Jurgen, a jolly German, is standing before us on a vast concreted section of a field just outside Stuttgart. It is a scorching summer day. Sheep are bleating away to one side and a breeze ruffles a crop of corn to the other. High above, a glider soars in the thermals. And we are about to be shown “the Beast”.
“The Beast”, which is driven over by an assistant, is a shiny black Mercedes SL with enormous Formula Three slip tyres and a top speed of well over 200km/h. Jurgen smiles as we gasp and check it out. Then he says: “I want you to reach your limits. I want you to push this car as hard as you can. You all have different limits – it’s up to you to find them. It will be fun!”
He’s not wrong – although it’s hard, at first, to understand how pushing the Beast to its limits fits in to a Mercedes-Benz Intensive Driving Safety Training course. It feels more like we’re taking part in a lesson on “how to be a joyrider”.
But never mind about that. Soon I’m behind the Beast’s wheel. Its giant tyres are hot and sticky – I’d felt them before getting in – perfect for throwing the car around a tight course of cones. And, with a roar of the engine, I’m off.
The Beast sounds beautiful and soon I’m sliding round corners, taking in the tips on handling that we were taught earlier in the day. These included braking before corners and letting the car’s momentum carry it through the corner, before accelerating away. In cases of understeer or oversteer, we have also practised how to react, which comes in very handy with the Beast, as it does not have ABS (anti-lock braking system) and is, frankly, tricky to control.
This has been arranged deliberately by Hans Schaal, a Mercedes engineer who is one of a team which has put together the safety training courses. The point of the course is to understand the physics behind driving to allow better control of vehicles. Yesterday afternoon, we had been given a lecture on how cars work, looking at the centre of gravity, centrifugal and centripetal forces, and “co-efficients of friction”.
Schaal hopes that by looking at the theory of driving we will understand the practice better – and become safer drivers. A little extra speed can make a huge difference when taking corners or making manouevres, he stresses. During the lecture, Schaal also points out the dangers of aquaplaning, when water under tyres effectively means that they do not touch the road and so all control is taken away. Similar problems occur when you either under or over-inflate tyres, we learn.
Apparently, 44 per cent of all road accidents involve just one vehicle – when a driver either takes a bend too quickly or is unaware of the slipperiness of the road. This is why, Schaal says, almost everyone can benefit from learning more about the dynamics of driving. One of the most common faults is not braking hard enough. “People don’t want their laptop to slip off the seat,” he says. “But is it worth it if you crash?” About 80 per cent of people brake incorrectly, according to Mercedes statistics.
Mercedes has also come up with figures showing that when a car is travelling at 100km/h it usually takes 2.8 seconds to come to a halt – about 40 metres. In wet conditions, this increases to 5.6 seconds and 70 metres, while on an icy road surface, it would take 14 seconds and 200 metres. The bottom line being, take into consideration the road conditions. This talk is given in a room at the Guggenheim-esque Mercedes-Benz Museum in Stuttgart where we – I am on a Hertz corporate weekend – learn about the late 19th-century origins of the company and are taken through the decades of development, seeing some wonderful gleaming old cars. Afterwards, we are taken to our digs: the Mo.Hotel, which is owned by DaimlerChrysler, the parent company of Mercedes-Benz. There are pictures of cars in the rooms and the service, as though it is trying to match the performance of the vehicles it displays, is super-efficient.
Back to the track. The toughest leg of our nine-part safety course is – for me at least – the “skid test”. In this, you drive a high-powered Mercedes at 70km/h down a narrow alley of cones sprinkled with water, and slam on the brakes when a red light flashes on the dashboard. You then come to a screeching halt, turning either left or right depending on which side a safety curtain is removed. There are cones on each side and points are taken off if you hit any; during the course of the day you accumulate scores during each test.
It is extremely demanding. A good reaction time between seeing the light and slamming the brake is around 0.3 of a second, or preferably a bit less. I manage this but just can’t get the hang of moving to the right side at the end – and controlling the car.
Another daunting challenge is the “speed manouevre” test. This involves driving along another corridor of cones at speeds of between 100-130km/h and then swerving to the left past a cushioned fluorescent obstruction in your path. To make things more difficult, this swerve must also take place between narrow cones.
To start with this appears impossible. But then Jurgen teaches us the secret. We must speed up during the “swerve” to maintain control. This goes against all your instincts, but we soon find it works. On my best run I hit the speed camera line at 126km/h and come out the other end at 128.6 with not a single cone out of place. I am, quite simply, amazed.
During the day, our fitness levels and heart rate are checked by Dr Hubert Berchthold. A fit person with a low pulse rate is likely to be a calmer, and therefore safer, driver – my average heart rate during the day is considered “excellent” (78 beats per minute), but I could work on my back strength, Dr Berchthold says.
The best part of the course, the track speed test, comes last. We are all given one lap of a tricky course with ice patches and sections that go up to 130km/h. I come 13th out of 30, knocking over just one cone, proving (in theory) that I’ve become a safer driver. The only thing is: why do I suddenly now want to go out and buy a Beast? And will I be safe then?
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