djtom
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| posted on 10/10/07 at 10:35 PM |
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Car Limits Activity Day Report
car Limits Activity Day:
Did one of these yesterday at North Weald Airfield - overall verdict - very good for £35!
Shame about the weather - I spent the whole day scared that the car would stop and not restart due to my lack of waterproofing of megasquirt and
associated vital electrical connections, but it stood up fine.
It was by far the worst weather that I've ever driven the Tiger in - rain varied between light and torrential for the whole day - and was the
first time in 2 years that I've ever had to use the roof (doesn't keep you dry and stops you seeing anything apart from straight ahead).
On the M25 I decided that staying dry was of lesser importance that seeing where we were going (wet weather gear restricts side and rear view to zero,
as the "windows" aren't transparent in ideal conditions, let alone when there's rain on them).
I was hoping it would be dry, as I wanted to kill the set of 5 year old, rock hard, zero grip tyres that were on the car, but instead they shrugged
off the many miles that they travelled whilst spinning at least twice as fast as the real ground speed with no apparent wear.
Getting 200-odd bhp onto the ground was impossible, but led to some very sideways action during the circuit part of the day.
The day started at 9am with the high speed corner (250m straight then turn hard left onto massive tarmac hardstanding and keep within a line on the
tarmac (the "wall" ) This was fun, but was the only morning activity, so with 20 cars, there was a fair bit of sitting around.
Socialising with the other participants was limited by the rain, so the day got off to a slow start. Got 5 or 6 goes at the corner including a couple
of death or glory 80mph spins, so not boring, but 2 concurrent activities would have worked much better.
After lunch at a local pub, we came back (still p*ssing hard) to find 2 short sprint type circuits set up with cones. Fast times for both were in the
1 minute region and you could have as many timed runs as you liked.
Apart from a 560bhp 4wd Porsche Turbo (53 secs!!) we did pretty well with 1.03, a BMW E30 M3 got 1.02 and a 300bhp Impreza got 1.03 also (although
I'm pretty sure that most of that was due to the tyres that they had, as a 300bhp supercharged elise and two exiges on yoko 048s couldn't
get under 1.04... there was easily an inch of standing water on many parts of the track!)
TVR Griffith 500 couldn't face the right way for more that 3 secs once right foot was applied, and others included more Scoobies, a diesel Golf
GTI (driven with extreme commitment and managing very respectable times!) and a Mercedes SL55AMG (with a hire company keyring) that the (young) bloke
claimed was his everyday driver and that he brought it along "because my Lambo Gallardo is having a service". Hmmm... 25 yrs old..... If
that's true I'm jealous! Had at least 10 goes at both tracks in the afternoon and that made the day for me - very funny over- and
understeery moments could be had in complete safety - there was at least 100m of runoff in any given direction before you hit anything solid.
All in all - ideal for learning what the limits of traction / idiocy are in relative safety, and with a bit of instruction / guidance thrown in for
free ( a couple of Lotus-on-Track instructors run the day). Absolute bargain for £35, although not directly comparable with a real track day, I think
I'll be doing another one at that price!
Tom
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hobbsy
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| posted on 11/10/07 at 08:23 AM |
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Who did you book this through? Sounds good for £35
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djtom
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| posted on 11/10/07 at 08:31 AM |
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www.carlimits.com and look for Activity Days. They also do loads of other stuff, inc a full day's tuition
(group of 4) for £190 - I'm quite tempted by this now as according to a guy I met there who has done it before, you get to drive pretty much non
stop all day - when the instructor is in with someone else you're practicing what he just told you. The only complaint I have about the activity
day was the amount of waiting around in the morning.
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gingerprince
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| posted on 11/10/07 at 12:11 PM |
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I've done the full day, and you do learn a lot and get to practice in a safe environment.
What you got for 35 quid sounds like a bargain, but not as one-to-one with the instructor I'd bet.
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