The Under 17 Car Club (ND)

[Sundayjumper]

So it's not a secret secret; everyone from the forum that I've met in person already knows, plus a couple of others, but it was a conscious decision to not give my daughter any kind of social media footprint until she was old enough to understand it. Not totally there yet but I am breaking my silence as we had a truly OV9-worthy event today: our first event with the The Under 17 Car Club.

It does what it says on the tin: teaching under-17s to drive, and to drive properly, not just to pass their test. Training up to nearly IAM/Police standards if you're good enough (although I'm not quite sure how they do that without using public roads), plus opportunities to drive lots of other vehicles - vans, trucks, performance cars, off-roading, HGVs, even proper military vehicles. All before turning 17. I'm genuinely quite jealous.

Today was a joiners at South Cerney, a former RAF station just south of Cirencester. A windswept airfield like so many Autosolo & Targa events I've been to We started with just using the clutch. No throttle. It seems trivial to us all now, but it's really quite tricky when you've never needed to do that kind of thing with your feet. In fact, I bet a lot of us would find that tricky even now. No throttle. Just clutch. Try it ! It really focusses your mind on clutch control. See how far you can get, how many gears you can get through.

After that we drove in a large oval, up & down. Just 1st gear. Feeding the steering wheel. Then zig-zag through the cones. Feeding the steering wheel back & forth faster, and feathering the clutch. Also emergency stops. Then.. driving around the whole main circuit. It was honestly like a very gentle Targa stage, some of the road surface was terrible A few cone-based wiggles around the course and also mock roundabouts to negotiate.

She did brilliantly There was a bit of a wobble & a confidence crisis early on with the clutch thing but with some encouragement from the excellent instructors she persevered and cracked it. By the end of the afternoon she was up to 3rd gear and almost 30mph. IM(very biased)O that's awesome for an 11yo that's never driven before. We had better instruction, and more wheel time, in a day, than probably three or four "proper" lessons when you turn 17.

She's hooked and insisting we go to the next event, next weekend, at Lyneham. I'll post an update.

[DeskJockey]

That sounds very interesting, bet my 11yo would be interested. Linky no worky (for me).

Edit: Issue on my side. Fixed.

Edit 2: Meh. No good locations within a reasonable distance of here. Although there is some kind of driving experience at Brands Hatch, so will look at that.

[Jobbo]

She's only 11? I'd not have been able to reach the pedals at that age, but then my father is a bit shorter than you Excellent work.

My driving instructor made me drive without using the accelerator pedal. He had a Peugeot 309 diesel with the 1.9 NA engine and it was quite hard to stall. I kept trying to do the same practice in my mother's Fiat Panda 750. That is basically impossible to move at all without at least a tiny bit of gas.

[V8Granite]

The quicker the better, especially in a manual so they can possibly own something cool when they start driving

Dave!

[tim]

Super idea, I'd be all over that for mine were it not for the locations being hopeless for us.

I was doing the just clutch thing with my g/f's lad - his instructor had a diesel 1 series that was almost impossible to stall, so it really helped him in his Fiesta.

[Matty]

She's only 11? I'd not have been able to reach the pedals at that age, but then my father is a bit shorter than you Excellent work.

My driving instructor made me drive without using the accelerator pedal. He had a Peugeot 309 diesel with the 1.9 NA engine and it was quite hard to stall. I kept trying to do the same practice in my mother's Fiat Panda 750. That is basically impossible to move at all without at least a tiny bit of gas.

My first car was a Panda 750 - it was almost impossible to move *while* using the accelerator.

[GG.]

That looks great! My son would be keen in a few years time.

[Rich B]

Mercedes World do a young driver thing - you have to be 1.5m tall (no age restriction afaik) - wear some cuban heels and they’ll let you on Jobbo!

[Mito Man]

I helped design the Mercedes Benz World young driver academy

[Jobbo]

Mercedes World do a young driver thing - you have to be 1.5m tall (no age restriction afaik) - wear some cuban heels and they’ll let you on Jobbo!

That's a surprisingly tall height threshold.

Reminds me of the last time I went to Alton Towers being too short to go on the Corkscrew. Though I don't like rollercoasters so I don't think I missed out

[Jobbo]

<Richard Herring voice> I was 28 years old </Richard Herring voice>

[Ascender]

That's a brilliant idea, well done!

[dinny_g]

I helped design the Mercedes Benz World young driver academy

How did that come about Mito ?? Somewhat random claim to fame...

[Mito Man]

I helped design the Mercedes Benz World young driver academy

How did that come about Mito ?? Somewhat random claim to fame...

The whole idea came about when my dad was chatting to his patient - I think I was about 15 years old and that age when you apply for a provisional and start thinking about lessons which is what they were talking about. His patient was someone pretty high up in MB World. After a few visits MB World wanted to put something together and wanted a guinea pig.

And so one weekend I found myself at MB World in a manual A Class with one of the track driving instructors beside me and 2 other MB executives in the back. I’d go through various exercises and give them feedback and we did that for 2 weekends. One of my ideas (then again I stole it from Gran Turismo) which did make it to the final version of their academy was that if you passed various tests to a certain level you could drive a faster car. Eventually it progressed to a C63. I may still have the old driving passport thing for it hidden in a loft somewhere.

That then led to them also making a school for driving lessons on the road so there was a full package.

I don’t think any of that exists anymore though, and the young driver experience is now just manoeuvring around a coned off section of the Brooklands track whereas before you had full reign of everything apart from the skid pan.

[dinny_g]

Wow that's pretty cool.

I've done an event day there - Skid Pan (both of them), 4x4 course and ending up with just 4 laps in a CLS 63 Black Edition which was frustrating as the track's too short and too narrow to really enjoy it.

[Rich B]

i did an hour in the c63 - the track is great fun - you just need to be all on the accelerator or all on the brake!