From Racetrack to Road - what can we learn from James Bond’s playground?

Since 1970 Millbrook Proving Ground (now UTAC) has been used by manufacturers and journalists for testing new vehicles and has also been used as a filming location for TV and movies, including James Bond.??It is an impressive facility which includes a high speed bowl (allegedly you can lap at 100mph with your hands off the wheel…), a mile long straight for very high speed runs, handling circuit and alpine course (used in the Daniel Craig film Casino Royale).??I recently spent some time at Millbrook learning track driving and car control with CAT Driver Training who were excellent, and whilst some of the techniques might be frowned upon by certain road safety charities and the Police, there is much that can be learnt and applied to road driving.

A light grip is the right grip on the steering??wheel?

You have probably heard of the phrase “white knuckle ride” and travelled with a driver who grips the wheel so tightly that their knuckles are indeed that colour. What you might have noticed that the car then feels nervous and tends to move around even when the road is straight.??

The best approach is to have a light relaxed grip on the steering wheel which has a number of advantages. Firstly the car’s suspension can deal with bumps and undulations in the road without getting additional unnecessary??input from the driver - this pays dividends driving in a straight line and especially under heaving braking when a tight grip on the wheel can inadvertently steer the car in a direction you don’t want to go. The second advantage is that you can much more easily detect feedback through the steering wheel which tells you what the tyres are doing and how much grip you have - particularly useful in slippery and icy conditions.

Your hands will follow your eyes

Whether it is a car, motorcycle or bicycle there is the phenomenon called target fixation when you go to where you are looking – which can be problematic if you are steering towards a solid object such as a vehicle or tree. This was brought home to me on the proving ground during a slalom exercise using cones, where if you look at the cones you are likely to hit them whereas if you look to the space between the cones you find you steer smoothly around them.

On road and track it is important to look ahead and scan back to where you want your wheels to go – doing this will allow your hands to turn the wheel the correct amount and avoid you going where you don’t want to or even worse towards a hazard.

Throttle will stabilise the car

Ever been in a car where it feels wallowy in the corners? There may be a number of causes but a common one is failure to balance the throttle to maintain the speed through the corner. Cars are most stable when they are travelling at a constant speed so entering the corner with little or no throttle will cause the car to decelerate and make it less stable - this can be particularly noticeable with high sided vehicles such as SUVs.??

At Millbrook you have the safe space to conduct emergency??lane change exercises at 70mph to replicate what it would be like to swerve across a lane on a motorway to avoid a hazard.??First the exercise is done with no throttle applied and the car feels very unstable, next it is repeated with a constant throttle and this time the car is much more stable - but it’s not magic, just physics.

Relax and remember to breathe

It is never good to be tense behind the wheel as all of your inputs to the steering, throttle, brakes and gears will be jerky and upset the car (and passengers) and you will get fatigued more easily.? This is even more important at speed and some drivers tense up and start to do shallow breathing (or even hold their breath) – best thing to do is breathe slowly through the nose and this will help to calm you and also the car with the added benefits of smoothness and stability.?

This can also be useful if you find yourself in a road rage situation where you flight or fight reflex can take over and cause an overreaction.? Breathing and thinking calm thoughts can help to diffuse the situation, as will learning to forgive others drivers (and yourself if it was your mistake).

In an emergency you need to brake hard, really hard

How often have you done an emergency stop from 30mph???I expect most people have, but still hopefully a fairly rare occurrence if you are reading the road well. But how many people have ever done an emergency stop from 60mph???Very few I suspect unless they were unfortunate to be in a “sudden” stop?on a?motorway. The thing that catches people out is that the amount of force needed to stop the car at 60mph vs 30mph is not twice the force but quadruple the force and hence when you double the speed you quadruple the braking distance.??

Unless you have practiced it is unlikely that you will hit the brakes hard enough to maximise the braking force of the car and you may even find that you aren’t sitting close enough to the pedals to be able to maintain the braking force as you decelerate.

Clearly there are some modern cars with auto braking systems, but at the moment the majority of cars don’t have that facility.??Luckily all modern cars have ABS (anti-lock braking) which will allow you to steer the car away from a hazard whilst exerting maximum braking force without locking the wheels.

It won’t make you 007, but it might prevent an accident

If you have an opportunity to explore what your car will do away from the public road, I would highly recommend it whether it is a track day, proving ground or one of the IAM Roadsmart skills days. It will give you an appreciation of what you and your car can do and may even save you from an accident in the future - and it will also be great fun.?

And yes I can confirm that you can lap the Millbrook high speed bowl at 100mph with your hands off the wheel, but at 130mph it is best to have a light grip on the wheel with both hands, look far ahead, keep the throttle steady, remember to breathe…..and in an emergency brake hard, really, really hard.