Mercedes Benz Driving Experience 2008 - Part 3

After finishing the slalom course session, we moved on to the other part of the course where we learnt sudden lane change. This was to simulate an emergency in order to avoid a car that cuts into your lane without spinning off the road. We were told to drive through the cones and brake at the first set of cones to swerve right and left hard without braking, to avoid collision with the cones. If we are able to swerve violently, it would activate the PRE-SAFE system, where it tightens the seatbelts, turns off the air-conditioning and winds down the window by an inch, to prepare the driver and passenger in the case of a collision. The window is wind down, so that the airbag can be deployed and gas is escaped through the window gap. Most of us did it without any hassle, but some just plough through the cones.

We moved on to the next part of the track, where we learnt to avoid hitting a barrier in front and braking at 70 km/h and swerve right to avoid the barrier. Chow showed us how we could do it in a B170. We then finished the first half of the event for the day and headed on for lunch back at the paddock. Lunch was again remarkably nice, where Hilton Hotel were the caterers for the buffet lunch we were having.

After lunch and a short rest, we find ourselves back at the pits again and hopping into the cars again. Nathan was there again in the same place we had our first exercise. This time, he wants us to turn off the ESP system in our car and experience over steering and correcting our exit angle while in the wet. Nathan told us that the B170 would not experience over steering, as it is a front-wheel drive (FF) car, so we were told to get into the E-class sedan. Each of us had a go, while some eager seniors were so trigger happy that they spun 360 degrees a couple of times. I had a few times on and did not spin out after a few tries. I was happy to experience to know what over steering was like, since I’ve never spun like that before!