A few (unedited) videos from my training at Motopark Krakow and basic notes about the exercises I performed.

First, the slalom. Most of you will say: easy. Indeed, it’s probably easier than some other manoeuvres, yet surprisingly tricky if you want to do it smoothly and at one speed (keeping the accelerator pedal in the same position throughout).

These are important rules if you want to be a good driver in general: executing any turns as smoothly as possible, without wasting crucial time and attention on any unnecessary moves (jittery stops and starts, gear changes midway, taking hands off the steering wheel etc) Look at any youtube rally videos from inside the cockpit: the driver’s moves are very economical (maybe apart from the Spaniard Carlos Sainz, who does it flamenco style ) and both hands always on the wheel.

So, the is the basic slalom with turning at every cone (I did it around 50 times on the day…and I feel I still need another 1000 rounds or more to get it just right!) And then I do the same thing but turning at every second cone.

Here’s a video from inside showing you how I keep (or at least, I aim to keep) my hands constantly on the wheel. Just pointing out again, I’m no expert or a rally driver with years of experience, so doing this to the best of my abilities.

A few pointers:

Remember about the correct seating positon in the car, this will massively improve any manoeuvres you perform.

Choosing the right trajectory will allow you to do the slalom safely and at good speed (ie to avoid oversteer for example when the car loses traction because you went too fast into the turn). What does ‘the right trajectory’ actually mean? Well, not going too far away from the cones, but also not speeding to close to the them– it’s hard to explain on paper, but the more you practise the more you’ll feel where the optimal track is. Practise makes perfect.

Release the accelerator pedal gently if you feel you’re going to fast, but don’t just suddenly take your foot off completely. And talking of hands on the steering wheel, rather than pulling the wheel to each side, you press the left hand firmly against it when turning right, and right hand pressing harder when turning left.

The other exercise I did was learning how to break on the skid pan. Especially helpful in an emergency situation. What are the basics?

Push the break pedal right down to the floor with all the power you have (pretty much at the same time you push the clutch) and keep it there until you stop. If you do it correctly, the emergency lights in your car should turn on automatically.

All modern cars have the ABS system installed, which will help keep your car on track. It won’t make the actual stopping distance any shorter (common misconception), as the mechanism actaully releases the break off the wheels every so often, therefore elongating the manoeuvre altogether (you'll feel the ABS pulsating violently under your foot). Thanks to this, the wheels don’t block themselves completely enabling you to keep control of the car.

Many people think that by taking the foot on and off the pedal it will help them stop more efficiently (Well, possibly in an old car which has no ABS), but with the system on board, press down (forcefully, don’t think about it too much) and let it do the job. You just keep your hands on the steering wheel and look ahead.

I well recommend going to a training centre where they have a skid pan and doing all the above under the supervision of an experienced instructor.

So this is an example of breaking on the skid pan in a straight line (my instructor is doing this one)

And this is breaking with going around the cones (imaginary obstacles)

View from the cockpit. First stopping in a straight line, followed by stopping including cones.

And the footwork.

I also learnt about controlling oversteer and understeer, but need to work on that still.. so that’s for another time!