I’m hooked ! LDA

[Stuart Monument]

Visited the Lotus Driving Academy today for a basic scare yourself sensible session . Wow! What a great afternoon for £120. 

Im hooked. About to sign up for a silver package and work my way up. Great friendly bunch and they want you to push the car. No pressure just good tuition and fun. It was wet but the grip was phenomenal from the Elise 220 Sport. If you sitting on the fence about this experience , then just book it. Good excuse to take your car back to it’s birth place. 

 

Guy Munday was a wealth of information and provided the group with a great tour of the factory. 

Look forwarded to doing it all again soon. 

 

 

[Bibs]

Glad you had fun mate

[electro_boy]

Good to hear some very positive feedback.   I'm booked in this Friday for the bronze Level training day.  

I've never done a track day before so looking forward to driving a car fast for the first time.  Also looking forward to learning LOTs of things about how to correctly drive a car round a track.  Just hope I'm not the slowest person that day! 

[Stuart Monument]

You will have a fantastic time! Enjoy 

[Clive59]

My kids bought me a gift voucher for the same. I am really looking forward to it. Looks like it will be a long wait till August!!

[LF1]

23 hours ago, Buddsy said:

I done a bit of some of the levels and its what turned me on to the Elise. I drove a 1.6 which Id always overlooked as not being very powerful with a low(ish) top speed. Well I soon learnt that little car is much more capable then I am as a driver. They are awesome. 

Yup - my only experience of a 1.6 too. Fantastic little car, shame it was not more popular - that's the problem looking at numbers rather than pleasure. 

[Stuart Monument]

Sound very wimpish this but I’m really pleased to do it in a 220 sport. I felt that I could actually get a feel for the balance while (very occasionally) get on the edge of balance / grip. In a Exige or Evora I doubt I would have got anywhere near that edge as I would have ran out of talent at those speeds. 

[Guy Munday]

Hey Stuart!

I'm glad you enjoyed the day - sorry about the weather.

I shall be taking care of the factory tour and the Classic Team Lotus tour on Friday, Jairaj, so I hope to give you an enjoyable experience away from the track.

We aim to make the LDA the best driving experience possible and I genuinely think we do!

Guy

 

[electro_boy]

Thank you Guy looking forward to meeting you and the driving experience.

Do you know what time the whole training and experience day finishes?

[Mister_Tad]

I'm booked on the 3-day Lotus license in June - really looking forward to it though did hesitate before booking as I couldn't find all that many testimonials - great to hear you had a good time.

[snowrx]

Anything you wished you had done to prep for the LDA?  I'm  booked for May in the 220

[Stuart Monument]

@snowrx no prep needed ! Looking at the layout of the track could be helpful, but they put some cone chicanes out, so the layout was ever so slightly different. Probably best going without to much planning so you have a complete open mind. The instructors won’t need to teach you out of any bad habits that way. 

[Bibs]

9 hours ago, Mister_Tad said:

I couldn't find all that many testimonials

Here's mine

https://www.thelotusforums.com/latest-news/lotus-cars-news/review-lotus-licence-level-2-with-the-lotus-driving-academy/

[electro_boy]

Hi All, I'm back from my Bronze level training day and I had such a great time and highly recommend it!

The hospitality was great, a big thank you to Guy and the whole team for making us feel very welcome, keeping us fed and watered all day.  I really enjoyed the factory tour and seeing the assembly line and the cars in different states throughout the build process.  The Team Classic Lotus tour was fantastic too, the smell of the workshop as you walk in was amazing, its a proper old school engineering place with lathes and metal working machines.  Was amazing getting so close to the classic F1 cars and seeing inside the gubbins etc.   Guy was very knowledgeable too and it was really interesting learning about the development of Lotus and F1 cars thought the ages.

