Drive-craft
coaching > courses > community
for driving enthusiasts
You can already drive
That's not what this is about.
You've owned the car for a while now. You're familiar with the noises it makes when it's happy. You've taken the long way home more times than your partner suspects.
And yet, quietly, you've started to wonder: am I actually getting the best out of this thing — or is it getting the best out of me?
What Drive-craft is
Drive-craft is a year-long coaching relationship for enthusiastic drivers who suspect — quietly, without telling anyone — that the car deserves better.
One coach, no more than twelve members, four sessions across the seasons, on the roads where you enjoy driving most — and Millbrook Proving Ground, where we'll explore your car's limits and stretch yours, to develop your craft and to widen your safety and enjoyment margins on the road. Plus the community conversations between sessions.
Some drivers start with a Morning diagnostic session. Others set off with a Day before they commit to The Year. Some go straight to The Year. There's no wrong door.
Morning > Day > Weekend > The Year
This isn't for everyone
It isn't for the driver who wants a faster lap time (there are racing schools for that).
It isn't for the driver who wants a certificate (we don't issue them).
It isn't for the driver who already knows everything (he’d be miserable).
It is for the driver who's stopped pretending he'll ever stop wanting to be better at this. Who would rather spend a year inside a small group of people who care about driving the way he does, than another ten years driving alone.
If that's you, you'll know already.
What changes in a Year?
Not a certificate. Not a goodie bag. A different driver in the same seat.
You'll know — not guess — where the limits of your car actually are, and where yours are, and the gap between the two. You'll handle a wet road with the confidence you handle a dry one. You'll know what your tyres are telling you way before they'd start squealing. And the next time someone asks if you want to take the scenic route, you'll already have the keys in your hand, ready to make the engine sing.
Welcome
I believe that motoring matters and that driving well is a craft.
I've been a driving coach for over 25 years. Here, I aim to share what I've learned along the way.
- Mark
Who you'll be driving with
I'm Mark. I'm almost as happy driving an uninspiring police car as I am steering a sports car through the valleys of Wales. Most of the people who become The Year members are likely to be somewhere on a similar spectrum — enthusiastic drivers who'd find joy behind the wheel of just about anything, but who own something special because they've spent enough years driving to know what they want from it.
I came to driver coaching by way of two demonstration drives that rewrote what I thought I knew. The first was at Brands Hatch in my late teens, when a racing-school instructor took me out in a track-prepped Ford Fiesta XR2i — the same model I'd arrived in — and showed me what my hot hatch could actually do. That drive sent me searching for what came next. What came next was the second demo': my mentor John Lyon, who in my mid-twenties sat in my own car and inside ten minutes was driving it faster, safely, and with more flair than I'd managed after a year of ownership.
John was a police 'Class 1' advanced driving instructor and a competitive racer — he knew both roadcraft and racecraft, and crucially he knew they were different disciplines with different goals. I explored racecraft enough to understand what it was for, and enjoyed it. But roadcraft was the one that captured me. The road is where most enthusiastic drivers spend almost all of their driving lives, and getting better at it has more layers, weather, hazards, and genuine consequence than any track session. Drive-craft is about road driving, not racecraft nor track days. The closed-circuit work that shows up in the The Year is there because some lessons can only be learned at the limit. But the point of every session is the road, every time.
Like John before me, I was a police ‘Class 1’ advanced driving instructor — considered by many the senior tier of British driving instructor qualifications, and the one Roadcraft (the police driver’s handbook) itself is associated with. I've also coached on road and tracks for several car manufacturers, including Porsche and Jaguar Land Rover. But the more honest answer to "who are you?" is that I've spent over a quarter of a century coaching enthusiastic drivers on the road, and I've watched the moment it lands often enough to know exactly what we're aiming for.
Drive-craft is what I wish someone had built when I was looking for it. So I built it.
How it works
The way to find out whether Drive-craft is for you is to come and drive with me. Not to read more about it. In your car, on the kind of roads you enjoy most. By the end of a Morning or a Day, we'll both know.
Whilst most start with a Morning diagnostic, some take a Day. A few will likely prefer a Weekend before commencing The Year.
There's no wrong door.
The Year never holds more than twelve members at a time. A few new places open each season, so when you're ready the wait is weeks, not many months — and when a season's seats are taken, the next open the following season.
Morning > Day > Weekend > The Year
A note from me
If you've read this far, you're probably the right fit.
I built Drive-craft because the best driving courses I've ever been on left me wanting more time, with the same coach, now and across the seasons, enjoying the process with other drivers I respected. Nobody offered that. So I'm offering it here.
If you'd like to see whether we'd get on, the next step is a Morning or Day on the road together. From there, The Year — or not — is whatever feels right.
— Mark
[ Come and drive with me ]
"... thank you for your professional approach and depth of knowledge ..."
Mark Suddaby
"I thoroughly enjoyed it and your coaching was perfect for me. Everything about it was perfect."
Paul Smart
"All I can say is that it was better than I thought it could be. Thanks for everything you have taught me."