cut and pasted from SELOC....
Plans Driver Training review from the eyes of a novice driver
Having just past that magic 1k mileage and got a first service out of the way, it was time to get to learn about my car.
Having looked at the forums and read haydj’s review I decided to go with a Plans driver training session.
Following the snow on Saturday night/Sunday morning I woke up this morning to a dry, sunny and cold morning.
I met up with Graham at their place about 8.15 and following coffee and a quick tour of the workshop, we discussed the outcomes I was looking for from this session.
“What cars have you driven in the past?†I was asked. Ermm….. Honda Estate, Mazda 5 seven seater, Chrysler Voyager. Not a promising start.
We spent quite a lot of time discussing weight distribution and its effects. At the time I was keen to learn and understand but even keener to get out into the car, however it has given me a lot to think about and I now have a much greater understanding of what happened during my session and more importantly a mental note pad of the car dynamics.
We got onto the track about 8:50am and Graham took my car for a couple of shakedown laps to see if it had any significant under or over steer characteristics. I was pleased to hear that everything was just fine. This was a real eye opener for me as I had never been a passenger in an Elise and also had never been round a track with someone driving (if only at 65%) at speed.
Now it was my turn. Being a Top Gear viewer it is quite an evocative moment sitting on the same start time as “them on telly†(yes I know I am sad). I did about 5/6 laps, being coached throughout, before we went onto the main runway to see how the car reacted to moving on and off the throttle, and how to brake hard and change direction.
We spent quite a bit of time weaving up and down the runway before be went to the end to do some power understeer and (traction control off) power oversteer. I was officially allowed to be a hooligan! Great fun.
Then back for a number of extra laps of the track before we finished. This was circa 10.20 and it was time for McClaren to shakedown a new SLR.
The Elise is my first performance car and this was the first time that I had actually “driven†it. Most excellent!
Outcome achieved – to gain confidence in the car, me as a driver and prepare for me for my first track day at Hullavington this Friday. Also it will make be a safer driver as I now know what is happening to the car.
I would like to thank Graham for his patience and skill to help me find the limit.
Conclusion: Intensive 90 mins or so on track, that really prepares you. Couple of track days and then I will be back for more and start to work on getting my driving style smoother.
Value for money: Worth every penny. Quality not quantity
see
http://forums.seloc....4605#pid2114781
. Made some huge improvements in technique - I've had lots of tuition over the last few years (Don Palmer, Andy Walsh and numerous track day instructors) and whilst I've been impressed with all of them I may have ended up with information overload - I liken it to layer upon layer of paint. Today, got back to some basics and big breakthrough was eradicating the understeer on turn in by really getting the weight on the front of the car - no understeer at Hammerhead 
At £200 for one-to-one tuition I got really value from it, subsequent sessions £170. All in all a big 
) and this eradicated alot of the inherent understeer - doing these courses however with the normal set up shows that with the right technique you don't need to suffer with excessive understeer. You may remember the TG episode where they run an Elise Mk 2 (same skinny fronts as the VX) and JC bemoans the understeer round hammerhead - the Lotus chief test driver (Gavin Kershaw?) then drives the same corner but with no understeer whatsoever.
