[XTrainer]

Sounds like quite the education, I find this sort of driving training interesting.

[stewy37]

I used to compete in Solo II autocrossing, which is basically what you're doing. Running through a course of cones for time. It was a blast and relatively easy on your vehicle except for the tires. It was also a good amount of driving for relatively low cost.
I hear you on picking up the skills. It was most of a year before I became what I felt was proficient at it. You're running in to the same problem that any training program with a large amount of material to cover runs in to. You're getting just a few days to learn various skill sets that people devote their entire lives to perfecting. Basically, get an introduction and than work on it in free time over your career.

[DEVILsSON]

Stewy thank you that's solid advice and that's what they told us. No way would we really pick up high speed shuffle steering in a couple/few days for whatever exercise....I got instruction from a guy who did 32 years in our department and he drives amazing...they told us max speeds for the course done on the course were 50mph...he was consistantly doing 55-60.....through portions of it.....i was also amazed how quick his hands were...

I love this driving I'll be honest but this whole testing stuff is putting a big damper on my fun...coming out soaking wet out of these exercises sucks...I was also hard on my self so I started to try to relax a little abd be more positive...which helped a lot because in the morning of yesterday i probably was as bad as I was 2 days ago even though I have no problems going forward....

If we had a month of this it would be an absolute blast...with tests every week instead of everyday or two a day.....but that's how it goes...

Interesting tho that our instructors told us in SF conditions...pursuits are pretty much very rare to non-existant...so this driving we're doing is more about learning dynamics of car, road, conditions, etc....

[DEVILsSON]

Today was all about clearing intersections lane by lane if necessary and knowing how to drive under control when code 3....our code 3 test was basically driving around the track avoiding 'crazy be.es' or instructors driving through intersections, in our blind spots, backing up, blocking the road, etc...and we had to get them to stop at intersections ahve them acknowledge us after our commandss then go...also look over shoulder when passing pulled over cars ..etc...on our exercise prior I was only 3/21 people to pass the intersection test....I am super paranoid and I knew exactly what instructors were doing in trying to hype us up about shootings, stabbing, officer shot, etc....so we'd blow by intersection or not clear a lane of multi lane street....they purposely had big vehicles blocking smaller ones...i was pretty confident going in but ended up missing one T interesection that was really close to another T interesection and even tho no car was there it was ruled a near collision because if i had slowed down the car would have been there and I didnt react to another car fast enough when it was still far away by having it stop to close to me....but as a whole I passed on first try out of 3 ...so all good....many of the more faster drivers failed first try although everyone passed on 2nd...

so now i got to make up the PMC course....this is going to be painful...

[ghostwipe]

Damn, the academy sounds fun....

[gza]

DS,
out of curiosity, what work experience/post-secondary do you have?

[DEVILsSON]

Yea it is. Driving and range are some of the most fun weeks at the academy. Officer survival week and half is as well. Shooting on the move, shooting with real bullets filled with paint instead of lead,moving from barricade to barricade, etc sounds a lot like fun. My problems arise when I get too stressed out because I know I am not acquiring certain skills fast enough......

I also thought driving was much tougher than range...range was 1 test at the very end for the whole week while evoc was 5 tests(4 major) with a test or two a day....I also thought that when they stressed skilled fast driving, they didnt consider speed management as a skill which I thought was rediculous because if a track is timed and aside from that avoiding obstacles...then time becomes either the single greatest or 2nd greatest factor...a skill...i understood their emphasis on not driving fast for the sake of it but speed control/management/maneuvering while doing tight movements is a speed skill....so practice runs should have been timed...

[XTrainer]

DEVIlsSON's qualifications? 700lb deadlift. What more do you need?

You're up early, Dev, aren't you in Cali?

[Zerocrew1984]

devil was an economics major

[DEVILsSON]

I had a bunch of small jobs often unrelated to each other trying to figure out what I wanted to do.