There are several different methods of making a vehicle skid for the purposes of learning skid control. All are good fun but many also have major drawbacks when used for teaching drivers skid control...
- Equipment
- Most skid control courses these days use cars which are fitted with a frame. The frame has jockey wheels fitted to each corner. These jockey wheels are mounted to a hydraulic ram which lifts weight from the car tyres this in turn reduces the grip of the tyres causing the car to loose grip. A complex control unit which is usually mounted in the boot is used to adjust the weight/grip on each tyre to induce different types of skids.
The problem with this system is that it does not allow the driver to naturally move the weight around the tyres by using the throttle, brakes and steering. This adjustment of the balance of the car is a fundamental part of skid control especially in a front wheel drive car this we feel makes a vehicle of this type of little use as a serious training vehicle.
- Wet Skid Pans
- These courses use a conventional car which is usually fitted with bald tyres and is driven on a surface treated with oil or a chemical and sprayed with water. These wet and slippy skid pans are very good for learning low speed car control as they do allow the car to move around on its suspension normally and will teach drivers real skills. The drawback of most wet courses however is that they use only a small area. This is obviously because of the practical problems of wetting the surface to be used. This means that these type of venues can only be used for skid training at low speeds and not for the really dangerous and difficult to control skids which are at much higher speeds.
- Driverskill's Unique Skid Car
- Our unique solution to this problem is to use a normal family car fitted with low grip tyres, this allows the car to transfer weight and handle the same as a normal car does. We also wet an area to provide a change of grip and surface (a common cause of skids on the road!) This system allows us to use a very large area for car dynamics training; our skid pan is ½ mile by ¾ mile and is the largest in the uk allowing us to train drivers to control a car drifting in safety at a more realistic speed of around 40mph to 60mph.
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