Recommendations for Supercar Driving Experience

[vantage828]

With Xmas coming up - looking to purchase a gift voucher for a supercar driving day experience in the southeast/midlands areas. Any recommendations or who to avoid/what to watch out for?

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John Palmer day at Bedford.

By far and away the best 'experience' day bar none.
Superb enthusiastic instructors (lewis Hamilton was one in the past) who all encourage to push the cars to the limit of your ability. most other days are expensive for two or three laps and are geared towards not stuffing the car. I was driving the JP Le Mans prototype and caught an apex cone but instructor just said 'occupational hazard. We'll go faster next time'.

[John Johnson]

As above , mates an instructor for one and they do peg you back a bit unless you are paying big bucks for a full days hire etc as they get lots of johnnies with a scooby save up for a few laps to be the next Nigel Mansell etc

[Graeme4130]

Palmer days are a bit pricier, but very, very good

Whatever you do, avoid Vision Motorsport days at Chipping Norton (I think they're booked through Virgin and Red Letter day)

I was recently bought a "supercar fantastic four' where you drive a Gallardo, GT3, 360 and a V8 Vantage

I've driven a Gallardo quite extensively (I'm still half in the market for buying one) and 360/Gt3 a few times before, and the examples they had were absolutely knackered, underpowered and pretty much falling apart. Neither were worth driving, and the instructor wouldn't let you take it past 4000rpm. Both had very quiet exhausts (I guess to meet local regulations) and the track was less than half a mile long, of which you only got 2 laps.
I left before the V8 vantage bit as I know they're not the greatest when in showroom condition (Although their example looked a lot better looked after than the Porsche, Ferrari and very tired Lambo)
I personally found the instructors rude and patronising, and the day was busy, so you generally got stuck behind other traffic on a circuit where it's almost impossible to overtake, so half your two laps were spent at pedestrian pace.

It was what i can only describe as a completely sh1t experience, and if it hadn't been bought for me as a gift, I'd have been genuinely annoyed that I'd spent cash on such a waste of time.
I'd heard a similar report from someone else, so wasn't even going to bother turning up, but felt I should as it was a gift

I would honestly rate it as 1/10

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Even a half day at Jon Palmer is good but seriously the full day is worth it.

[N13LXC]

That is crazy money for the palmersport! In effect £1000 for a single person for the full day (including the £99 for the Mrs. to stand and watch)

Although, would prefer to spend that on a decent day than experience the above...

[HYFR]

I had an exact replica experience...can't even remember where it was now as it was so <beep>...I had a better driving experience in driving my then B7 RS 4 saloon too and from the place!

Palmer days are a bit pricier, but very, very good

Whatever you do, avoid Vision Motorsport days at Chipping Norton (I think they're booked through Virgin and Red Letter day)

I was recently bought a "supercar fantastic four' where you drive a Gallardo, GT3, 360 and a V8 Vantage

I've driven a Gallardo quite extensively (I'm still half in the market for buying one) and 360/Gt3 a few times before, and the examples they had were absolutely knackered, underpowered and pretty much falling apart. Neither were worth driving, and the instructor wouldn't let you take it past 4000rpm. Both had very quiet exhausts (I guess to meet local regulations) and the track was less than half a mile long, of which you only got 2 laps.
I left before the V8 vantage bit as I know they're not the greatest when in showroom condition (Although their example looked a lot better looked after than the Porsche, Ferrari and very tired Lambo)
I personally found the instructors rude and patronising, and the day was busy, so you generally got stuck behind other traffic on a circuit where it's almost impossible to overtake, so half your two laps were spent at pedestrian pace.

It was what i can only describe as a completely sh1t experience, and if it hadn't been bought for me as a gift, I'd have been genuinely annoyed that I'd spent cash on such a waste of time.
I'd heard a similar report from someone else, so wasn't even going to bother turning up, but felt I should as it was a gift

I would honestly rate it as 1/10

[Graeme4130]

I had an exact replica experience...can't even remember where it was now as it was so <beep>...I had a better driving experience in driving my then B7 RS 4 saloon too and from the place!

Palmer days are a bit pricier, but very, very good

Whatever you do, avoid Vision Motorsport days at Chipping Norton (I think they're booked through Virgin and Red Letter day)

I was recently bought a "supercar fantastic four' where you drive a Gallardo, GT3, 360 and a V8 Vantage

I've driven a Gallardo quite extensively (I'm still half in the market for buying one) and 360/Gt3 a few times before, and the examples they had were absolutely knackered, underpowered and pretty much falling apart. Neither were worth driving, and the instructor wouldn't let you take it past 4000rpm. Both had very quiet exhausts (I guess to meet local regulations) and the track was less than half a mile long, of which you only got 2 laps.
I left before the V8 vantage bit as I know they're not the greatest when in showroom condition (Although their example looked a lot better looked after than the Porsche, Ferrari and very tired Lambo)
I personally found the instructors rude and patronising, and the day was busy, so you generally got stuck behind other traffic on a circuit where it's almost impossible to overtake, so half your two laps were spent at pedestrian pace.

