Review: Winter Driving Experience

Winter Driving Experience instructor Andrew Waite explains the task before letting the students loose in their own cars. Photo / Dan Hutchinson

My first car was a Mk3 Ford Cortina, the same age as me – 1972 – and as far as safety features go it was fairly rudimentary.

By Dan Hutchinson

In fact, the 1600cc motor had been swapped out for a two-litre which meant it was totally unsuitable for a 16-year-old.

I busted the universal joint on the drive shaft being a bogan and I’m pretty sure my friend’s dad deliberately fixed it so whenever you went over 50 km/h it would shake the bones out of you. Probably saved my life.

In my early days of journalism, I’d race out to cover whatever drama was unfolding, and that was, more often than not, on the road.

And I tell you what, if you want a life lesson in what not to do on the road, head out to your nearest open-road accident. That’s not something you can wipe from your memory.

Nowadays, vehicles are on a sci-fi level of sophistication when it comes to avoiding accidents, but weirdly enough, most drivers know diddly-squat about these features.

So, I headed out to Taupō Motorsport Park for the opening of the new Winter Driving Experience, to find out a little bit more.

Our instructor Andrew Waite is a family man and a bit of an enigma. When he’s not racing cars on the track at terrifying speeds, he reckons he’s a total Nana on the roads, hands at nine and three on the wheel, no risks. Why would you when you’ve got your family on board?

There’s science behind the nine and three. As long as you are positioned close enough to the wheel, it gives you complete control over the turning arc. Simple and effective.

We headed out on the track, very, very slowly. In fact, I’m pretty sure we set a new record for the slowest lap on Taupō Motorsport Park.

But it soon warmed up, tweaking the dial into sport mode on my Kia Sorento and accelerating as hard as possible into dry and then wet patches of track, jumping hard onto the brakes in a simulated emergency situation. Yes, you do take your own vehicle on this course, so you know how it handles when it matters.

The results are amazing – whereas the Cortina would have slid straight off the track into the scoria, the ABS brakes on the modern vehicle does a hundred dance moves a second to keep you alive. Just plant your foot full on the brake and you still have a significant level of control over direction.

The same can be said of the stability control as Andrew coaxes us outside our comfort zone and has us hurtling towards the road cones – in and out at impossible speeds and the vehicle’s safety sytems simply pop a tiny bit of brake on one of the wheels at the right moment to keep the car in check.

It’s not really something you want to do on a public road, but just knowing what your car will do when it really matters is probably something everyone should know, unless you still drive a Cortina, that is.