The Garage Blog announces our first Winter Driving Academy for teens

Here at The Garage Blog, it sorta goes without saying that we all love driving. All of us on the team have been driving for years and most of us have honed our skills at a driving school or 5 over the years. The confidence that comes from knowing how to control a vehicle in adverse conditions makes driving that much more enjoyable. More importantly, those skills could save your life and maybe even those of your loved ones.

Just like many of our readers, I have a teenage driver in the family. Given that the forecasters are calling for the worst Winter in years, it makes sense that we should host our first Winter Driving Academy for younger drivers. While it may be short notice for some, the WDA is happening on December 21, which makes good use of the Christmas break for students. The school will be held on the skid pad at the historic Mosport facility.

Being an educated, confident driver is one thing, but it certainly doesn’t make me a driving instructor so we’ve enlisted the help of long time driving instructor John Mahler. John is a tire expert who has also been a performance driving instructor since 1987 and has taught advanced driving techniques at race tracks all over the world.

Mahler and his team of instructors have put together a full day of activities to teach drivers the skills needed to stay safe on the road. Don’t be surprised if you have a bit of fun along the way!

The course will include:

Classroom session, seating, hand position, vehicle dynamics, vision, steering hand position, brake application

· In vehicle, seating, hand position, foot position, vision, hand-eye-foot-coordination.

· Exercise 1: braking normally, emergency braking in straight line, emergency braking with moving around an obstacle

· Exercise 2: Recovery from putting two wheels off the road

· Exercise 3: Skidpad, oversteer and understeer, how to recover from each

· Exercise 4: Wide slalom, weight transfer and how to achieve it to help car get around obstacles

· Exercise 5: Collision avoidance exercise, to teach eyes up vision

· Exercise 6: Large driving exercise combining all of the above elements

· Exercise 7: skidpad one more time, to leave with skid control at the top of the mind.

Participants drive their own vehicle, ensuring that the skills they learn translate directly to their real world driving experience.

The cost of the course is $299 plus hst and includes instruction, light breakfast, hot lunch, photo cd and some cool swag!

For parents who are planning to come up and watch, breakfast and lunch will be available for $20. Please let us know beforehand so we are sure we have enough to feed you!

To register, contact me directly at thegarageguy@rogers.com or by cell at 905.706.1257