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Future Tech: Race Trainer

Perhaps the most interesting of the new technologies shown to me on my day at Volkswagen’s test facility was Race Trainer. The technology allows for the car not only to drive a hot lap of a given track, but also to teach the driver how to lap the track faster.

By sharing the controls with the driver and using a heads up display, the car effectively becomes “easy mode” in Forza Motorsport.

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The HUD puts arrows over the track to show the best line that turn red when you reach the braking zone. Then, depending on your setting, the Race Trainer equipped Golf R will brake for you or turn the wheel for you as need be.

The steering control, especially, is odd. But it’s not so strong that you can’t overpower it if you really don’t want to be on the racing line.

At this point, I’m sure the age old debate of whether or not this a teaching tool or a crutch that keeps you from actually learning to drive properly will come up, and to be honest with you, I’m not totally sure where I land.

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On the one hand, it does mean you’re driving without any consequences, so to a degree you’re shielded from the knowledge of what you’re doing wrong. On the other hand, there are no consequences, so I didn’t ruin the very unique, computer-filled Golf R that I was driving when I decided that a braking zone would be about 100 feet farther than it really was, and I definitely benefited from that.

The technology also allows the car to give you suggestions on how to better approach a corner after your lap is done, which unaissailably useful, and which would be an extremely attractive feature if it could be offered by itself.

Volkswagen’s engineers admit that the system would only be for beginners or for people looking who are totally unfamiliar with a new track.

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But the whole point is kind of moot, because it doesn’t really sound like this technology is coming to market any time soon.

The engineers I spoke to didn’t exactly scoff at the idea of a Golf R or GTI equipped with the tech, but they indicated that even if the tech did come to market, it wouldn’t be ready for some time.

What Driver Training is, though, is a test bed for tech that could help bail you out of emergencies on the road.

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VW seems to think of this as a way of keeping you out of the weeds in real life, instead of on the track. Using the same principles as on the track, the steering and braking systems could bail you out of a slide.

It is, admittedly, unnerving to have control wrested away from you unexpectedly. That said, it’s hard to deny that I was going much faster than I would otherwise have been on Volkswagen’s handling course thanks to Race Trainer.

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