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Home :: Articles > Winter Driving School
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Winter Driving School
In the first week of February 2008, the Import Warehouse staff participated in the Bridgestone Winter Driving School in Steamboat Springs, CO. The school is designed to teach drivers how to better handle vehicles in extreme winter conditions. The following review is not endorsed by the school and is the sole opinion of the author.
After signing ourselves in, the course starts with an hour of classroom instruction from Gary about winter driving principles, the most important being oversteer and understeer. Oversteer being the more driver-friendly, easily-correctible condition of the car’s tail end drifting more than the front. Understeer being the more-hazardous, difficult-to-correct situation when the car’s wheels are turned but it is still moving forward. The instructor also went over weight distribution effects and techniques, and how to anticipate and become aware of how much front and rear weighting can be used to redirect the car’s momentum.
After a quick bus jaunt from downtown Steamboat to the outskirts of town, we met our second instructor, Leah at the base camp of the track. They told us to pair up with someone whom we didn’t know to make things more interesting, so I introduced myself to the young guy who was by himself, whom we’ll call David for his sake.
David and I started out with a black 4Runner, six-cylinder automatic. We followed Gary to turn seven’s circle. Over the closed circuit CB’s Gary instructed us to make counter-clockwise circles with an oversteer slide on the downward hill. We sped briskly uphill, then let off the gas and turned, to get the vehicle sliding. This technique sends the car’s weight towards the front, allowing the lighter tail end to drift
After that, Gary had us all doing laps around the circle while trying to incorporate oversteer into the downhill turn of the circle.
Next we met back up with the rest of the group and swapped cars to work with Leah on braking techniques while those six drivers moved into 4-Runners for oversteering. I found out that the kid I was driving around with had only gotten his driver’s license the day before.
The braking exercise started at the top of a hill near the pit area with the automatic transmissions, four-cylinder Camrys. We were asked to get up to 30 mph and when told, slam the brakes to experience what the ABS system could do.
Next, we were asked to flip the ABS switch in the center console to shut those systems off, and practice cadence braking—slamming the brake until the tire locks, releasing until it rolls again, then repeating until stopped.
Then the real fun started: Running laps around the whole track. Every time someone was being scolded or praised by the instructors, we all heard about it over the closed circuit CBs. I saw firsthand the dangers of understeer as David slid our Camry into the bottom of the third turn. With that, the instructors broke us up for lunch.
Next level braking involved a simulated sudden lane change—like to avoid an obstruction in the road. We were asked to do the same as before: speed up to 30 mph, then come to a complete stop, except now we had to turn right into another lane halfway through the stop.
Starting off we saw how the ABS counteracted our steering input to decrease braking as we turned. With the ABS off, we would have to slam the brakes into a wheel lock, then release long enough for the wheels to roll, turn to the right, then proceed with learned braking.
I found myself starting to do everything ahead of the instructor’s command to, “brake!” David did okay with sudden braking with ABS assistance, but when it came time to shut it off he didn’t ease off the brake before the turn, and sent us into an oversteer slide into the right wall.
Then David was able to pull off the exercise we were doing, but on that third trip back around he came into icy turn four a little too fast and put a wide 4-Runner’s bumper-and-grille shaped indentation into the snow bank.
We moved over to the edge of the circle that covered turns seven through nine. Our final exercise took oversteering a step further than before by forcing the car into an oversteer to the right by accelerating to about 25 mph, then easing off the gas and turning right. Next we turned left, shifting weight and momentum into a leftward drift and through the turn.
The second round of laps went well. It seemed that the instructors had the most comments for our two staffers with the most racing experience. I had hoped to use the 4-Runner for the second round, but gained confidence to speed things up with the familiar Camry.
By David’s turn to run laps again, I told him that he was coming into the hairpins too hot, and that he was not doing what we were being instructed to do about understeer: Ease off the brake and unwind the steering wheel.
It was David’s third lap and he came into turn four about thirty. Not a disaster if he had gone right into hard braking. He drove himself into an understeer, and instead of unwinding, he turned further into it, wrapping the wheel completely up. Crunch!
The instructors stopped everybody and pulled over to us. They had everyone pull into the pit area, and that was the end of our driving. For the finishing touch, the instructors took each of us around in a 4-Runner for a ‘hot lap’ to show us all what little we had accomplished by comparison to what they could do. They start off in reverse for a high speed 180-degree turn. Lapping around with the instructors was a lot of fun, and everyone agreed that after seeing how easy they made the oversteers look we wanted to get back out there and try it again more than ever. I noticed that even with the 50 and 60 mph speeds Gary was reaching, he still jammed it back down to 10 in the last twenty feet before those wraparound turns.
A good time was had by all at the Winter Driving School, even the poor kid who had to learn some hard lessons by hitting a few snow banks. Still better than hitting other vehicles on public roads, if you ask me.
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