brett-reid.com

In my youth I experienced a car accident at high speed whilst driving my Dad’s Audi A4 1.8T. I hit a wall at around 120kph and was saved by airbags and the quality of the car. It wasn’t funny at the time and I was thankful I didn’t hit another car but since then I have been very aware of how important it is to know how to handle a car at high speed.

Earlier this year, I took ownership of a Golf 5 GTi. (my other girlfriend). The handling in the GTi is phenomenal, it sticks to the road and goes through corners like it’s on rails. It’s a lot of fun, pretty much every other Golf 5 Gti, Subaru, ST, S3 you see on the road is immediately up for a dice. (Not something I was used to before)

In August, Jackie’s friend Nicholas Slabbert (who used to race at Killarney) forwarded me this flyer:

I knew about these courses but last time I checked they were based in Gauteng. They were coming to Cape Town

I signed up for the GTi course. The R32 was tempting but I wanted to get to know the GTi. The cost of the course was R1881 incl VAT. I was booked for Wednesday 8 October 1pm – 5:30pm.

The drive through there was nervous excitement, I had been to Killarney many times before but always as a spectator. I had absolutely no idea how fast we were going to go or what it would be like. When I drove through the subway I saw the VW Driving Academy banners and the 9 white GTi’s and 1 R32 parked neatly on the lawn with “Driving” written down the sides.  This was exciting!

Everyone had to meet in the clubhouse on the top floor. The VW Academy were down for the week and had morning and afternoon slots each day of the week. I arrived around 12:30pm as the morning shift was ending so there were still a couple of cars lapping and screeching – it looked awesome. I avoided the buffet lunch and hit the water instead.

At 1:30pm we had our “briefing”. The instructor had his projector going and he went through the GTi in a lot of detail. How the car is made up, safety features, brakes, handling, etc. He also covered the fact that they are sponsored by Good Year and use the Eagle F1 Asymetric tyres which are R3500 a piece. There was definitely marketing hype mixed into the “briefing”, I now know what tyre I want and can’t afford :S He then went onto high speed driving theory and how to approach corners. The slide had a line showing the quickest route through the corner (racing line) but then he showed us the effects of using a racing line on public roads – not good for kids playing in the road. We would be learning to corner a bit wider so we had more vision through the corners. We would come in on the outside brake and then turn in first, then accelerate out – slightly wider than the racing line. I’ve made some alterations to the image below (blue line) to show the difference between the 2 lines.

After about 40 mins we were organised into groups of 3 and then assigned to an instructor, ours being KT (I forget his full name) – callsign Delta Bravo. KT had competed in Formula Ford and Formula Gti for 5 years and had enough experience for me. We all gathered on the lawn by the clubhouse where we were given a demo of how to sit properly in a car. Importance of head rest position, seat belt, bent knee, etc. After that we headed for our GTi, ours was #2 – a DSG. I was very bummed that we got the DSG and immediately asked if we could get a manual rather. Apparently there were only 4 manuals so getting those other 3 students out those cars would have been difficult! If you want to drive a manual, specify it up front!

I was sitting in the front as we drove onto the track for the first time (shotgun!), KT took it slow the first few corners, showing us the cones where we should brake etc. We cruised along the back straight then as we came round Vodacom corner onto the main straight he said “Okay, now a bit faster” and he floored it. I was loving every second of it as he slid around corners and went flat out down the back straight. After that he pulled into the pits. There were 3 of us “students” in the car plus him. He sat in the front passenger seat and controlled the rear view mirror. Instructors indicated to each other so you don’t have to worry about traffic which is cool. All you have to do is drive. There were no helmets required and we did 3 laps each whilst the others sat in the back. Each session lasted 9 laps and we ended up driving 12 laps for the day. When it’s your time to drive you are like a kid at a candy store

There was a girl with us so she went first and was fairly slow. For the rest of the day, the order was her, me, other guy (I am bad with names). It was my turn now. I pulled out of the pits slow at first – you wait until KT says it’s clear, then you stomp on the accelerator The DSG for those who don’t know is kind of like an automatic in that you have 2 pedals. So it’s stomp go, stomp stop but still 147kw. I think that first lap was one of the most memorable because you have no idea what you are doing and you’re just going as fast as you know how. You keep your foot flat on the accelerator pretty much constantly. The only time you let off is to brake on the approach to a corner. Then you drift into the corner and then ease onto the accelerator until your foot is flat again. Jackie Stewart said “You only put your foot on the accelerator when you know you aren’t going to take it off again”. He’s right. Here is an overview of Killarney with corner names.

The DSG was a bit crap accelerating out of Engen Oval, all 4 of us battled because it delayed for a second or so – I want my manual. SABAT corner is by far the most fun, mainly because your foot is flat right the way through – you just slide a little which rocks. The back straight is where you want more power (like an M3), we got up to 200kph odd (as reported by KT) although I rarely looked down. Vodacom is the most challenging corner and towards the end of the day everyone was trying to wax it. The braking is all important, as is going wide around it. Coming out of it you have your foot flat and you try get as close to “the wall” (pit lane) for slipstream reasons. Hard on the brakes just past the pit exit for Conti corner and then a nice bit of sliding on your way to Engen. It was awesome to be able to push the car as hard as you could into a corner and have someone giving you constant (correct) feedback. The brakes on the GTi are awesome and down the back straight you have to come down from 200 to about 80 (roughly) and we were braking later and later. The car feels light throughout the whole run like you’re on the verge of losing it (even though we were probably far from it).

Other things we did on the course were high speed swerving (80kph) and how the ESP (Electronic Stability Program) looks after you when you swerve in the GTi. As the instructor said “When buying a VW and checking off extras, forget the mags, sound system, tinting, trims, go for the ESP – it’ll save your life”. They demo’d the swerve with ESP off and the car just slide all over the place. They also demonstrated braking distances by stomping on the brakes at 60kph, 120kph, 160kph. The stopping distances increased exponentially which made you think twice about your estimated braking distance vs reality. Right at the end, the instructors raced each other (most were racing drivers) and I managed to call shotgun again. They went sooooo much faster than us, braking so late, going wide and over the red/white edge – it was awesome!

It was an amazing day, well worth the cash and highly recommended. The ages of people ranged from about 22 to 70 – yes there was a granny there! You can find out more about the course here.

Satellite view of Killarney: