In October 2021, I did a half day course on Drifting with Learn2Drift at Aldershot Raceway.
Learn2Drift has a number of drivers and instructors that compete in top flight drifting championships throughout the UK and Europe. In 2012 Learn2Drift was founded with the aim of giving the public a chance to try the art of drifting using specially modified drift training cars.
Learn2Drift uses Lexus IS200'S and IS250 Sports along with Nissan 200 SX's, S14 and S14a's.
Upon arrival and registration, I was greeted by Heath from Learn2Drift, Heath made me feel at ease and welcome very quickly. He asked if I'd ever done anything like this before. When I said I had not, he reassured me and said it's quick to pick up and it's the most fun you can have at 5 miles per hour.
Once everyone had arrived we were given a safety briefing, introduced to the photographer Jonathan Davis from D.E Photography and collected crash helmets. While this was happening, a big truck got busy getting the main track wet to make the drifting easier.
To begin, I waited for my name to be called, when it was, I made my way to one of the Lexus cars with an instructor waiting, got in and buckled up. I was given a quick rundown of the car and then instructions on how to proceed. The first skill to learn was a controlled donut to the left and then the right. Sounds easy enough, turn the wheel the required direction, rev the car to 4,500 rpm, bring the clutch up and feather the accelerator to maintain the revs and keep the car in a controlled spin.
This initially I struggled with. On all of the previous driving days I have had to be very careful with the cars I've driven, not rev the hell out of them before putting them into a spin. Once I'd gotten used to the idea of the high revving, it was easy to learn the donut. Once I'd mastered left, right was easy to get.
After the donuts, I got out of the car to grab a coffee before the next skill. This would be the figure of 8. Back inside the Lexus I was talked through how to perform the figure of 8. The instructor did a great job in guiding me as I picked this up fairly quickly from the left and right. I soon found my preference was the right but doing both directions give you a better overall understanding and control of the car.
The final drive of the day was the short circuit drift, this would be a slalom through 3 cones and a donut around the last cone. we had 4 goes at this to impress our instructors so the pressure was on.
I'd love to tell you that we all sailed through this but the truth was that we all got the slalom through the 3 cones really well............ however every single person managed to understeer though the cone we were supposed to donut around. A few people came close but we all had a big laugh about it afterwards.
At the end of the session we had some guest drifters bring their cars to take us around Aldershot Raceway, they were fantastic drivers with some great cars.
Unfortunately two of the guest cars had a collision around the track highlighting that although it's controlled, Motorsport can be and is dangerous. Thankfully no one was hurt and everyone walked away without any injuries.
Having a day like this really is eye opening, the skills you learn on this course really do help improve your car control. If you are in doubt then give it a go as this will answer those doubts.
Heath was right, this is the most fun you can have at 5 miles per hour.
I will hopefully be doing this again sometime in the near future as it really is good fun.
I would like to thank, Heath, Alex and all of the instructors at Learn2Drift for making me feel welcome and at ease during my time at Aldershot Raceway. I would also like to thank Jonathan Davis for the photo's and the guest drivers for giving their time up to drive us around the track.
For more information, please visit:
https://www.learn2drift.com
