Klive
Junior Member
- Messages
- 724
I just spent a morning up at Rockingham Speedway following a gift of a skid pan experience. I've been up there before with some of the Maserati contingent and thought I'd be doing the same thing on the wet tiles, but it wasn't to be....
We arrived a little early, almost 2 hours, so we took advantage of one of the other offerings they had, a drive in an Ariel Atom. There were other vehicles, an R8, Lambo, Ferrari, AM and others but the AA was the quickest so that was the one it had to be. Well that was a good start to the day bombing round the National Circuit in one of them with an instructor. A full face helmet was supplied so there was no revealing how floppy the face can become at speed.
The cost was £45 for 6 or 7 laps which seemed reasonable. I'm sure it's more expensive if booked in advance and I guess they're trying to fill up the slots available on the day with the spectators.
The drive was great with lots of acceleration and grip.
Then we moved onto the skidding experience. This was 2 BMW's on outriggers in a Car Park with a few cones. Traction control disconnected, balding tyres and a maximum speed not much more than 20, though I wasn't looking at the speedo so it could of been up to 30 but this would of probably been when I was going backwards! I'm telling you this may be a bit old hat but it is fantastic fun. After a few laps of getting used to the car with oversteer we then tried understeer, boring, so immediately went back to oversteer. More getting used to the limits with lots of tyre smoke and then I was told to just fly around the outside of the cones power sliding all the way. The instructor said he never seen anyone grinning so much before. It was stupendous. The experience probably lasted around 1/2 hour, the grin about 6.
BTW I did learn something as well.
We arrived a little early, almost 2 hours, so we took advantage of one of the other offerings they had, a drive in an Ariel Atom. There were other vehicles, an R8, Lambo, Ferrari, AM and others but the AA was the quickest so that was the one it had to be. Well that was a good start to the day bombing round the National Circuit in one of them with an instructor. A full face helmet was supplied so there was no revealing how floppy the face can become at speed.
The cost was £45 for 6 or 7 laps which seemed reasonable. I'm sure it's more expensive if booked in advance and I guess they're trying to fill up the slots available on the day with the spectators.
The drive was great with lots of acceleration and grip.
Then we moved onto the skidding experience. This was 2 BMW's on outriggers in a Car Park with a few cones. Traction control disconnected, balding tyres and a maximum speed not much more than 20, though I wasn't looking at the speedo so it could of been up to 30 but this would of probably been when I was going backwards! I'm telling you this may be a bit old hat but it is fantastic fun. After a few laps of getting used to the car with oversteer we then tried understeer, boring, so immediately went back to oversteer. More getting used to the limits with lots of tyre smoke and then I was told to just fly around the outside of the cones power sliding all the way. The instructor said he never seen anyone grinning so much before. It was stupendous. The experience probably lasted around 1/2 hour, the grin about 6.
BTW I did learn something as well.
