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Aero Academy on a budget (long)
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Posted by dip [Email] (more from dip) on Fri, 10 Oct 2003 21:07:57 Share Post by Email
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Having bought an earthly used 9-5 I didn't qualify for the Saab's elite Aero Academy. However, I still wanted to improve my driving skills, and preferably in a Saabish way.

A couple of months ago I came across a website of the driving school with the Saab Owner's Club of Canada and decided to give it a shot. They run 3 or 4 events a year (the last one for this year was today), and you don't have to be a member of the club to sign up. You don't even have to own or drive a Saab. Despite the fact that the school has "Saab" in its name, of more than 60 cars there were only 9 Saabs -- two 9-5 Linears, four 9-3SS Linears, one Viggen, two NG900s and one 9000. Plus a couple of instructors' Saabs. However, a lot of people recognize and appreciate them -- I had an RSX driver enthusiastically asking me questions about my car.

You get to drive your car, which I believe is a good thing, because you're getting more familiar with your daily driver. The regular car insurance applies, and the tuition cost is tax deductible. The event was held at the Shannonville Motorsport Park in Ontario.

The course was $190 and consisted of the total of 110 minutes in class lessons, 50 minutes of skidpad, 30 minutes of general excercises like slalom or braking, and 100 minutes of lapping, including the time when your instructor drives the car showing you the track. All these sessions were spread through the day with lunch and other breaks. More advanced groups had more lapping time, and the instructors themselves had a lot of fun on the track too (I suspect that free lapping time is how you lure them to an event like this ;). These guys work for BMW, Porsche, Ferrari and other schools, and they know a great deal about driving.

These are some of the things I've learned:
- I have learned that I have to learn A LOT MORE about driving, but at least I now have an idea of what my car can do and what it can't, which I presume makes me a safer driver
- I've discovered that I'm completely unafraid of doing crazy things with my car, and now this fact scares the hell out of me -- shouldn't I have a sense of self-preservation?
- if your car is dirty, don't bother detailing it before the event -- yes, it might look better, but it will be dirty up to the window tops after a couple of skidpad sessions
- seeing a Chevy Blazer doing a 360 on the skidpad gives you an enormous sense of satisfaction after you came through all the obstacles without spinning out ;)
- the Town & Country (yes, a van) pulls hard enough to make it difficult to overcome it on a straight line, piece a cake in the curves though
- there are car enthusiasts with automatic transmissions, so I didn't feel overly lame
- however, to nobody's surprise, a manual 9-5 Linear outruns an automatic 9-5 (I also suspect it had something to do with the driver :)
- on the positive side, an automatic 9-5 outruns an automatic Mustang GT (might be the driver thing again ;-)
- overall, an auto 9-5 is reasonably fast, I had a couple of manual 9-3SS Linears and two RXS'es in my group, and I had no problem keeping up with them
- RSX'es are nimble beasts
- almost half of the advanced group drove S2000 convertibles with scary looking exhausts
- I was really unimpressed by Ferraris (but again, I would blame it on the drivers)
- Porsches are wickedly fast and incredibly stable (I had a ride with an instructor in his 911 Targa Coupe -- WOW!)
- driving is even more fun than I previously imagined

On my way back I cought up with a red 9-3SS from the school, and he followed me almost all the way home fighting its path through traffic. Dan, I don't know if you read TSN, but your car looks gorgeous in the rear view mirror ;)

While driving home, I saw my first ever riced up Toyota Corolla. It was a green 1999 Corolla with white 17" rims, tinted windows and a dual exhaust. Those fat exhaust pipes looked completely ridiculous from the rear as they were bent to fit UNDER the rear axle leaving only a few inches of ground clearance.

posted by 65.50.6...

the school website

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