driving skills that could save lives

Very few things can be as important as understanding how to handle yourself on the roads when driving. After all, most of us, spend 1-2 hours a day in our cars and much more so on weekends and long drives.

I always thought the more experience you have the better you get at driving. Sure no amount of theory can replace practical experience on the road, but how are you to know what to do when you encounter an emergency situation you haven't experienced before? Do you know how your car will react to a hard braking scenario? or what will happen if you brake and swerve to avoid a stalled car? or why do some cars skid and some rollover sideways?

Ever wondered why police officers, anti-terrorist squads, safety people, etc. in most countries undergo mandatory driver skill training. Also an increasing number of jobs which require driving as part of work, now prescribe employees undergo driver skills training.

This is where defensive driver courses come in. Having bought a new rear wheel drive car a month back (my MX5!!), I knew I had to understand how my MX5 handles in emergency situations - like I said the stuff you haven't experienced on roads before and hopefully should never have to!

I did some research and came across Driver Dynamics and saw some good recommendations for them. With all my work related air travel keeping me busy, I knew I had to make time for a defensive drive course soon. The opportune moment came on the long weekend for melbourne cup day. Yes if you plan well in advance you can get a good discount deal on the course , but I knew I didn't want to keep putting this off. So coughed up 285$ and registered for a day at Sandown Racecourse with the Driver Dynamics team.
The mandatory instructions were simple, be there at 830am sharp, get your driver's license and make sure your tires are at 40PSI! The generalized 40 psi recommendation was the only confusing one, so I emailed them with my car/tire model and they confirmed I need to go from manufacturer recommended 30 psi to 40 psi. Some research on the interweb and forums and it was clear, manufacturer recommendations are more for comfort, rather than tire life, safety and performance! The day before the course, I was even told by the tire expert at the local Beaurepaires that I was nuts to fill up to 40 psi and these defensive driving courses destroy your tires! Well too late, as I had already paid up.

So there I was at Sandown at 8am on Melbourne Cup day. Had researched over the weekend that the only open entrance was from princess highway (opp. 659 princess highway on google navigation), so was there in plenty of time.
I met their senior-most instructor, Pete, who guided me to the stands where I parked my MX5. Along side me were a V8 ute and a commodore. I thought it was a day with very few cars, but was told generally there are 50 cars or so, but today they were expecting 25 or so. And then the cars starting coming in - from SUVs to hyundai station wagons, a bmw 135i and many more! There were brand new cars like mine and some very old ones. There were L platers with parents, P platers and much more experienced drivers as well, both young and old.

Driver Dynamics CEO Kevin was also there with his Lamborghini.
The only pic I took was of the stunning yellow lambo next to my mx5. The rest of the day I was too busy driving!

We signed up and were taken through the morning theory session - this is where Pete took us through a lot of important points and how cars behave. He confirmed things like why 36psi to 40psi is the best tire pressure to be on. Also cleared up a lot of myths on handling skids. The biggest shocker to me was braking and swerving almost never causes a vehicle to rollover (unlike movies) - there has to be an intervening object like divider, curb, gutter, large rock, burst tire, etc to cause the car to rollover.
 We then quickly went over emergency braking scenarios and went out for practicals.

This is where the fun part started. We were split in two groups, with Kevin and Pete handling each group separately. The sprayed recycled rain water on the track and put some cones and then got us going individually through various braking scenarios. There were wide stopping distance differences between various cars when braking in a straight line, however Kevin and Pete reckoned every car could go from 60kmph to hard stop within 20meters. By the end of a few runs, everyone did. I was happy to see my MX5 was stopping in slightly over half the distance. We were told to feel when the ABS cycled and even asked to let go of our hands and see how stability control kept the car going straight. Where almost every one screwed up was the brake swerve brake test. Too many orange cones were killed in this test.

We then had a quick 45min lunch break. I rushed to a nearby mcdonalds and had 2 burger patties (threw away the buns - wanna know why? - click here). Back in the classroom and we were all distracted by the high revving cars having fun on the track in the background. We now had some more theory on safe driving distances, etc and were out again for practicals. This time we did slalom which is were cones are placed 18 meters apart and you zig zag past them at 40-50kmph. The MX5 handled surprisingly well even at 60kmph! After a few runs, we had a few more braking and swerving maneuvers  in the wet and this time a lot of us were way more confident. I could feel the mx5 better and my reaction times had significantly improved. This time I completed most exercises successfully and Kevin advised I do some of the exercises at 65kmph (instead of 60) as the MX5 is a much better car. I ended up doing things at 70kmph as the MX5 speedometer has markings 20kmph apart and it was not easy staying at 65. And at 70kmph the MX5 behaved perfectly and no cones were killed!

