Lotus Drivers Academy - anyone been?

[dobber82]

Has anyone been on the Lotus Drivers Academy? Was it good, interested to hear what people thought of it

 

[Aero]

Some good info scattered through various threads. I did it last year and seemed worthwhile but seemed expensive for what you get compared to other driving schools. I would choose advanced and tailor it to what you want.

Search results for query: academy

www.emiraforum.com

 

[dobber82]

Thank you sir!

 

[RyanGphoto]

Sorry just seeing this. I went in March.. I did the advanced... You cannot tailor it. They have a pretty strict schedule. You get to do brake and avoid, which is you drive down a straight away and then while driving down there are cones on the right and left of you and then cones in front a good distance away and you have to get up to 70-75+ mph and then jam the brakes and swerve to avoid the cones in front of you with an opening on the right and then back on gas and steer out of the "danger".. Then you have the skidpad where you try and do donuts, then a mini slalom back and forth through cones with multiple passes.. Each session is roughly 20 mins long. Lunch in the middle of the day. You are with an instructor who shows you each session a couple of times and then you switch and they are the passenger giving you instruction the whole time.

The last part is (2) 20 minute full track sessions.. You can push the car pretty hard and some people can even get the car up to 127+mph on the one straight, but it's fun to try and push the car like that. The instructor told me that I pushed the car to roughly 4/10th of what it is capable of and I had the best time in the slalom and according to the instructor I did really well on the track for one of my runs (there were 12 people in my class). I am NOT a great driver, so others might be able to do much better than I did.

Overall I loved the experience, but felt like it was REALLY pricey for what you get. There was a LOT of sitting around as they only have 4 cars and several times we had to wait for a car or two to cool down to use it or a couple of times they went into limp mode and we had to turn it off and restart it and then it would happen again. It happened to me 4 times on my 20 minute track sessions and there was no making up the time.

They do NOT have a 2 day course, which would be great, but they are considering it.

Overall the instructors were really good and communicated well. I felt like the car was WAY beyond my driving capabilities and know if something goes wrong, it will DEF be ME.. not the car. If money is no object, it's totally worth it.. This is my first Lotus and a childhood dream and I wanted to see the factory and a good friend of mine and I made a guys trip out of it so it was worth the cost, but it was pretty pricey.

Feel free to ask any questions.. I am happy to chime in and help. Also feel free to PM me and happy to talk at length as well.

 

[Mitcheroo]

Sorry just seeing this. I went in March.. I did the advanced... You cannot tailor it. They have a pretty strict schedule. You get to do brake and avoid, which is you drive down a straight away and then while driving down there are cones on the right and left of you and then cones in front a good distance away and you have to get up to 70-75+ mph and then jam the brakes and swerve to avoid the cones in front of you with an opening on the right and then back on gas and steer out of the "danger".. Then you have the skidpad where you try and do donuts, then a mini slalom back and forth through cones with multiple passes.. Each session is roughly 20 mins long. Lunch in the middle of the day. You are with an instructor who shows you each session a couple of times and then you switch and they are the passenger giving you instruction the whole time.

The last part is (2) 20 minute full track sessions.. You can push the car pretty hard and some people can even get the car up to 127+mph on the one straight, but it's fun to try and push the car like that. The instructor told me that I pushed the car to roughly 4/10th of what it is capable of and I had the best time in the slalom and according to the instructor I did really well on the track for one of my runs (there were 12 people in my class). I am NOT a great driver, so others might be able to do much better than I did.

Overall I loved the experience, but felt like it was REALLY pricey for what you get. There was a LOT of sitting around as they only have 4 cars and several times we had to wait for a car or two to cool down to use it or a couple of times they went into limp mode and we had to turn it off and restart it and then it would happen again. It happened to me 4 times on my 20 minute track sessions and there was no making up the time.

They do NOT have a 2 day course, which would be great, but they are considering it.

Overall the instructors were really good and communicated well. I felt like the car was WAY beyond my driving capabilities and know if something goes wrong, it will DEF be ME.. not the car. If money is no object, it's totally worth it.. This is my first Lotus and a childhood dream and I wanted to see the factory and a good friend of mine and I made a guys trip out of it so it was worth the cost, but it was pretty pricey.

Feel free to ask any questions.. I am happy to chime in and help. Also feel free to PM me and happy to talk at length as well.

Thanks for the detailed overview. Very useful. I have just booked the advanced for mid August. I have lowered my expectations for the course (based on actual driving time) so hopefully won’t be disappointed. Do they use any i4s or are they all manuals?

 

[slotus]

I did the "tailored advanced", which was neither tailored nor advanced. I actually skipped the morning activities and joined into the tour and was happy that I did. The heritage collection was amazing and the factory tour helped me settle on a color.

There were two manual V6 cars, no auto or I4. I am an experienced race driver and was allowed to push the car as hard as I wanted, but only in tour mode with full traction control on. It ended up at about 30 minutes total driving time, after some time taken up on intro laps and some for brake cooling laps.

Overall it was a mixed bag. It was expensive plus you need a rental car and two hotel nights (The Bird in Hand discount code still works and they have great food) to get to Hethel. Communication and organization was pretty poor. But, in the end it served its purpose. I got to really test the car (fantastic), and see all the colors to make my choice. This luckily fit into a work trip for me, but would have been hard to justify doing it on my own time and dime.

 

[RyanGphoto]

Thanks for the detailed overview. Very useful. I have just booked the advanced for mid August. I have lowered my expectations for the course (based on actual driving time) so hopefully won’t be disappointed. Do they use any i4s or are they all manuals?

There were no I4s. Only manual V6's. Both RHD and LHD (only 1 LHD though). I had to do the full laps in a RHD car and that was odd for sure, shifting and driving opposite wasn't as easy a transition as I thought it would be, but overall I got a good idea of what the car can do within MY limits not the cars and that was really great to experience.

I am not made of money, but it was still a great experience I had with a good friend and got to see all the colors and cars being built as well.

Ryan G