Motor Trend Online Review
Jeff Bartlett
Ever want to learn more about high-performance driving without the expense of attending a school? Wish you could discover a low-dollar solution to squeeze more performance out of your vehicle? The CD-based solution to both desires may be The Interactive Guide to High Performance Driving (IGHPD), a simple-to-operate software title that instructs novice drivers on how to push their car and themselves safely to the limits.
Drawing on the producer's experience, IGHPD focuses on club-type driving programs as the basis for its lesson plan. The guide covers essential terminology, event preparation, and core track driving fundamentals. Largely a click-and-read format, the CD becomes most compelling in the driving techniques portions, where animations illustrate concepts better than words alone could. Proper hand position, hand signals, cornering, and other dynamic elements are illustrated in cute, two-dimensional animations, allowing the student to break down the concepts step by step, then see the complete actions.
Although a reasonable primer, by lesson's end, we longed for more interactivity and depth. At $25, IGHPD offers the digital equivalent of Cliff's Notes for those preparing to attend a club track event or driving school. For a more comprehensive text book, your curriculum should also include " Sports Car and Competition Driving " by Paul Frere and " Bob Bondurant on High Performance Driving" by Bob Bondurant.
For experienced drivers, an Advanced Edition of IGHPD featuring video is under development for introduction in late 2002.
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Velocity Magazine Review
Mitchell Rossi
There are a lot of performance driving books out there. I know. I have purchased just about all of them. Between their covers are chapters depicting the perfect line through a corner, the proper hand position on the steering wheel, and how to work the gear le3ver as though the shift knob was as delicate as a raw egg. They talk about understeer and oversteer, braking points and acceleration.
But until now, no driving manual has been able to illustrate the fluid dynamics of motor racing. The Interactive Guide To High Performance Driving by Bernard Design is a multimedia CD that takes the classic two-dimensional line drawings and brings them to life on the home computer. Instead of the static drawing showing a car at carious points on the race track, animation allows the viewer to see the correlation between a driver's input and vehicle response.
As this is the first in what Bernard Design hopes to be a series of CD-based guides, it is aimed at the novice racer and thus, the lessons are basic. Rudimentary subjects such as race preparation for car and driver are covered. There is a list of track-side does and don'ts that seem self-evident, but are excellent reminders for the new driver.
There are sections on terminology, flags, and the dynamics of braking. A small advanced section touches on the definitions of understeer, oversteer and four-wheel drift. Thankfully, the background music, somewhat reminiscent of '80s disco, has it's own cut-off switch.
The animated examples, while simplistic, are great at showing the best line through several types of corners, including depictions of the braking and exit points. The clips can be played in a continuous sequence or step-by-step with definitions appearing at important moments through the progression.
The subject, and one that certainly lends itself to this type of presentation, is the technique of heel-toe downshifting. For the beginning racer, this is one of the most difficult skills to master even after spending several sessions with a driving instructor. The Interactive Guide gives the viewer a clear understanding of the procedure by showing not only pedal movement but also corresponding gear selection and tachometer readings.
For the newcomer, or anyone looking to review the basics, The Interactive Guide to High Performance Driving is an entertaining and refreshing way to study the essentials of high speed driving.
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Posted on Pelican Parts 911 BBS
Jack Olsen
I recently bought a CD called "The Interactive Guide to High Performance Driving: Novice Edition." I got it on ebay, or somewhere -- I can't remember now. But reading the thread about "Harold 89 911's" first trip to Willow Springs made me realize that this would be a fairly hepful thing for anyone before their first visit to a track.
If you do a DE that includes a day of classroom instruction, you learn a lot about vehicle dynamics, weight transfer and the theory of how best to navigate turns on a track. It's a lot to digest very quickly, though -- when you're just starting out -- and the new information has to compete with your excitement about the upcoming day of driving (and your naturally-competitive desire to beat everyone else in the room).
This CD is very basic. It covers topics like: definitions of terms like "late apex" and "turn-in point," what stuff you should bring to a DE, flags, hand signals, how to pre-tech your own car, the basics of navigating different types of corners, and the basics of heel-and-toe downshifting. If you've already had any amount of instruction, it's probably too rudimentary for you. But that's also its strength; it covers the questions you might feel like an idiot for asking at a drivers' meeting or in a classroom.
What it does well is to give you the basic information at a speed you're comfortable with (you can repeat sections as often as you'd like, or skip ahead), and with enough lead time before an event so that you have time to digest the stuff a little before you're screaming into Willow's Turn 9 at a buck thirty.
This isn't a plug, really, since I don't know the guys who put the thing together. But watching it made me wish that I'd had something like this before my first track day. Again, it's very basic. I assume they'll be putting out subsequent editions that get deeper into theories and techniques of high-speed driving. But it's a well-spent $25 if you're about to drop $250 on your first track event, and want to have a basic knowledge of the ideas and principles involved before you've got an instructor trying to explain things from your passenger seat as you try not to put your car into a wall. It's more expensive than some of the (better) books on the same subject, but it's able to illustrate things like driving lines, oversteer, heel-and-toe technique and hand signals much better than a book with its animation and video clips.
It might be something Pelican wants to stock, in fact. The company's web site is at: http://www.hpdguide.com.
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