 Finally we went back in and recapped the day. Pete reminded us that ideally we should all be driving at the right distance from the vehicle in front and hopefully never encounter emergency situations, but now we had some confidence to handle them if we did. We were then handed out course completion certificates (which can be used for OHS compliance at your employer) and given some discount coupons for defensive and advanced driving courses, as well as coupons for a 1hr lamborghini drive. Pete was kind enough to hang around and answer any pending questions.
All in all a great day, made some new friends and gained a lot of confidence in important driving skills. The MX5 did well and the tires are perfectly fine.

I would highly recommend a defensive driving course to anyone on the road. This stuff can really save lives! Safe Driving!

Finally Custom Plates on my MX-5

When you live in a country with a small population, getting unique things which mean something to you is easier. So here I was with an MX-5 and I knew I wanted some custom number plates with my lucky number on them. Fortunately VicRoads has a special program Vplates which allows you to select registration plates of your choice and they ship them to you. The options I was after were my initials and lucky number and I got exactly what I wanted!

The process of ordering was quite easy, and the plates came in a week later. The treatment from vicroads is royal! The plates came in a nice case, with a certificate of authenticity, and a nice keyring.

The  keyring said 'signature plates' on one side and had a random number on the other side. My understanding was this number should be my registration number (same as plates), however after several calls vicroads confirmed, that is only done for the heritage plates (not signature plates).

The difficult bit began when I realized the plates wouldn't fit my MX5. Once assigned, you have to immediately have the plates on the car. Now unlike India, labor isn't cheap here in Australia, so I couldn't just run out to someone to fix the plates for me. The plates come in a protective frame with a mounting bracket and vicroads advised its best not take the plates out of the protective frame for obvious reasons. So finally after exhausting various options like trying myself, going to a local mechanic (who suggested drilling holes!), went to my mazda dealer and they agreed to modify the plates to fit the car during my first 1000kms service.

So the servicing is done today and the plates fixed (cost 80 dollars) and here are some more pics!

Shots of the interiors

Lorne Run(in)

Had been itching for this for a long time. A long drive on the twisties in my new MX-5. With my first car service coming in a few days, this was the last weekend I could do a proper run-in of the MX-5 and get to 1000kms on the odo before given her in for servicing.

The day started early at 8am - needed to goto Crossfit Victoria for a quick workout before I hit the road. By around 10am, I couldn't wait to get out of crossfit class and hit the road. First things first, fired up navigation on my trusty google nexus one and headed to the closest BP fuel station to fill up on some RON 98 petrol.

After filling her up, I got the mood going with a frank sinatra station on Pandora radio and pointed google navigation to Lorne. 150kms is not a lot but already cloudy and with heavy rains predicted, I knew I was headed for some tough bits.

And the tough bits came, heavy blinding rain for quite a few kms while I was on the westgate-princess freeway. Couldn't see a thing, with the downpour as well as the spray coming from all the bigger SUVs passing me by. Strange thoughts passed my mind as this was my first time in a rear wheel drive in crazy wet conditions. Checked to make sure stability control was on! Stuck to 90kmph and kept going in my lane and then it finally cleared up. The road even started to dry up by the time I got to the Geelong Ring road and then I hit the twisties on Angelsea and Great Ocean Road. The MX-5 lapped up everything the roads threw at her without having to slow down anywhere. Its amazing how a front engined rear wheel drive handles on these roads - you won't know it till you drive one. The 50:50 weight ratio, the smooth acceleration and braking and precise handling makes MX5s a joy to drive on the twisties - these are things I had only heard, but here I was cushioned inside of one, experiencing the same while listening to some soothing music from her bose audio system. There is a distinct hum inside the cabin from the engine and tire sounds which cannot be drowned unless the music is very loud. Roll down the windows and the chaos of the wind trying to get in makes you realize how fast you really are going.

Ofcourse,  I knew this was a running-in drive, so at the freeway even at 100kmph was playing with 3rd, 4th, 5th and 6th gears to have patches of driving at various rpms between 2k to 5k. But there was some good fun to be had once I hit great ocean road, was always changing gears up and down to keep the revs going all over the place.  Every few minutes, I went down to 3rd or 2nd and spent a few secs all the way up at 5000rpm (way below max revs zone) and saw some real potential in her basic 2L 158BHP 188Nm engine. Felt some g-forces on the spiraling B roads and enjoyed some great views of the waves hitting the beaches. Only had one stop at this beautiful nursery/cafe in anglesea for a hot chocolate and finally reached Lorne at around 1pm. Parked and walked around and took some pics.

