy to ask some questions, particularly about the structure & format of the experience; but still have questions; so I hope someone who has done the advanced class can shed more light. I did ask them how the afternoon track sessions are structured (# sessions and time of each) and was disappointed to hear that it was only two 20 min sessions in that 2.5 hr period. I was expecting at least twice that with debriefs in between. I did not think to ask how many participants are in each class, how many instructors they have, and how many are on track at the same time.
I'm coming from the US and plan to be in UK for a week with the first 2-3 days in London, then drive to Cambridge for at least one day before going on to Hethel on Thursday for the Friday driving experience. I'm undecided if I will spend Fri evening in Hethel / Norwich or start back to London and stay someplace else for the night. My return flight is Sunday afternoon from LHR. If anyone has tips for things to see and do around London and enroute to/from Hethel I would very much appreciate it.
I did the advanced tailored. It wasn't tailored quite the way I expected. There are four 20-minute sessions, 2 in the morning and 2 in the afternoon with lunch in-between. I think we had 6 participants on my day, with 2 instructors. There were 4 cars, some are touring and some are sport. All were RHD at the time but this was right when they first made the switch to Emira so they might have LHD available now?
1 session on skid pad
1 session brake and avoid
2 track sessions
Skid pad session you have freedom to just hoon, they want you to break the car loose and do donuts. In Emira, it's actually quite hard to induce oversteer even on a wet pad. Also, this isn't really a full 20 minutes. Once you successfully slide a few times you generally head back to the clubhouse.
Brake and avoid is a high speed run toward essentially a moose test, where you mash the brakes at full pressure and swerve through a set of cones. It's meant to show you how you can still control this car under hard braking. I absolutely murdered some cones here, I blame the fact that they tossed me the key to a car I had never driven before first thing in the morning with the steering wheel on the wrong side and said ok now attack.
You're paired with the same instructor for the day, which is nice. They give you feedback, and at the end you get a "report card" with scoring and ways to improve.
You'll try both touring and sport suspensions but on track it's hard to tell a difference in ride. Slightly more lean in touring I suppose.
When you're not driving you're hanging in the clubhouse watching others run or hanging with the other folks who are awaiting a car.
You have lunch in the Lotus cafeteria, it was finger sandwiches and sweets for me.
