In 1992, while working as a driving instructor at the Brands Hatch motor racing circuit, Adrian was priviledged to work with blind adults participating in a driving experience day organised by the Royal National Institute for the Blind (RNIB). Adrian sat in the passenger seat of a dual-controlled Ford Escort XR3i while the participants sat, in turn, behind the controls - the dual controls were not used! Operating the steering wheel with his right hand, while they operated all the other controls entirely by themselves under his direction, Adrian allowed the drivers to reach speeds of almost 90mph on the grand prix circuit. It was a thrilling and satisfying experience for the drivers, not all of whom had driven before losing their sight. And Adrian enjoyed it too. ____________________
Adrian has been truly scared only once while giving practical driving instruction - although he has experienced many anxious moments. A few years ago, he delivered a month-long high performance driving programme to a group of South Korean vehicle design engineers, on behalf of the High Performance Course Limited. Some of the engineers spoke limited English, and so various hand signals were devised to help them understand instructions. Driving back to base one afternoon, following a session on an army test track near Chobham, in Surrey, one of the engineers got a bit carried away on a country road. He misunderstood an instruction - or simply chose to ignore it! - and came within a centimeter of slamming Adrian sideways into a telegraph pole after running wide, putting the nearside wheels onto a grass verge, and momentarily losing grip. Missing the pole was truly a matter of luck, not skill, and was a scary experience, which gave Adrian an opportunity to ponder the frailty and uncertainty of life and allowed the driver to learn a few new English words. ____________________
Adrian passed his driving test three weeks after his 17th birthday. Shortly afterwards, he began a course at Motor Racing Stables, which was the original, and undoubtedly the best ever, Brands Hatch racing drivers' school. It was 1968, and the school used the then-new single-seater Formula Ford racing cars, first introduced in 1967. It was an anxious experience in the beginning, for a green 17 year-old, learning to control the power transmitted to the rear wheels so as to avoid spinning on the entry and exit of every corner, and sometimes a dose of courage was necessary to move from the comfort zone to the learning zone. A complication was that all pupils had to sign an undertaking to pay the first £100 of any damage they caused to the cars, and agree to drive directly back to the pits after any kind of spin and forfeit all remaining prepaid laps as a penalty. And £100, in 1968, was the equivalent of more than £1200 in 2007, and was a higher percentage of income than the equivalent amount is now, so it was enough to be a serious brake on youthful exuberance and the blind courage of inexperience.
As cocky teenage confidence grew, faster than justified, Adrian pushed too hard one day and lost control on the entry to 'kidney' bend, now known as 'Surtees'. Once the car stopped its spin, of about 140°, it shot backwards at considerable speed towards the high 'south bank'. Adrian pushed the clutch and brake pedals down as hard as possible, as instructed, took his hands off the steering wheel and waited for the impact, while screaming expletives at the prospect of having to find £100 he didn't have and losing his remaining six laps. Well, the spirits were with him that day because the car finally stopped with the gearbox, which was at the back, coming to rest just a few inches from the grass bank with no damage done and the engine still running. Adrian was definitely in the learning zone that day.
However, Adrian's instructor, the legendary Sid Fox, who was watching from the control tower, had been sufficiently impressed with his performance until the spin to allow him to continue and finish all his prepaid laps - but only after a lecture, of course. The comic thing was that immediately after 'kidney' was 'clearways', as it's still known, and in the late 1960s the Courage Brewery had a prominent advertisement on the bank above 'clearways' which invited one to, 'TAKE COURAGE', and which was always visible to any driver brave or foolish enough to take their eyes from the track at 'clearways'. The unintentionally appropriate advertisement - or was it unintentional? - was always a source of much wit and laughter at Brands.
Adrian Barrett ― Speaker ● Trainer ● Mentor ● Coach
