Driving experiences / track days

[quackhandle]

Still on the bench and Mrs QH mentions that for her birthday soon she'd fancy a track day / driving experience thingy. So having perused a number of websites, I am looking for some recommendations or ones to avoid. I live not too far from Oulton Park but they didn't seem to have much on offer. trackdays dot co dot uk seemed to have some good days out with some nice cars and not too far to travel.

Granted all you lot probably have an R8 or Aston as your daily drives but hey I have a very large penis instead.

Thanking you.

qh

[wim121]

I havent tried any Im afraid, but Ive always wanted to, looks like great fun. Please let us know how it goes.

Have you tried putting in companies in to things like tripadvisor and other review sites? Works well for getting a good consensus.

[northernladuk]

I did Mallory many years ago which is a pretty straightforward track. It was that long ago we were in Formula Ford single seaters which I would recommend. Completely different experience to a family car..

Other option is do what I am doing in a month and take one in an Ariel Atom... Vroooooooom

Can't wait.

Can't comment on quality of company yet but mine is with Activity Superstore. You can pick which of 3 sports cars from a number of diff tracks. Boxed present type thing,

I think the ultimate trackday for most contractors would be driving a Focus 1.8D. Hey, the idea is to see how the other half live hey

[Barley]

I had a driving experience at Silverstone (chose an Aston Martin) a couple of years ago, it wasn’t that good at all.

Its padded out with a briefing etc, you only actually get to drive for about 6-7 minutes. What really spoilt it was having a co driver with duel controls, every time I got it any where near almost maybe approaching fast into a bend he was on the brake. Quite disappointing really.

What annoyed me even more was paying an extra £10 for accident damage waiver, in hindsight I was hardly going to crash with Mr Safe sitting next to me.

Overall it was an experience to drive a nice Aston but that’s it.



Another experience I tried was a flying a light aircraft from Cranfield. That was brilliant, absolutely brilliant. Other than take off and landing I pretty much had control. Even got to fly over my house. Overall about 40 minutes flight.


Both the above were presents, £100 worth of vouchers.

[norrahe]

Did a rally driving experience at Silverstone, it was really good fun.

About a 100 quid or so per person for about 3 hours.

[VectraMan]

I had a driving experience at Silverstone (chose an Aston Martin) a couple of years ago, it wasn’t that good at all.

Its padded out with a briefing etc, you only actually get to drive for about 6-7 minutes. What really spoilt it was having a co driver with duel controls, every time I got it any where near almost maybe approaching fast into a bend he was on the brake. Quite disappointing really.

"Duel" controls is probably about right.

As Barley says, these experience days usually end up with you getting one slow lap in a Ferrari or something, which would really piss me off. I once drove a Formula Ford car at Donington, but even that was only about 30 minutes, and "at Donington" turned out to be around a loop not the real circuit.

Do a proper trackday. If you don't have the car, the likes of bookatrack have Caterhams you can hire for the whole day for a not-unreasonable amount, especially if you have a friend you can share it with.

[TheBigD]

Father-in-law did a stunt driving day last weekend at Brahfield (outskirts of Northamptonshire). Activities involved a mock drive by shooting using paintball guns, those car-on-car things they've had on top gear (one does the speed, the other does the steering), and wheelies in a Transit van.

He absolutly loved it, but did say there was a lot of waiting around/safety briefings between activities.

[ChrisPackit]

If you don't have the car, the likes of bookatrack have Caterhams you can hire for the whole day for a not-unreasonable amount, especially if you have a friend you can share it with.

+1

I've done dozens of track days over the years, always in my own cars though, but like someone said BookaTrack let you rent a Caterham out which would be immense fun and no backseat drivers either.

The "Drive a Ferrari" ones are a rip off I think. You spend more time in a classroom or as as passenger than actually driving.

One of the highlights of my previous occupation was fitting Traction Control systems to Ferrari 355's and setting them up by trying to get them sideways around Three Sisters circuit.

[gingerjedi]

I did the Formula Ford experience at Castle Combe (on the proper track), I also did the Rally Drive at the same place.

Both were good fun but neither give much track time, I'd go for this sort of thing over a few laps in poncy footballers car any day.

[gingerjedi]

Just had a look at 'BookaTrack' £200-300 seems reasonable until you realise the Caterham is another £725 on top.