Bridgestone Potenza Driving Lesson in Perak, Malaysia!

Posted by Harvinder

December 28, 2008

The Bridgestone Potenza Driving Lesson is part of a huge initiative by the Japanese tyre manufacturer to help raise awareness of safe driving on the road. In this 2 days 1 night event, end users are given the chance to learn from experienced trainers including Malaysia’s top drifter Tengku Djan Ley, based on syllabus set by former F1 driver Stefano Modena. We were recently invited by Bridgestone Malaysia to join about 40 other participants in the second Potenza Driving Lesson at a the Sagor Race Track in the state of Perak, Malaysia.

Continue reading to learn more about the Bridgestone Potenza Driving Lesson.

After a long drive up north, the first day started off with driver briefing in which the trainers explained to us about basic driving techniques such as seating positions and 3 – 9 hand position on the steering wheel. Next was the initiation of day one’s training session which was divided into four sessions including braking with ABS, braking & steer without ABS, slalom drive through and racing lines.

In the braking session with ABS, each of us had to perform hard braking to a stand still and brake & steer where we had to avoid an obstacle. This session was performed with ABS-equipped Honda Accords. With ABS, brake pads are pressed and released many times in a second, and you can steer your car while braking. However, you can’t steer your car if the brakes are fully, and always applied, meaning without ABS.

Next was a more interesting session, where we had to perform brake & steer, this time without ABS. We had a Proton Waja R3 edition at our disposal this time. This is where we saw participants having difficulties performing the training as they had to brake at a corner at speeds up to 70 km/h, and release the brake pedal right away in order to steer the car away from an obstacle and brake again to a complete stop.

I was a little worried about my performance as I saw many of us smoking the tyres and hitting the obstacle, instead of steering away! It wasn’t easy since there was no ABS to help us out. If you brake hard while you steer in a car that has no ABS, you will end up locking your wheels, and end up going dead straight.

The third session was the slalom event where we had to maneuver a Honda Accord through a number of cones which were placed adjacent to each other, which is when the correct steering technique such as 3 – 9 hand placement comes into play. Wrong hand placement can cause unwanted shuffling, meaning you wouldn’t know where the car is actually pointing in relation to steering position at a given time.

I was pretty confident with this since I had done it before, but the instructor knew that so I had to up my game and drive through the cones at higher speeds, talking about pressure! This is where you see can the car’s handling dynamics being put to the test.

As the sun was about to set, we performed the fourth and final session; Racing Lines! Did I mention that it was my favorite? Although the Sagor Race Track is no where as huge as or as technical as the more familiar Sepang F1 Track, but it is enough to get your adrenaline flowing! In this session, the instructors took us through a series of S-bends and trained us on how to take the racing lines correctly with a Proton Gen2 R3.

This is where we applied what ever we learned through out the entire day. If you get the lines wrong at one corner, expect the same for the subsequent corners. The Gen2 R3′s handling wasn’t bad at all actually, but engine power was not impressive. However the Gen2 R3 definitely has a potential in being a good beginners car for track use. In fact the R3 division can deliver selected Proton cars to potential customers with pre-selected upgrades chosen by customers. Such upgrades include exhaust, suspension, engine power output and so on.

The next day, there was a full track time attack run for each of us. We were given a Honda Accord to perform one practice lap, and a flying lap next. Prior to the time attack, none of us had any experience with the full track, so we were on our own this time! Anxiously waiting, my turn arrived.

I was determined to at least finish in the top three. My practice was good, then came the hot lap. The same anxiousness cost me time as I made a terrible mistake at the very start, whereby I did not realize that the green flag which indicated my start was being waived.

After losing about a second, I tried my best to regain lost time but I only managed 1.09.500, which put me down in fifth. Anyway, it was great fun, and most importantly, we learned things which can help save lives on the road.