GTA Advanced Driving School Reviews

[mabviper]

I agree on the comms. I had 3 sessions with comms and 1 without because we got to track late. During that session, it was really difficult to get any meaningful feedback.

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[wparsons]

The GP is much worse without comms than the DDT, so much wind noise at higher speeds.

It's a much easier track to teach on since there's way more time between most corners, but a comm system is basically critical.

[Frost]

Originally Posted by wparsons

The GP is much worse without comms than the DDT, so much wind noise at higher speeds.

It's a much easier track to teach on since there's way more time between most corners, but a comm system is basically critical.

Originally Posted by mabviper

I agree on the comms. I had 3 sessions with comms and 1 without because we got to track late. During that session, it was really difficult to get any meaningful feedback.

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So what you two are saying is that I'm writing actual proper criticisms of the course :-P

Glad to know I'm writing decent reviews!

[Frost]

My review of the BMW Trillium Grand Prix track school is finally up and can be found at the lower half of this post: http://www.ft86club.com/forums/showp...29&postcount=3

Please read it with an ounce of salt. I tried to be as objective as possible but I think my experience is an outlier of what they typically deliver.

Any feedback would be welcome.

[tanner]

Didn't want to hijack this thread but it's somewhat related as it's a driving school, but target audience different. It's not a HPDA. It's the Tire Rack Street Survival School for young/new drivers which took place at the Brampton Powerade centre. So this is a good read for parents with young drivers or something to consider when you have kids and they get keys to your car.

Disclaimer: volunteered for this event as I heard they needed some volunteers. Actually was going to take photos but decided not to so I could get a feel for how the school operates. School is ran by both the Porsche Club of Upper Canada and BMW Club of Canada Trillium Chapter, with instructors from both groups. Wife is an instructor coming from the BMW side and had a student for the day. Event held at the Powerade Centre in Brampton. I just volunteered doing whatever they needed or helped out wherever to make things run smoothly.

So to preface the day, it sucked for volunteers as it rained in the morning and damp in the afternoon but fortunately got things finished before the next round of rain came in. It was great however for students! Helped out with setting up the slalom course in the morning, assisting with pylons, herding students through the line, and with the stop box later in the day and messing with students by placing the stop pylon in random locations in the stop box LOL. Target audience for this are young drivers, and parents are also involved during the classroom training and watch their kids during the behind the wheel exercises. There were a few older drivers that participated (a few being the parent and another being an instructor's mother I believe who really did not enjoy herself there as she doesn't like driving at all - so a good candidate for this but sadly she refused to go any faster throughout the day).

They allowed only 36 drivers to keep the group size to a decent size, thus giving students plenty of time in each of the exercises. Students were paired with the same instructor throughout the day. Cost? $75 which is very cheap (it's offered well below cost and guessing the two clubs, Tire Rack and other sponsors kicking in some money for a good cause). Sadly only two of the students drove manuals. #savethemanuals

I didn't see any of the classroom training but did read through the material during the lunch break. It sets a good knowledge base for young drivers. The usual contact patch and the traction circle is discussed, proper seating position, understeer/oversteer, distracted driving and a lot of focus on vision. Information in there also specific for parents (ie.: what car their kid should have, automatic versus manuals, distracted driving, setting rules when they're driving, etc.)

For the driving exercises in the morning, students experienced the skidpad, emergency lane change, slalom exercise in the morning (students would go through the two pylons and then later go through the slalom by going around the outer pylon instead, then finally the instructor would tell them whether to go through or wide on the next set). Instructor with them in the car, one at the beginning and another at the end of each exercise to provide feedback. Afternoon, one autocross section with a emergency lane change setup where students would drive through normally but be intentionally distracted, figure eight, and a short autocross to put everything they learned together. Group size was fairly ideal, giving students plenty of seat time at each exercise.

During the lunch hour, a tractor with trailer was setup with cars around it, students got in to get an idea of what a truck driver can see and can't see (they had a car right in front of the truck, with only a foot between the bumpers, and a bunch of vehicles on the side and behind, and was setup that only one of the six vehicles could be seen). Airbag detonation also demonstrated, one steering wheel and one passenger airbag (and commenting how one should never put their foot up on the dash or out the window). A water bottle was placed on top of the air bag, I was a little surprised at how high that water bottle went up.

