Limit Handling Events
Without a doubt, our Limit Handling events are some of the most popular. After all, in Millbrook Proving Ground, you’ve got access to an exclusive and world-renowned venue, a range of seriously challenging test tracks and the option to drive at speeds well above legal limits for the public road without having to trek over to the German autobahn. The venue isn’t open to the general public, so it’s quite an experience just to be let inside the gates!
Better still, Millbrook’s Dynamics and Steering Pads provide the canvas for a wide range of at-and-beyond-the-limit driving. With dry, wet, flat and cambered surfaces we can do everything from experience and learn to control your first skids to making your car dance through multiple bends with the tail sliding the whole way. There aren’t many ways to have this much fun, and some say it’s better than sex!
Event Levels
This outstanding venue doesn’t come cheap. Due to priceless motor industry prototypes somewhat littering the place, specialist insurance is also required. As you may expect, more time spent skidding and sliding comes with a price to match. Additionally, the classroom theory delivered to all participants as a group is pitched at specific levels of previous understanding and ability to help maximise your progression.
As a result, we have chosen to deliver our Limit Handling events in three levels: Explore, Hone and Master.
Explore
If you are new to driving at the limit or are concerned about the idea of approaching it either on track or elsewhere, Explore is for you.
This is very much the point of entry to our Millbrook-based Limit Handling events. We’ll start with the basics, find out what all participants know already and fill in some blanks. Typically, you’ll be one of eight drivers on the day with sessions delivered in pairs across three to six zones depending on what is happening on the day.
Explore is a great foundation for what’s to come and will build confidence in almost total safety. Your coaches on the day will cover skid prevention, cure and flirting with the limit. Additionally, you’ll have the opportunity to completely lose control of your car in a safe, controlled manner. Taking the danger – and fear – out of extreme skidding will allow you to absorb what happens if your car spins and start working to regain control much earlier in the process.
These entry-level Limit Handling events feature in all but our Ultra packages.
Hone
Once you’ve got to grips with the basics of, err, grip and many of the principals behind circuit driving, you’re ready for Hone.
At this level, you’ll start evolving basic skills and understanding into finesse and the art of driving. Long-term customers of The Road to Mastery will prefer to attend the majority of their Limit Handling events at the Hone level. It provides the sweet spot between time spent at the limit and value for money.
These Millbrook-based events are usually run with six participants and three coaches with one-to-one coaching provided on rotation. Think of them as private study sessions, but with lots of camaraderie. With truly personalised step-by-step development and lots of time spent with the tail out, you’ll be internalising multiple stages in any given day.
Hone features in our Bronze Ultra, Silver Ultra and Silver At-The-Limit packages. You will also have the opportunity to upgrade from Explore to Hone events if you have chosen one of the other packages.
Master
In terms of Limit Handling, our Master level events are aimed at drivers who can already induce, catch and control a sustained oversteer slide, have usually spent quite some time on race circuits at and around the limit of grip and have attended several of our Hone level days.
This is where we truly wish our customers would all get to. To use a martial arts analogy, entry to Master is like earning your black belt. The real learning starts here. Having learned lots of new skills and polished them over some time up to this point, you’ll have reached a plateau.
Through Master, you truly become an artist of the craft rather than, simply, a trained or skilled individual. We’ll be dealing with subtlety rather than step change progression. Nevertheless, the result is greater than the sum of its parts. Lower stress at the limit, an ability to read what any car needs next and some very challenging courses including being judged on time and style make accessing this level a desirable long-term goal.
As invitation only, you can’t simply ring us up and book on to Master events!
So much more than just sliding about!
Our Limit Handling events include use of the wider offering available at Millbrook Proving Ground.
High speed braking, adding the effect of gradient and lapping the challenging Handling Circuit are just a few of the ways you can explore skid prevention vs cure.
Multiple Test Tracks
With multiple test tracks only a stone’s throw from the Dynamics and Steering Pads, our Limit Handling events will include access to the popular Alpine Hill Route as well as the Handling Circuit, Mile Straight and High Speed Bowl. You’d be forgiven for expecting that these have nothing to do with at-the-limit driving, but, in fact, they provide the perfect locations to isolate individual aspects of limit-of-grip dynamics and focus on driver inputs.
For example, the High Speed Bowl has an amazing ability to highlight your throttle control with respect to holding or manipulating your line through a bend. The Hill Route is full of varied gravity-induced weight transfer to alter the natural balance of your car more towards understeer or oversteer. The Mile Straight will help to prove, categorically, that there is a difference between braking then steering and steering then braking. The Handling Circuit puts it all in context and we’ll give you ever more freedom as your car control develops.
