Dear Julian,

“I did the RideDrive advanced handling skills & road driving day with Kevin in Dorset.

I met Kevin and we had a chat about how the day would go. Spent the first 15 mins just driving whilst he took notes and amazingly found this quite nerve racking, almost as much as doing a test. We pulled over and had a chat about road position and what we were going to concentrate upon during our day and whilst completing our journey to the airfield.

The drive to the airfield concentrated on making safe but effective progress. This primarily covered observation which leads to positioning; positioning on bends to get the maximum view ahead, positioning behind cars when travelling and stationary, positioning for overtakes, adjusting speed for corners and potential hazards and being in the right gear for the speed at which your travelling. I felt 60% of this reinforced what I felt I already knew. All the time Kevin explained the reasons for the particular points he was making and they all seemed perfectly logical.

The bit I was most looking forward to was the airfield and I was not disappointed. Spent just over an hour pushing the car to its limits and beyond. Admittedly it was dry but found it extremely hard to get the back to let go. The car suffered far more from serious under steer especially doing circles and figure of 8’s. Over the hour managed to go from taking a sharp right hander at 50 and only just keeping control to taking it at almost 70 smoothly and totally in control. Also very good experience to see and feel what happens when you brake mid corner (very scary) or lift off the power (scary). Kevin had wanted to do some cone work but unfortunately the airfield (Kemble) hadn’t provided any.

After the airfield another 2 ½ drive back on all sorts of roads, dual carriage ways, A roads, B roads and even a couple of dirt tracks. Definitely felt more in control of the car and drove in a quicker safer and smoother style. Just before the end we had a blast up zig zag hill and across the top, this car really does stick to the road (when its dry) with smooth controlled inputs.

All in all I thoroughly enjoyed the day and whilst I’m sure I still have a couple of bad habits (which I will continue to work on) I feel even more confident in the cars and my ability. Kevin was a very nice bloke and extremely knowledgeable and I would recommend him to any one that would like to improve there skills and find out what the car really can do."

Yours sincerely,

Carl Hussey

Honda S2000

Dorset