IAM Track Day Preview

A short clip of the track and its lay out.



Another Pass

Congratulations to Rachel Mincher, our latest associate to pass her Advanced Test - well done.

IAM Track Day - Middlesbrough, 3rd September 1020

OK, folks great news!  The group has raised enough money to allow 10 Hartlepool Group members to take part in this event.
The ususal price is £95 but the group is going to heavily subsidise this so the cost will be a jaw dropping £15 per member!!!
IAM Skills Days are planned to attract drivers who wish to improve their road skills. The days are not intended to be free for all track days.
The venue has been carefully chosen, not because it is a race circuit, but because it offers us a very controlled environment away from the 
usual two-way traffic, junctions, pedestrians and street furniture. There will be no racing, pace making or timing of any kind and only road legal 
cars will be allowed. Consequently, if you are looking to improve your road skills you will benefit from this type of training. If you are simply 
looking to put your car through its paces we recommend you try one of the many commercially available ‘track day’ packages available. 
The skills day may, however, give you a gentle introduction to circuit driving that may whet your appetite to try a serious track day.

Full details can be found HERE, but PLEASE DO NOT PAY THE IAM VIA THE WEBSITE - PAY THE GROUP TREASURER DIRECTLY -  
£15 cash or cheques payable to "Hartlepool Advanced Motorists"

This is a first come, first served basis and the first place has already been taken!!

DURING THE EVENT WE SHALL BE OFFERING THE USE OF OUR RECENTLY PURCHASED "VBOX's" TO ENABLE YOU TO RECORD YOUR LAPS AND 
PROGRESS AROUND THE TRACK.  THE COST FOR THE VBOX SHALL BE £20 PER SESSION; All the information is stored onto a SD card which you will
be able to take away with you and look at whenever you want or to show to friends, upload to the internet etc.

Another Pass

Congratulations to James Black who passed his Advanced Driving exam recently - well done James.  James will now take his place on our Committee
and hopefully we can convince him to start his Observer training.

WOW - been a long time :)

My apologies for not updating here for some time - but you know how it is; not enough hours in the day!

Anyway.... whats been going on?

First of all a massive "Congratulations" to Ged O'Hare who has passed the IAMs Special Assessment. So what is this Special thingy????

"'Special Assessment' is designed to be the ultimate advanced driving/riding challenge for civilian drivers and riders. 
It offers IAM members an opportunity to demonstrate their driving or riding skills "

Full details of the Special Assessment can be found here. Again, well done Ged.


We have received a large donation from Tees valley Community Foundtion to aid us with this years project.... we have invested in not 1, but 3 Vbox Lite. 
These units will give unparalled feedback to the associate member and also the observer.  One of the biggest parts of Advanced Driving is observation skills
and what you do with what you see - Observers cannot look or see what the driver is looking at all the time, so these units will record both the view out of
teh front of the car and ALSO the view inside the car.  If you look fourther down you can see an example of these units during the (then) Secretary's drive
around Mallory Park.  We hope to use these units at forthcoming track days and is acceptable to those involved let them be hired out by other IAM members
at the track days.  

Maybe we can do some "How to's" and "How not to's" - we will se how we move on with this - but imagine the difference in recording an associate's first run,
and then comparing that to their pre-test run :)

We have also received additional funding from Hartlepool Round Table (who run Hartlepool Beer Festival) enabling us to now organise more events. 
With this extra money we are looking at organising another Skid Control Course, or may even look at paying for some of our members to attend
the next IAM Track Day at Teesside Autodrome in September.

Winter Driving

The group was approached by the Hartlepool Mail asking for information so they could write an article about driving in 
winter conditions, with the local area being covered in snow and ice it is a timely reminder of what you should be doing! 
It's great that the local press looks to seek our opinion on such matters!  To read the article click HERE for the link 
to the Mail's website.

Xmas meeting - Scaletrix Night

After the success of last year's December Group meeting we held a 'fun' night with a free buffet and scaletrix competition 
on the night.  With members from Sunderland Group providing the entertainment in the form of the scaletrix track and 
cars it was a change from the usual Speakers we have during our Group nights.  The winner of the Scaletrix driving challenge
was Ian Lawther from the Sunderland group - below is a picture of our Group Chairman Derrick Howe presenting him with
 his trophy: Some say the trophy contained bubble bath, all we know it was the Stig! A few other photos of the night are here as well.






























































































































New Committee Members

At the core of a successful group must be a successful committee. We have this year managed to press-gang, 
oops recruit, 3 new young members to the committee. James Black, Rachel Mincher & Phil Carter are all newly
appointed to the committee and hopefully one of them will take on the role of our Young Driver liaison - subtle hint guys!

Here is a picture of the award:






























IAM Chief Examiner comes to Hartlepool

On Wednesday 13th January 2010 Hartlepool IAM is proud to announce that the IAM's Chief Examiner is coming along 
to give the group a presentation.  Invites have been sent to all surrounding Advanced Driving and Riding groups so 
their members can also attend. Please see the Calander section for group meeting details.

Job sharing - well not quite, but close

Hartlepool & Sunderland Advanced Motorists have entered a reciprocal agreement where both groups are benefiting 
from joint training of Associate members. Hartlepool has a bit of a waiting list for new members to start their training 
and Sunderland did not have enough to keep all their instructors busy, so through Ged from our group and Helen 
from Sunderland 2 of our associate members have now started their observed runs with Observers from Sunderland! 
A great example of group co-operation

In the local news again!

Hartlepool Advanced Motorists once again were in the Hartlepool Mail detailing their exploits after the Teesside Skills Day.

Teesside Driver Skills Day

In recognition of the groups work with under 26 year old driver we have been presented with 5 free spaces at the
next Driver Skills day to be held in Middlesbrough.   The 5 free spaces have been allocated to 5 young drivers in 
the group who help support us by attending group meetings etc.   To be held on June 26th we hope to have a 
story to 2 to post here afterwards.

Congratulations

To Tim Ellingford and Rebecca Wheatley who have recently passed their Advanced Driving Test.   
Rebecca passed her test shortly before her 18th birthday and is the Group's youngest ever Advanced 
Driver since we formed in 1981! Well done.

The National Groups Committee   have proposed to the IAM Council at the meeting on the 7th November that

Motorcycles be increased to £109 for applications from Friday 1st February 2008.

APPLY NOW AND STILL GET THE EXISTING RATES