Due to the generosity of my mates Neale Carbis & Keith Halsey, I got a golden ticket invite to a coaching day with Lee Martin (Or should I say, six time European Champion and general fucking quick driver, Lee Martin).
After a morning of learning how to asses the track, basic lines, and some surprisingly gentle, simple coaching, Ken, Keith, Neale, Paul, Chris & I all started to realise that our car setups were all perfectly fine, and we were mostly driving them wrong.
Initially, I began to wonder why I was doing what Lee told me, but not going quicker. But then Lee put some extra blue line markers out, and whadya know, I was going slower because I wasn’t doing what Lee had told me to. Just that simple device of a visual marker showing the difference between what you should do, and what you’re actually doing was a bit of an epiphany.
Suddenly the difference between fast mid corner and exit because you’ve set the corner up by the right entry line, and what you were previously doing wrong became crystal clear. Suddenly, the car started popping out one the exit line, stable, settled and begging you to nail the throttle.
There were a bunch of other little details that were real gems, but I’m not going to tell you about those, because (a) I paid to learn them, and (b) i’d highly recommend a day with Lee to learn them for yourself.
All in all, the six of us had a cracking day, and all seemed to get a lot out of it. Thanks Lee!