It was what i can only describe as a completely sh1t experience, and if it hadn't been bought for me as a gift, I'd have been genuinely annoyed that I'd spent cash on such a waste of time.
I'd heard a similar report from someone else, so wasn't even going to bother turning up, but felt I should as it was a gift

I would honestly rate it as 1/10

To make matters worse, I got a puncture in the tyre on my RS4 on their <beep> shitty potholed lane out of the place
I was most unpleased !

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That is crazy money for the palmersport! In effect £1000 for a single person for the full day (including the £99 for the Mrs. to stand and watch)

Although, would prefer to spend that on a decent day than experience the above...

I can't stress how good the day is.
We do one every year and they are stunning every time.
On one day driving the 911 GT3 racers (full roll cage, no interior, "proper" sequential race gearbox) I killed several cones and the instructor just shrugged and then gave decent advice on how to go faster. Now I'm no driving god but I have been track driving / racing for a long time now and they were happy for me to really push as hard as I could with the car. Full on slides, drifts (mainly unintentional - pushing really hard). You get telemetry and on board video with most of the cars and there's a great part where I nail a chicane in an M3 GT and the instructor is just "whooping" in the passenger seat.
My colleague hadn't driven anything faster than their diesel people carrier... for him they tailored things differently and concentrated on getting him confident in the car and by the end of the day he was putting some decent laptimes in.
Granted, not everything is "full on"... the karts are a bit of fun and the off roading is a distraction but makes for a different thing. It's all offset by the faster cars.
On one day we (not me fortunately) crashed a couple of the single seaters - really broken. they dragged then cars off the track, checked everybody was ok, gave the drivers involved a bollocking and then we were back out again.

EDIT: Its funny but £1,000 seemed like good value but £400 quid on a couple laps feels like a rip off IYSWIM
Also - Consider a trackday at a decent venue. Day will cost say about 200 quid... Insurance is usually somewhere in the region of 10-20 pounds per 1k cover so could be another 200-250.
Usually do 2-3 tanks of petrol at least so at 80 quid a tank another 240 quid. You've got wear and tear on brakes and tyres. Given a full set of tyres is 1k even taking 10% out of them is another 100 quid. Brakes hard to judge but full set of fronts is over 1k and taking 10% would be another say 100 quid. Then you always have in the back of your mind about getting the car home so you have to go a little easy. All that for the bargin price of up to a rough cost of £900 so in comparsion whilst the day isn't directly comparable it's not really too bad when you start to factor in everything.

[the cueball]

another vote for the full palmer day!

went on one this year, I had a great time - yes even on the off road course (I have a Jeep too)

instructors were great, kept pushing for faster lap times, cars were top notch and full power...

I even managed to get first place with the Caterhams...

compare this to knockhill for example where my SWIMBO left their Ferrari for dead on the straight - in a Proton satria GTi lol

[N13LXC]

That is crazy money for the palmersport! In effect £1000 for a single person for the full day (including the £99 for the Mrs. to stand and watch)

Although, would prefer to spend that on a decent day than experience the above...

I can't stress how good the day is.
We do one every year and they are stunning every time.
On one day driving the 911 GT3 racers (full roll cage, no interior, "proper" sequential race gearbox) I killed several cones and the instructor just shrugged and then gave decent advice on how to go faster. Now I'm no driving god but I have been track driving / racing for a long time now and they were happy for me to really push as hard as I could with the car. Full on slides, drifts (mainly unintentional - pushing really hard). You get telemetry and on board video with most of the cars and there's a great part where I nail a chicane in an M3 GT and the instructor is just "whooping" in the passenger seat.
My colleague hadn't driven anything faster than their diesel people carrier... for him they tailored things differently and concentrated on getting him confident in the car and by the end of the day he was putting some decent laptimes in.
Granted, not everything is "full on"... the karts are a bit of fun and the off roading is a distraction but makes for a different thing. It's all offset by the faster cars.
On one day we (not me fortunately) crashed a couple of the single seaters - really broken. they dragged then cars off the track, checked everybody was ok, gave the drivers involved a bollocking and then we were back out again.

