Last Wednesday I was at Oulton Park with Dean and Claire Taylor. I had instructed Claire five years ago at Goodwood in a Porsche 968 and she contacted me before Christmas to book a day for her husband, Dean. We finally got to do the day on the 25th in their Honda S2000.

Dean and Claire are about to take part in the European Cannonball Run which sets off from Surrey on the 5th July, and decided to have the day's instruction as close as possible to the start of the event, so the Easytrack day at Oulton Park was booked.

Claire hadn't driven on a track since her day with me at Goodwood in 2003, and Dean had only previously taken part in a corporate event some time ago, so both were effectively novices.

As usual the day began with signing in shortly after 8AM followed by a briefing by Easytrack's Chief Instructor. Then it was the first venture onto the track for the sighting laps (as pictured left). As the circuit was totally new to Dean and Claire, I drove the sighting laps, using the opportunity to point out the racing line as well as familiarise my charges with the track layout.

After the sighting laps we continued through the day with Dean and Claire alternating the driving, doing between 4 and 6 laps each at a time. We kept the sessions short so each driver could rest and take in what they had just learnt whilst ensuring that neither driver was off track for too long. I occasionally drove as well, often at the request of either Dean or Claire. I do find this to be an effective way of teaching though. As Dean said, watching someone do it properly helps you to learn more quickly than simply trying to follow instructions. Click the image below to open a gallery of photographs from the day - navigate by clicking the 'next' and 'previous' buttons which appear when you place your mouse over the top left and right of each image :

The day was very successful, both Dean and Claire progressed very well, enjoyed themselves and went home with big smiles on their faces. Dean did manage to provide us with a bit of a thrill with a whopper of a spin in the morning! Exiting Lodge Corner a little too wide and having to tighten his line threw the Honda initially into a 'tank-slapper' and subsequently into a full 360 degree spin with me shouting 'clutch and brakes!' at the top of my voice. Fortunately there was no contact with the scenery despite us reaching the top of Deer Leap and coming quite close to the barrier.

Below are three photographs from 2003 when I first instructed Claire at Goodwood in a Porsche 968. Like the gallery above these images are clickable.

Dean Taylor specialises in Life Coaching - a link to his web site can be found in my 'Other useful links' or alternatively go straight to 'Gratia Life Strategies'.