Miata Mailing List: November 1999, Message #840

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On Sunday, November 21, the Mazda Sportscar Club of Washington, Inc. will 
hold an Advanced Car Control Clinic in Columbia, Maryland.

MSCW's Car Control Clinic goes far beyond the rules of the road, it will 
teach you real driving and how to control your car in emergency situations. 

Our workshop gets you behind the driver's seat right away, we have eighteen 
high-caliber instructors signed up to work with the 48 students. Through out 
the day you rotate through five simultaneous run exercises, with a minimum of 
three instructors per exercise, learning the proper techniques of vehicle 
control. Smell your brakes under emergency stopping situations, practice 
threshold braking so that you may stop in the shortest distance, feel your 
car do things it has never done before. Learn how to protect yourself, 
practice vehicle weight transfers and feel the effects on your tire contact 
patches, practice ocular driving, trailing braking, hands-on understeer and 
oversteer conditions, learn traction control on various road surface 
adhesions. Practice trailing throttle oversteer, vehicle rotation, learn the 
anatomy of a various increasing and decreasing radius turns and experience 
actual vehicle system failures. Yup, we're going to cause your Mazda to fail 
while you are driving, be prepared, but we will fix 'em right away. 

All of the exercises are performed in your own vehicle, what better choice, 
you know, the one your butt is in everyday. We offer this clinic in a safe 
and controlled access environment. At the end of the day you will be better 
prepared for your return to the Jungle. 

High-caliber Instructors! 

Eighteen high caliber instructors, experts in their respective fields are all 
signed up and ready to go! Chief and Senior Instructors with Bill Scott 
Racing, BMW, Benz and Porsche clubs, Miriam Schottland is our chief 
Instructor and scheduled to return with her is the Director of Maryland State 
Police Driving Academy, along with our other instructors you could not ask 
for better personnel. Comparable car control clinics cost several hundred 
dollars and do not have the same number of high-caliber instructors per 
student. Lunch is also included on site, we want you to be able to focus on 
the driving activities at hand. 

What sort of car preparation and or equipment is needed? 

No special equipment is needed at all. Prepare your vehicle by toping off the 
oil and gas ahead of time. Check to make sure your tires are properly 
inflated (~32 lbs for street tires). The goal is to prepare you for emergency 
situations that you would encounter in normal everyday driving conditions, 
autocross tire pressures are generally not what you drive around in everyday. 
Remove or bolt down everything loose, set your floor mats aside. 

We recommend you complete our standard technical inspection form, it can be 
found on our website (www.mscw.com). Most MSCW members check their vehicles 
themselves, ask a buddy for help or visit your local garage with the form in 
hand if you would prefer. This is a low speed driver's event. Club torque 
wrenches will be on site for the morning safety check. 

Prior experience? 

This clinic is intended for drivers who want to learn how to handle their 
vehicle in emergency situations. You and your vehicles will be challenged at 
low safe speeds, your vehicle may be sliding and or squealing its tires. If 
you have the desire to learn what you can and should do from the experts, 
then by all means please sign up. 

The instructors have been asked to play close attention to the experience 
level of the participants and adjust accordingly. The exercises are all new 
and a bit more challenging than our previous clinics. 

How do I sign up? 

Complete the following:
Name:
Address:
Email address:
Model/Year: 
Sharing a car: Yes   or    No
Please make checks payable to "MSCW, Inc." ($65 per person, includes lunch) 
and mail to Dave Nugent, 5303 Jerell Ct., Burke, VA 22015, prior to November 
19. 

The event will be held rain, sleet, snow or even sunshine. Bring lots of 
quarters as those pesky cone killer charity boxes return. See you Sunday 
morning at Lincoln Tech in Columbia, Maryland on November 21 at 8:30 am. 
Directions posted at www.mscw.com 

For more information contact Dave Nugent at dave@mscw.com