EDIT: Its funny but £1,000 seemed like good value but £400 quid on a couple laps feels like a rip off IYSWIM
Also - Consider a trackday at a decent venue. Day will cost say about 200 quid... Insurance is usually somewhere in the region of 10-20 pounds per 1k cover so could be another 200-250.
Usually do 2-3 tanks of petrol at least so at 80 quid a tank another 240 quid. You've got wear and tear on brakes and tyres. Given a full set of tyres is 1k even taking 10% out of them is another 100 quid. Brakes hard to judge but full set of fronts is over 1k and taking 10% would be another say 100 quid. Then you always have in the back of your mind about getting the car home so you have to go a little easy. All that for the bargin price of up to a rough cost of £900 so in comparsion whilst the day isn't directly comparable it's not really too bad when you start to factor in everything.

Very good breakdown on the costs involved by trackign your own car, really show just what you get for the full experience, and take the £900 for a full day of full on driving vs. c.£400 for the 4 laps in a clapped out ferrari I know which I'd prefer! unfortunately, with my deposit on the RS 4 to be saved by March, i shall be doing neither!

On a slightly different note, does anyone know of any performance car driving schools in the central belt of scotland? Tried Knockhill (i live 10 mins away) and all they offer is Own car on the track. Looking to get some decent tips on how to avoid sticking 60k of car into the first field i come to!

[Rick_RS4]

i did the virgin 4 car day for my birthday, I drove the lambo gallardo, aston, 911 gt3 race prepped, and the ferrari 360, they didnt make you hold back, i was foot to the boards all the time, it was just over too quick

[adsgreen]

Very good breakdown on the costs involved by trackign your own car, really show just what you get for the full experience, and take the £900 for a full day of full on driving vs. c.£400 for the 4 laps in a clapped out ferrari I know which I'd prefer! unfortunately, with my deposit on the RS 4 to be saved by March, i shall be doing neither!

On a slightly different note, does anyone know of any performance car driving schools in the central belt of scotland? Tried Knockhill (i live 10 mins away) and all they offer is Own car on the track. Looking to get some decent tips on how to avoid sticking 60k of car into the first field i come to!

Depends what you want to do - is it tuition? or just driving other stuff?

[Graeme4130]

i did the virgin 4 car day for my birthday, I drove the lambo gallardo, aston, 911 gt3 race prepped, and the ferrari 360, they didnt make you hold back, i was foot to the boards all the time, it was just over too quick

Where did you do it ?
I did what sounds like the same thing, and the cars were absolutely knackered - This, for example, was the dash of the Lambo showing an engine warning light, which although seemed to be on 9 cylinders, it was actually the loud knocking from the transmission that caused him to get out and check (when I took the photo) as the engine light and 3year out date was on the car when I got in it.

I;m trying not to sound like a c**t by saying this, but I've been lucky enough to have driven a couple of Lambo's and 360's before for comparison and both the cars they had were shot to bits and massively under powered. Both were on the the cheapest tyres I imagine you could find in that size and had super quiet exhausts (i assume for local noise reg's, which is fine). The Lambo was probably on 9 cylinders and the ferrari wouldn't go into 1st gear without both hands on the stick.
The instructor was patronising at best, and pretty rude at worst. Then had the cheek to tell me that I couldn't afford to repair his '£200k Italian Thoroughbred' when asked why I wasn't allowed to go over 4000rpm in a car that, in it's current state, was probably worth less than £30k as broken for parts - This was before we'd got off the first straight as we had to stop as another of the cars seemed to have broken down on the track.

I'm a pretty easy going guy, and like to think I get on well with most people, but these idiots really p1ssed me off. The only saving grace of the day was that the bird on the reception counter had some massive jugs and a pretty face and was up for me chatting her up whilst I waiting in the cold.

There were a couple of other guys that were also equally p1ssed off and one of them walked off and went home after getting out the 360 having been short braked by the instructor into every corner as all the cars are fitted with dual controls.

Palmer sport days are pretty expensive, but worth every penny, and potentially much cheaper than the costs of tracking your own car.

If you're looking for decent value for money track days, and this could be an option instead of doing experience days, then you can pick up an ex clio cup car or similar for 5-8k, and if you shared the cost with a mate and trailored it to track days, then you'd have a car that would do lap after lap all day long, be one of the quickest cars on the circuit if on slicks, and still be yours for a reasonable return if you choose to sell it at the end of the year or after a couple of years when you're bored.
Cars like these don't tend to lose much value if you buy them low and trailers have similar economics

[N13LXC]

Depends what you want to do - is it tuition? or just driving other stuff?

Would be more for the tuition than the driving other stuff. I'll be moving from a 170 manual diesel to a 450 petrol. Looking to get some practical advice on getting the best from the car. Fast in a straight lin is all well and good, but any monkey can do that! Want to learn how to push it through the corners safely and how to react should anything go wrong.

Any ideas welcome...