Post workout hunger was creeping in, so looked up ratings of the local restaurants on google places and found a highly rated place called Bottle of Milk . The awesome weather and thought of food, ended up having the BOM burger

It was 2pm by the time I relished the awesome burger (skipped my no bread paleo rules this once!). A shot of my baby before we hit the road again

Quick stop-over at Shell in Lorne to get some more RON 98 fuel for the MX-5 and she was doing great at 9L/100km (11kmpL) even with all my antics! The drive back was more fun, maybe I knew the roads now, maybe I knew my MX-5 better now. I hugged as many corners as I could, and when the B roads ended, I felt like turning and going back to Lorne! Aah well I will come back again soon. Was back home before 430pm, in time for some Saturday evening fun with my good friends!
With the 300km drive running in was now done (1006kms on odo)  and I had a great drive in almost perfect weather on the awesome great ocean roads. All in all a great day and I believe now I know why Jeremy Clarkson said this about the MX-5
"The fact is that if you want a sports car, the MX-5 is perfect. Nothing on the road will give you better value. Nothing will give you so much fun. The only reason I’m giving it five stars is because I can’t give it 14."

journey to my sports car

As a kid, I was always fascinated by cars, especially the sporty kinds. I had all the hot wheels and matchbox cars in my collection. Infact my grandma once said, I will grow up and become a driver! Well in those days computers weren't a big thing :-) but thats where I ended, like most people of our generation

The addiction for cars, got me hooked to all things cars - formula 1, top gear, fifth gear, etc :-)

I had some experience driving dad's maruti suzuki 800 and fiat premier padmini in my engineering days and ended up owning a hyundai santro while working in Bangalore. A rather unlikely car to modify, but I managed to get a a nice CAI (cold air intake) and FFE (free flow exhaust) on the santro and even a few track days. I did seriously think of a ford fiesta sport or mitsubishi lancer in those days, but knew very well anything more exotic (hell even a mitsubishi evo X) would just be a dream given the crazy import duties in India. Held on to that dream as I knew one day my time will come.

The time came in sep 2010 when I moved to the land down under and although in aussie-land good sporty cars are 2-3 times as much as they cost in US/UK, I knew I was close to getting one. Infact the day I got my residency visa, I was already checking out websites to understand what can be had in aussie-land. I even had a thread http://www.team-bhp.com/forum/luxury-imports-niche/89307-sporty-car-40k-80k-aussie-dollars.html hinting there was a friend moving to australia, when it was actually me. Got some good suggestions then.

Things didn't come easy though. Frequent work travel kept me from getting my driving license in australia. There was no direct conversion for an indian license (understandable), so had to go through 2 computerized tests (learners and hazard perception) and some driving lessons, before even being eligible for a drive test. After an agonisingly long wait, finally got to giving my drive test and passing it first attempt in sep 2011. The night before the drive test I was back to searching for cars, and infact even during the driving test I was thinking – I can't believe this is it, I am passing today and getting a car soon!

The test was passed on a friday (23^rd sep 2011) and I was already doing test drives on saturday and sunday with just a drive test result in my hand (license hadn't even shipped from vic roads). There were so many options – lotus elise, mazda mx5, rx8, holden/ford performance cars, mitsubisi evo X, subaru wrx sti, golf r, nissan 370z, audi tt, etc.

Given that I follow road rules and there are strong road rules here, I knew anything very high on power would just be pointless. But I did wan't something fun to drive, which would mean a rear wheel drive. That narrowed it down to lotus elise, mazda mx5 and rx8. I figured the elise was barely in stock, impractical as a daily driver (it rains a lot here) and slightly over my budget. RX8 was out due to its awesome yet impractical engine and only marginally useful claustrophobic rear seats with almost no leg room.

That was it the decision was simple, it had to be the MX5 – no tons of power to sort you out, just a modest 2 litre 167bhp, rear wheel drive, 50:50 weight distribution for lots of fun on the twisties while still staying legal on speeds. A great track car, but also add to that creature comforts like stability/traction control for wet days, power retractable hard top for occasional top down fun and 7 speaker bose sound system. I don't need more than 2 seats at the moment and the boot is big enough for weekend shopping from the farmers market!

In under a week of passing my drive test, I had my finances sorted out, jumped some hoops to get a loan (due to no previous borrowing history), negotiated a cool 10% off the recommended retail price to end up in a brand new aluminium silver coloured Mazda MX5 Special Edition ( MX5 Special Edition ). There are only 200 speciial editions made with some nice bilstein shocks, cool alloys and grey leather insides. I chose one of the only ones available at a dealer next door and it was driven only 26kms, out of which 6kms were driven by me during the test drive.

The car is loads of fun, still running in, but I am enjoying every bit of it. Here are some pics I took on the morning after delivery