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| Angelika/Mike Schilli |
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Michael One of my colleagues is a passionate hobby race car driver who lets loose on official race tracks on the weekends. One day, he suggested that I participate in a so-called safety training, where you learn to skid your car without losing control. The training was conducted by the "Golden Gate Chapter" of the "BMW Club of America" on an old airfield just outside the town of Marina near Monterey. Now, I don't drive a BMW, but a 1998 Acura Integra, but you didn't need a BMW to participate. The fun cost about $200 per person, and I thought Angelika would surely enjoy it too, so I signed us both up. However, Angelika preferred to participate with her car, a 2011 Honda Fit, and I had concerns whether my Integra would pass the inspection since the conditions stated "must not leak oil," so I reluctantly agreed.
The training took place on a Sunday, so we drove the 100 miles down to Marina on Saturday, stayed overnight in a motel, and drove to the test site early in the morning. We felt quite underpowered because, during the vehicle inspection, a Lotus Elise was parked next to us, and many participants were driving BMW models M3 and M5. But at least no one laughed at us!
During a brief introduction, we learned that it was extremely important to overcome any fears and step on the gas so that the car would enter the extreme situations that mastering was the goal of the course. Nothing was worse than driving safely and learning nothing! Well, of course, they didn't have to tell me that twice.
Approximately two dozen instructors took care of the participants by jumping into the cars to ride along in the passenger seat while the drivers raced through a course of plastic cones. If the tires only squealed moderately and the driver didn't knock over any cones, they would shout, "Faster, you're too slow!" And if one of the drivers completely lost control and rammed sideways into a row of cones, there would be a standing ovation.
The first exercise was a braking maneuver, and I was amazed at how quickly a car with ABS can come to a stop from 30 mph when you slam on the brakes. In regular traffic, you can never try something like that because it's far too dangerous, but on an empty airfield with plenty of space, where at worst you might knock over a rubber cone, you can skid around with ease. Next, there were evasive maneuvers at around 30 mph with slight skidding and squealing tires, a circular drive where you adjust the radius only by accelerating and without steering, and finally a slalom course where we learned to bring the car to the traction limit of the tires at each cone until it almost went out of control.
That was such a huge amount of fun, you can't even imagine it. Angelika was a bit reserved at first, but by the end of the all-day course, she was also driving through the course with squealing tires, and the instructors were so pleased that they awarded us the special prize "Most Improved" of all the drivers in our group (see Figure 3).
I can warmly recommend the course to every driver. The enthusiasm of the instructors (by the way, all volunteers) was absolutely contagious, and the adrenaline rush when the car loses control is an unforgettable experience. And once you have practiced such maneuvers, you'll recall them later to avoid dangerous situations in traffic. This could eventually prove to be extremely useful.
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