At the start of the day, you could see how timid most of the students were - looking only a few feet beyond the front bumper and no good sense of where all four corners of the car was. Just trying to herd them to the start some was like "uh what, where do you want me to drive?!?? I don't understand." During the final autocross exercise, some of the looks on the driver's face was pure concentration, looking farther out, finding the quicker line around the autocross and really knowing where all their tires were, quite a few consistently getting their tires a few inches away from the pylon. Most pushed it and getting the car to move around which was one of the goals so students experienced it and knew what to do versus panic. Most had a big grin on their face at the end of the autocross.

At the end of the day, the lead organizer offered a few words ... course objective was to focus on vision and to give students an idea on what to do if they found themselves in a situation that they needed to get out of. Students were not to leave thinking that they could driver faster and more aggressively, thinking that they had the necessary skills and experience which they don't of course. Policy also for instructors to mention nothing about performance driving (re.: track school).

This is something like Ian Law's track school I've taken but geared towards young drivers, and did I say it was also very cheap? If you have a teenager with a driver's license, highly recommend it. In fact, it's something that every new driver, or better yet, every driver, should go through at a a minimum. Unfortunately if they had to do this for every new driver, it would be a lot lot lot more expensive than $75.

They plan on holding two events again next year, one around in May probably and another in the fall.

[wparsons]

^^ if they need instructors next year let me know!

[tanner]

Originally Posted by wparsons

^^ if they need instructors next year let me know!

Could be wrong but I'd think instructors need to come from either PCA UCR or BMW Trillium.

[Jordanwolf]

Originally Posted by Frost

SPDA Advanced Driving Clinic
Website: www.spda-online.ca
Cost: $140 for two days (Saturday + Sunday) [CORRECTED - 06-June-2016]
Discounts: None for the class.
Chief Instructor: Joe Trinidad
Date Attended: April, 2016

Classroom training - 9/10
Track training - 9/10*
Skidpad training - 9/10*
Track time - 9/10*

* denotes that you are NOT actually on a race track but on a parking lot at Powerade Center in Brampton. Seat time is still seat time however.

Review:
As per the asterisk above, the SPDA doesn't actually host a track day school but does a driving clinic once a year around April at the Powerade center in Brampton. So you're probably asking: "How the heck does this compare to two schools who actually DO run it on a proper track?". Answer: It's THE ULTIMATE GATEWAY for you to START to push your car without worrying about a high speed collision which always exists at a track. It is also VERY VERY cheap but CHOCK full of value. I heavily regret not taking this course before ILR.

WARNING: This course sells out fast and is usually opened up during the SPDA open house event at JRP each year in early April. Keep your eyes peeled on their website for this open house event and SHOW UP EARLY!

The SPDA is a volunteer run organization compared to ILR and Hanson which are trying to make a living out of this. This means the fares you pay are strictly covering costs to run the damn event and at $140 [CORRECTED - 06-June-2016] for TWO days, it is insanely good value. If you look around at the instructors, you are getting autocross veterans (lots of PITL folks), at least ONE ILR track school instructor (I'm waving at you Guillermo!) and a plethora of Ontario Time Attack and a Rally Driving school instructor (some deranged Russian in an Evo!). All of them: VOLUNTEERS. You have some very high caliber folks here on their own dime.

That being said, the course is split between a few classroom sessions where Joe Trinidad will introduce common things like vision, seating position, etc. to the group. Joe does this with humour and at the cost of some of the egos of a few instructors (all in good fun). They don't give our handbooks like ILR does but you get the gist and can take notes on your own.

Most of your time in the first day (Saturday) will be spent on the parking lot learning to do things like the standard circle romp to learn under and oversteer, slalom runs, accident avoidance (done properly - they force you to look at the flag bearer at the end of the slalom who will tell you to either continue snaking through the course or to hold or stay on one side - far safer than Hanson and trickier too!), the Scandinavian flick (surprised this one is here given how hard it is to execute!) and it all culminates with an autocross run at the end of the day.

2nd day also entails some classroom sessions but will reinforce what you learnt (and failed to learn) on the 1st day and most of it is spent doing autocross runs. There is ALWAYS an instructor with you in the car on either day and it will vary to give you as much feedback and styles as you can get.

I honestly cannot recommend this course enough. It's the BEST way to get anyone who is too timid to jump into performance driving without the fear of being "on a track". It's all fairly low speed and plenty of great instructors who know wtf they are doing.

RATING: 10/10 (Seriously doesn't get better short of them paying you to attend).

