Sixty Second Interview - Colin Hoad

The Right Track will regularly talk to opinion formers across the industry. For this issue, we talk to Colin Hoad, Chief Instructor for CAT Driver Training.

What is your role at CAT?

I set CAT Driver Training up six years ago and my role is chief instructor. I started my working life on an engineering apprenticeship at Rolls Royce and following that, my passion for cars and racing led me to working at a Porsche then Ferrari specialist where I got a real understanding of high performance vehicles.

Just before establishing CAT I was working at Nissan Technical Centre Europe, training engineers to better understand how their driving techniques affect vehicle performance.
What does your role entail?

As Chief Instructor I work to help drivers improve their skills and accelerate their learning. This involves everything from track and race day training to advanced skills driving and even corporate entertainment and driving experiences. CAT works with a whole range of people and organisations including budding racing drivers, business fleets and engineers.

I do a lot of work for the motor industry in terms of teaching engineers to understand how vehicles perform in response to driving techniques. This enables engineers to learn how to differentiate between their driving style and vehicle behaviour and to learn to drive ‘robotically’ so all vehicles are being assessed from the same benchmark. My engineering background really helps this.
What is the best thing about the job?

The best thing about my job, by far, is the variety of clients and their different needs. Everyone has different levels of experience so there’s always a new objective or challenge and I love meeting and interacting with different types of people.
What does a typical day involve?

Each day I’ll be out teaching, either on the public roads or at Millbrook, depending on the needs of the individual. No two days are ever quite the same - with teaching you often have to adapt your method to the student to make sure they take as much away from the session as possible.
What’s been the most memorable moment of your career so far?

When working at Nissan as part of the vehicle evaluation team I was asked to head up a group of engineers at the press launch of the 350Z in Germany. As part of the role I was helping guests test drive the vehicle around the Lausitz Ring test track in Germany. For Nissan it was a pivotal vehicle launch and I was proud to play such a key role. It was a role I really enjoyed and it was the first time I got the chance to come into my own as an instructor. I worked with DTM Championship winner Patrick Huisman and he was very complimentary about my driving which was the final push I needed to set up on my own.
What is the biggest challenge facing your sector at the moment?

The biggest challenge is helping people understand the importance of training enough to make the commitment to pay for it. We find a large number of people want to engage in training, but we have to help them understand that it will be a worthwhile investment.
Who within the automotive industry do you admire the most and why?

That would be Jackie Stewart. I admire his professionalism and his sheer enthusiasm for the automotive industry. I read his autobiography and I was hooked. He’s a very inspiring man who is still working hard for the industry into his seventies.
If you could do any other job in the world what would it be and why?

Well, it may sound clichéd but I’m doing my dream job. It’s really not hard getting up in the mornings as I love what I do and I’m my own boss. If it were all to end tomorrow then I’d like to run a fishing tackle shop, strange as that may sound! I love fishing and don’t get enough time to do as much of it as I’d like, so advising others on the sport would be great.
Fast forwarding ten years, can you give one prediction for the future of the automotive industry?

Looking into the distant future we may not have drivers in the same sense that we do today, as artificial intelligence becomes more advanced. However, I think there will always be the desire for people to race cars on the track where safety can be managed. Also, we are moving towards alternative sources of power, such as hybrid and electric vehicles, so I may be training drivers on how best to drive those in years to come.
What does Millbrook do for you?

Millbrook is the main base I use for driver training, as it has everything I need to run programmes successfully in one location. If I could design, from scratch, a facility for driver training I don’t think it would be any different, so that says a lot about how I value it. I book Millbrook for over 700 hours a year, mainly using the mile straight, high-speed circuit, handling circuit, alpine loops and steering pad. It really is a hidden gem, when I take people there – particularly local residents – they are astounded it’s so huge and they didn’t know even know it was there.

For information on CAT Driver Training please call 01234 757633 or email info@catdrivertraining.co.uk