Caterham Drift Champion Experience
Discussion
Not seen much on here about this, but I went this weekend after my wife got me the Drift Champion experience for my birthday. Not really what I thought would be my cup of tea TBH, but I have to say I had a brilliant laugh and would heartily recommend it. It's not cheap at £249 and neither is it glamorous, but you have a lot of fun and basically get free rein to have a laugh doing the things you've always wanted to in a car!
The day starts at 8:30am just outside the main entrance to Silverstone, where they've taken over a massive carpark and marked it out with cones. There were 14 of us on the course and we were allocated a car (three Caterhams with a spare) and instructor each, but the instructor didn't go in the car with you and effectively you were left to your own devices, being debriefed after each run. Effectively it's a case of take your turn waiting to drive, waiting and drinking coffee in their fancy hut thing then get a quick pep talk from your instructor, then go out solo and basically have a hoot! It's all in first gear and there are various challenges in the morning which mostly involve teaching you sideways action. It's not really about speed and something I found fairly hard to get used to at first, more a case of "brake hard then steer and blip the throttle, then feather for the drift". Sounds complicated but it's really easy and by the afternoon I was drifting pretty much anywhere and some of the guys were amazing.....
After a quick but tasty lunch the instructors marked out the 'assessed route' for the afternoon and we practiced it a few times then had the assessed runs and a prize giving, which ended about 1630. I have to say I was very impressed that pretty much everyone was drifting very nicely by the end and some of the more talented ones weren't too far away from the instructors demos IMHO.
Anyway, cool story bro but if you fancy doing something a bit different then I'd really recommend it, it really is great fun and I learnt a lot too. Only problem is it's made me consider chopping my E92 M3 in for a Caterham and a super mini
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The day starts at 8:30am just outside the main entrance to Silverstone, where they've taken over a massive carpark and marked it out with cones. There were 14 of us on the course and we were allocated a car (three Caterhams with a spare) and instructor each, but the instructor didn't go in the car with you and effectively you were left to your own devices, being debriefed after each run. Effectively it's a case of take your turn waiting to drive, waiting and drinking coffee in their fancy hut thing then get a quick pep talk from your instructor, then go out solo and basically have a hoot! It's all in first gear and there are various challenges in the morning which mostly involve teaching you sideways action. It's not really about speed and something I found fairly hard to get used to at first, more a case of "brake hard then steer and blip the throttle, then feather for the drift". Sounds complicated but it's really easy and by the afternoon I was drifting pretty much anywhere and some of the guys were amazing.....
After a quick but tasty lunch the instructors marked out the 'assessed route' for the afternoon and we practiced it a few times then had the assessed runs and a prize giving, which ended about 1630. I have to say I was very impressed that pretty much everyone was drifting very nicely by the end and some of the more talented ones weren't too far away from the instructors demos IMHO.
Anyway, cool story bro but if you fancy doing something a bit different then I'd really recommend it, it really is great fun and I learnt a lot too. Only problem is it's made me consider chopping my E92 M3 in for a Caterham and a super mini
:james_gt3rs said:
Do they actually teach you or is it a case of just going out and hooning around? I'm keen to learn oversteer control for track use as it's not a natural thing at the minute to me and learning on a track day is just asking for trouble!tsinc said:
Do they actually teach you or is it a case of just going out and hooning around? I'm keen to learn oversteer control for track use as it's not a natural thing at the minute to me and learning on a track day is just asking for trouble!
It's a big group so they can give you 5 minute tips but it's mostly a case of teaching yourself.james_gt3rs said:
tsinc said:
Do they actually teach you or is it a case of just going out and hooning around? I'm keen to learn oversteer control for track use as it's not a natural thing at the minute to me and learning on a track day is just asking for trouble!
It's a big group so they can give you 5 minute tips but it's mostly a case of teaching yourself.When I did it (it may be different now), there were probably 12 people on the day, with 2 instructors, so they very quickly got to know everyone, each person's abilities, and what instruction was needed.
I think it's an excellent thing to do to learn car control, and will leave you much better experience of oversteer generally, even though you're only using 1st gear all day.
48k said:
tsinc said:
Has anyone done this at Donington Park via BookaTrack? I'm assuming it's the same people just a different location as it's not on the Silverstone website anymore.
Yes I did it a couple of weeks ago at Donington, good fun.https://www.facebook.com/bookatrack/videos/1089974...
I did the drift experience a couple of times, they did an advanced one as well
obligatory youtube clip
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rw5fbjHiHAA
one car 4 people , 3 hours, awesome
just checked the website they still do the advanced day.
obligatory youtube clip
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rw5fbjHiHAA
one car 4 people , 3 hours, awesome
just checked the website they still do the advanced day.
Edited by binnerboy on Thursday 12th May 15:03
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