Pretty amazing thread. Probably going to do this next year (if I can get in) considering how cheap it is in comparison to everything else

[wparsons]

Originally Posted by Jordanwolf

Pretty amazing thread. Probably going to do this next year (if I can get in) considering how cheap it is in comparison to everything else

Show up early in person!

[Frost]

Originally Posted by Jordanwolf

Pretty amazing thread. Probably going to do this next year (if I can get in) considering how cheap it is in comparison to everything else

Like Will said, show up early to the open house and sign up. The amount of people that sign up are lots and I am hoping that this year I can volunteer and help out. I wasn't able to last year due to my duties instructing with PADA.

[daskaman]

SPDA was a blast, did it before getting my BRZ.

JRP will have a big line for signups. I came 30 min before the official open time last year and was still 25 people back.

[Frost]

Originally Posted by tanner

Didn't want to hijack this thread but it's somewhat related as it's a driving school, but target audience different. It's not a HPDA. It's the Tire Rack Street Survival School for young/new drivers which took place at the Brampton Powerade centre. So this is a good read for parents with young drivers or something to consider when you have kids and they get keys to your car.

Thanks for the review Tanner!

I wanted to volunteer for this event but had to travel for work that weekend.

It seems like a solid day for very good value. Will recommend to anyone I know getting a new license! The airbag one is particularly important as many people think it's a cushion as opposed to a controlled explosion.

[Frost]

*Bump* to stay relevant.

Folks - you have attended our PADA track day school, I'd like to ask you for a honest review up here! We can't improve without the feedback!

Merry Christmas to everyone and happy a safe and happy new year!

Cheers!

Kev

[KarstonC]

Being a newcomer to HPDE and driving schools/ events means dealing with tremendous excitement compounded with anxiety and nerve. With only 1 season of autocross and 2 lapping days under my belt in my first year, I was finally ready to take my stock Scion FRS to a more complex and exhilarating track, CTMP's Driver Development Track via SPDA's governance.

The following is a quick review of my experience at this event last summer, and more specifically with an instructor that stood out from the rest, Kevin Wong (Frost).

Structure

Drivers are split into 3 buckets, Beginner, Intermediate, and Advanced. Being new to track driving and specifically this windy track, I opted for the Beginner placement which offered some tremendous instruction from the track day regulars. After initial classroom instruction, you're then placed into the passenger seat of your car, while your instructor directs you around the track for the first time. After that, the 3 driver groups cycle through the schedule of ~15 min stints, totalling to approximately 4 total stints for the day. Sounds slim, but is actually very satisfying and tiring.

Instruction

Queue in Kevin Wong. Kevin was my first instructor of the day, and he made sure to drill in the importance of a good racing line on this very technical course. Even from the get go, where we alligator lap the course for the first time at moderate speeds; the focus was: "Don't be lazy, hit all your braking points, turn-in points, apex, and exit points as you would if going at full speed." We continued this tradition for ~15 mins around the course to become comfortable and familiarized with our surroundings, which proved very useful towards the end of the day.

The key aspects of Kevin's instruction that stood out to me was his unwavering patience and calm demeanor. People often misunderstand a good instructor as someone with the most experience, or the fastest lap times. When in fact the instructor that can best convey their message and knowledge in a form that can be easily understood to the student is in my opinion, paramount. Kevin's instruction is always well thought-through, meticulous, and easy to follow. His first emphasis was always the racing line and vision, and then slowly into dissecting the driver's inputs (ensuring inputs such as throttle, steering, braking as smooth as possible). Nail down these core principles before even thinking about setting in any lap times.

Lapping

My small gripe with the SPDA format is that the Beginners class were not permitted any passing on the track for our first 3 stints. Only by the 4th stint, and after an instructor sign-off were you allowed to do so. While this makes perfect sense, as safety is #1; I still found it extremely frustrating that 1 or 2 extremely novice drivers could end up bogging down the entire driving group. Now this is to no-one's fault necessarily, but under such circumstance, I would've liked to see some consideration from the organizers to allow passing by the 3rd stint, or an upgrade to the Intermediate class.

What resulted was only 3 clean laps for me the entire day, which seemed like a let-down. But in truth, the SPDA camp ran this event very smoothly and efficiently.

The Lap

[ame="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_xzvp2qaV3o"]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_xzvp2qaV3o[/ame]

All in all, it was an exceptionally experience to try out this fun track, under professional instruction. Will definitely be back for more!