fyonn
Active Member
heya folks,
well, I was one of the people who spotted the post about the VXR trackday and immediately went and bought a couple of tickets. I had my session this morning. Firstly, brands hatch is a long way away for a guy from manchester, but it was the only location left
fortunately the guy going with me lived half-way there in northampton.
anyways, as for the day. I have to say I thought it was well worth it. next time it comes up, put aside any badge snobbery and give it a go.
each car has an instructor who tells you what you should be doing at each part of the track. you get three laps, an out lap, main lap and an in lap. there's lots of cars, I thikn we had 28 cars amongst about 60 or so of us.
I don't think I waited more than 30 seconds from getting out of one car and into another. I must have done well over 30 laps of the brands hatch indy circuit by the end of the session with about 4 drives each in the astra and corsa vxr's, 2 rides in the mighty 6 litre VXR8 and singles rides in the vectra, zafira and moriva.
The cars: the moriva was nothing too special and the vectra was pretty slow. in every other car I got up to fourth gear on the short straight, but not in the vectra which was still making it's way up third.
the zafira was like an astra but with more headroom
the vxr8 was very powerful but actually, not terribly well suited to the circuit I thought. the indy track is only a mile and a half long or so and even the long straight isn't that long, so you can't really put down too much of the power and it's a heavy old beast. still fun though.
for me, the two stars of the day were, perhaps surprisingly, the astra and corsa vxr's. the astra was a good strong performer, handled well and was fun, but the little corsa vxr was a storm. it was by no means the quickest car, but it was so light, you could just throw it into corners. I think the fun factor came from the fact that you could get to the edge of performance in it a bit easier.
one one of my runs, with the aid of the instructor, I pushed that little corsa much harder than I've ever pushed a car before, and it all connected really well.
one thing that was a bit of a disappointment was that I missed a passenger run in a car driven by a proper race driver. there were too many people queueing for him sadly.
after all that we were ferried over to a different part of the site where paul swift (son of russ swift) led a team getting us to do slalom races with handbrake turns on a little cone mapped out course. after that, you got to ride with paul as he took a car onto two wheels and drove around like that for a bit before dropping back onto the tarmac!
shortly after that, he did a demo of his own precision driving, where he skidded and hand-brake turned etc around some parked cars to music. what a job to have!
then lunch and home!
all in all a great day and cheap at £95. if anyone s interested in such an event, I'd giv it a hearty thumbs up
dave
PS. anyone else go to one? if so, what did you think?
well, I was one of the people who spotted the post about the VXR trackday and immediately went and bought a couple of tickets. I had my session this morning. Firstly, brands hatch is a long way away for a guy from manchester, but it was the only location left
fortunately the guy going with me lived half-way there in northampton.anyways, as for the day. I have to say I thought it was well worth it. next time it comes up, put aside any badge snobbery and give it a go.
each car has an instructor who tells you what you should be doing at each part of the track. you get three laps, an out lap, main lap and an in lap. there's lots of cars, I thikn we had 28 cars amongst about 60 or so of us.
I don't think I waited more than 30 seconds from getting out of one car and into another. I must have done well over 30 laps of the brands hatch indy circuit by the end of the session with about 4 drives each in the astra and corsa vxr's, 2 rides in the mighty 6 litre VXR8 and singles rides in the vectra, zafira and moriva.
The cars: the moriva was nothing too special and the vectra was pretty slow. in every other car I got up to fourth gear on the short straight, but not in the vectra which was still making it's way up third.
the zafira was like an astra but with more headroom
the vxr8 was very powerful but actually, not terribly well suited to the circuit I thought. the indy track is only a mile and a half long or so and even the long straight isn't that long, so you can't really put down too much of the power and it's a heavy old beast. still fun though.
for me, the two stars of the day were, perhaps surprisingly, the astra and corsa vxr's. the astra was a good strong performer, handled well and was fun, but the little corsa vxr was a storm. it was by no means the quickest car, but it was so light, you could just throw it into corners. I think the fun factor came from the fact that you could get to the edge of performance in it a bit easier.
one one of my runs, with the aid of the instructor, I pushed that little corsa much harder than I've ever pushed a car before, and it all connected really well.
one thing that was a bit of a disappointment was that I missed a passenger run in a car driven by a proper race driver. there were too many people queueing for him sadly.
after all that we were ferried over to a different part of the site where paul swift (son of russ swift) led a team getting us to do slalom races with handbrake turns on a little cone mapped out course. after that, you got to ride with paul as he took a car onto two wheels and drove around like that for a bit before dropping back onto the tarmac!
shortly after that, he did a demo of his own precision driving, where he skidded and hand-brake turned etc around some parked cars to music. what a job to have!
then lunch and home!
all in all a great day and cheap at £95. if anyone s interested in such an event, I'd giv it a hearty thumbs up
dave
PS. anyone else go to one? if so, what did you think?