The track driving was SOOOOOO much fun.   I'd never been on a track or driven a car in anger before so the first session was a massive eye opener for me.  The sheer grip of the Elise is amazing, the track was quite wet from the previous evening's rain but that amazing little car just stuck to the road.  Totally agree with the comments above that the Elise is definitely more than enough car to have a LOT of fun with.  The instructors were really good, they are taking notes as you drive and correcting any mistakes you make or encouraging you get on the brakes later or accelerate faster (within limits of the car and driver of course) and you get a briefing before you start your session and quick debrief afterwards and then a proper debrief at the end of the day.  You get the same instructor through out the day so you build up a bit of a rapport with them and the notes they take during each session means you get a real personalised experience.  The demo laps at the end were amazing, scared the crap out of me, the line through the chicane was crazy and their ability to play around with the weight transfer of the car using the brake and throttle to go from understeer to oversteer was amazing! 

To summarise, the whole the day was very good, I learnt a lot and enjoyed my self throughly.  I really recommend singing up for the scare your self sensible experience or if you want to learn how to drive a car round a track then sign up for the driving academy courses.  Thank you to all at Lotus for a really amazing day! 

[Ali tuck]

On 12/04/2018 at 15:42, Mister_Tad said:

I'm booked on the 3-day Lotus license in June - really looking forward to it though did hesitate before booking as I couldn't find all that many testimonials - great to hear you had a good time.

Snap.....I’m doing the June one.see you there!

[Mister_Tad]

On 16/04/2018 at 17:39, Ali tuck said:

Snap.....I’m doing the June one.see you there!

Well that didn't entirely go to plan, did it...

 

Just back from the first half of the three day lotus license, on account of a double-strike of instructors being taken ill. Things were called to a halt when I was a few laps in to the first of my afternoon track sessions.

More than a bit disappointing, but I'm booked back on the Gold day in November (being the only availability left this year). I had thought that it may have been better to have mixed weather over the course of the three days as opposed to the perfect weekend we had, so seems I'll be getting my wish. I just hope I don't forget everything between now and then.

As yet unsure what's happening about the half-missing Silver day.

[Ali tuck]

Very disappointing and a bit weird really......Ho hum,might try for the November one,think they've got a few spaces left for that one

[Mister_Tad]

I think there's three more still - at least we have that option. Imagine the other guys having come from Austria, Swizerland, Sweden, Australia... gutted.

[silverfrost]

Anyone have link for seeing slots available for this ?  

[Bibs]

http://www.lotusdrivingacademy.com/courses-dates-prices/

[Ali tuck]

1 hour ago, Mister_Tad said:

I think there's three more still - at least we have that option. Imagine the other guys having come from Austria, Swizerland, Sweden, Australia... gutted.

That's what I thought......I think we were the only 2 English guys on the final day!

[LDA_Hethel]

Hi both,

We can only apologise publicly, it's never happened to us before, in the 20 odd years that the LDA has been going we've only abandoned, in my memory, twice, both for weather reasons. Our rationale was if we can't deliver to the high standard we've always aspired to then we would rather get you guys back on another day.

Hopefully the fact you want to come back is a sign that we have done something well!

We will do our best to open up some more Licence weekends, that's the tough bit as we are running on most already to meet demand!

See you soon!

[Shortfork]

going there in few weeks for the bronze 

[Mister_Tad]

9 hours ago, LDA_Hethel said:

Hi both,

We can only apologise publicly, it's never happened to us before, in the 20 odd years that the LDA has been going we've only abandoned, in my memory, twice, both for weather reasons. Our rationale was if we can't deliver to the high standard we've always aspired to then we would rather get you guys back on another day.

Hopefully the fact you want to come back is a sign that we have done something well!

We will do our best to open up some more Licence weekends, that's the tough bit as we are running on most already to meet demand!

See you soon!

 

No way to predict or control these things unfortunately! The fact that what we did get through was of such a high quality made it all the more disappointing to be cut short.

Hope the instructors (and that poor, black Elise, for that matter!) are feeling better.

[Shortfork]

I have heard nothing from Hethel why have they cancelled i give them a ring