Last year I took GBMINI#2 on an Advanced Driving Skills School hosted by the Boston Chapter of BMWCCA. Today I did another ADSS in GBMINI#3, hosted by the White Mountains chapter (see this thread on MINI2 for more info).
Saturday night I drove up to Concord and met Steve at the Days Inn; he was driving his wifes Mazda because his MINI is having some serious upgrades done to it; but GBMINI#3 and the Mazda seemed happy together …
In the morning we headed up to New Hampshire International Speedway and met more MINIs and other cars; MINI owners included Greg, Joe, Michelle, Diane & Pete (who was a volunteer rather than a participant); here are some of the MINIs:
The ADSS focuses on low-speed maneouvres to learn the handling and limits of your car, including braking in a straight line and while cornering, single and double lane changing, and skid-pad exercises including under- and over-steer; this last is much easier for the bigger rear-wheel-drive cars!
While GBMINI#3 did OK on the skid-pad, I was most impressed with some of the other MINIs, especially Greg & Joe:
I was much more at ease this year – probably because I already knew what to expect from last years ADSS; I had remembered some of last years teaching too, and did better on the braking & lane-changing maneouvres.
I did find that the aftermarket tires gripped much better, making understeer more tricky to achieve – from road driving I knew their wet weather performance was better than the stock runflats, but this was another confirmation.
Also on the skidpad, one instructor tried very hard to teach me how to correct from E-brake lock induced oversteer (hard to get it any other way in a front-wheel-drive car like the MINI); in the end I just about got the idea of accelerating instead of braking to recover …
On the auto-x “track” at the end of the day, I also felt more comfortable (thanks to Greg for persuading me to go & instructor Dave for helping me understand where to brake/steer/etc).
My first run on the auto-x in GBMINI#3 was with the transmission in normal Drive mode; there were a few noticeable times when jumping from braking to accelerating gave a lag while the transmission tried to “catch up”.
So for my second run I tried Sports Drive instead and I found the difference amazing – and excellent! The transmission just always seemed to be correct and I just just able to ignore revs/gears and concentrate on steering and braking/accelerating. Very impressed 🙂
Another thing I was very impressed with was when I went round the auto-x as a passenger in Pete’s MINI; he is an experienced driver and it was great fun!
At the end of the day I headed back home exhausted and battered (from being thrown about on the skid pad), but happy … I recommend an ADSS day to every MINI owner.
But I am still not ready to go on a real track!
M&I / GBMINI 
Thanks for the automatic drive update.
We really count on you for it too.
Al.
if you enjoyed the autoX, then I highly recommend that you stay off of a real track.
It can be very very addicting! 😀
Nice write-up! It was great to meet you and thanks again for the help with my auto-up/track day DSC circuit!
One thing I’ve been wanting to ask an MCSA owner is, when you are in the manual mode and run the engine up to the red line, does the transmission shift up to the next gear even without hitting the paddles. The 3 series cars I’ve driven couldn’t be held in gear at the red line they would shift up automatically.
Bill
Ian, great to see you there with the new car. I watched you a bit and you did seem to be getting the idea of letting up on the throttle to recover in the corners.
By the way, my instructor taught me another trick for breaking the rear end loose on the wet skid pad. Let up on the throttle slightly, right before the “puddle”. Then, with a little left foot brake while still holding in the throttle with your right foot, the back end will come right around. I guess the effect is similar to yanking on the e-brake, but a little more natural to do. I did have the rear tire pressures higher than the front (39 rear, 34 front).
Bill,
I tested this morning and unfortunately the MCS auto *does* shift even in full manual – and it shifts quite early too, between 6200 & 6500 on my tests this morning!