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John Matras
Auto Review ExaminerFor almost thirty years, award-winning author John Matras has written about cars. He’s been in all the major car magazines, on the web and written five books, and he’s even been translated into Estonian. His website is carbuzzard.com.
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Land Rover Experience: Learn how to to drive off-road
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by John Matras, Auto Review Examiner
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The Land Rover folks call it an “experience” and we won’t argue with them one bit.Nor would anyone, even in a Land Rover LR3, faced with an uphill run on snotty rain-dampened North Carolina clay with a slight hook to the right about halfway up with a tilted hook to the left followed by a ninety-degree turn to right into a deeply rutted uphill trail, just as slick, if not more so, from a steady light rain all morning.
The idea, of course, is to get to the top of the hill, and do it without damaging the Land Rover by sliding into one of the trees. Getting stuck means a difficult backing down the hill. Failure, as is said, is not an option.
It’s sort of a final exam. I’ve spent the morning and part of the afternoon at the Land Rover Experience off-road driving school on the 8,000 acre grounds of the Biltmore Estate at Asheville, North Carolina, under the tutelage of Land Rover instructor Greg Nikolas.
The Land Rover Experience Driving School at the Biltmore is one of four schools run by Land Rover in North America. The others are located at the Le Château Montebello, near Montreal, Quebec; Equinox, in Manchester Village, Vermont; and now at Carmel, California’s, Quail Lodge. Each location has luxury accommodations in addition to the Land Rover school. The Biltmore Estate was built by George Vanderbilt (of the famous Vanderbilt family), who treated his guests to various outdoors activities as only a Vanderbilt could, and it is now a luxury hotel run by his great-great-grandson who treats guests in an equally magnificent manner—and charges similarly.
Instruction is offered on a one-on-one basis for a full-day six-hour adventure, at $850 per vehicle with up to three drivers. Other packages, from one hour and one driver ($225) or to fully custom corporate events, plus Kids Adventure (minature Land Rover electric vehicles) programs and other programs are available. Other services are offered too. Lessons are also given year-round at all four locations, even in the snow and ice of Quebec and Vermont.
We took the full-day one-on-one lesson on a wet North Carolina October day, using the Land Rover LR3, learning not only how to use the LR3’s advanced off-roading features but also off-road basics that can be applied to any off-road vehicle.
Many off-roading techniques are counterintuitive, starting even with mirror positioning. Don’t fold the mirrors in, Greg says. If an object is that close, there are bigger problems than what might happen to the mirrors. Point the mirrors down and in, he says, for as good a view of the rear tires as possible. It’s often the best way to know what’s happening where the rubber meets terra firma (or in many cases, not so firma).
The Land Rover LR3 has sophisticated electronic controls that can set the differentials, throttle response and ride-height (the LR3 has air-suspension that can be further inflated for extra clearance) and other bits and controls. A dial on the center console also can set the on-board computer to include “normal,” with the all-wheel drive set for day-to-day dry and wet-pavement driving, plus the ordinary gravel road. Other settings include grass and snow, mud and ruts, sand, and rock crawling. Considering the terrain, we use the ruts and mud for our serious off-roading.
While we can’t give a full lesson here—especially since so much of learning to drive off-road is a hands on art as much as science, even with all the electronics, and we’re certainly not qualified after six hours of instruction, even with our prodigious innate talent and skills acquired in other driving—we can tell you that much goes against the expected. Even with the electronics, the driver is on board for more than just steering, Greg points out.
For example, although the LR3 (and other Land Rover vehicles) have hill descent control, which like anti-lock braking keeps an individual wheel from skidding, Greg advises using low range and first gear for engine braking to control downhill speed. Why? So acceleration is always available if needed, which surprisingly is sometimes needed even when going downhill. One always starts a downhill as slowly as reasonable so that acceleration is possible without excess speed. Why acceleration? Sometimes there’s not enough traction for the descent control to provide any braking, and to keep from sliding out of control, a bit of tire roll—via acceleration—is needed for steering. See? Counterintuitive.
On the other hand, one should shift into drive for uphills to let the transmission seek the best gear for climbing. Staying in low would send too much torque to the wheels, increasing the chance of sending the wheels in a traction-breaking spin.We also covered deep water crossing technique and other off-road driving skills.
Perhaps the best part of it, however, is that it allow even putatively grown-up individuals to play in the mud-or sand, snow or rocks—like they did when they were kids, but experience it—Land Rover Experience it—in a whole new way.
And, oh, we passed the test.
Illusatrations, top to bottom: Range Rover Sport; Range Rover. These are not the vehicle or the day or weather that we got our Land Rover Experience. We drove a Land Rover LR3.
Click for more information on the Land Rover Experience,
Topics: Land Rover , Driving School
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