Driving experience day

[v8woollie]

Totally off topic but here goes. My eldest daughter is 18 in a couple of weeks and she would like a driving experience day as a present. Ideally she would like one of those where you get to drive three or four different performance cars after some tuition, and hopefully also a lap with a professional driver to see how it should be done.

There seem to be a lot of track and driving days advertised so I wondered if anyone here could help narrow it down with any recommendations.

[Neilc123]

Have to say I have looked into these before and found them really disappointing, for the ones I have looked at (buyagift, redletter and virgin). They seem to have so many exclusions and even when you actually manage to drive the car(s) seem to allow a very small amount of time or mileage.

My personal opinion is for a great experience, you are better off actually hiring the car you want for a day, hiring a professional driver (e.g. someone like Mike Cooper at Drivertuition.com) and then have a good day at really getting to know the car and how to drive it and come back with a real smile on the face.

Hope that helps.

Neil

[yeti]

http://www.carlimits.com/

Can either just drive their car or do a driving course in either theirs or, ahem, yours

[JaseB]

Google Palmersport at Bedford Autodrome, depends how deep your pockets are but I've never heard anything bad about the experience.

[jamesc12]

JaseB said:

Google Palmersport at Bedford Autodrome, depends how deep your pockets are but I've never heard anything bad about the experience.

This. Absolutely outstanding day out.

[mikey k]

yeti said:

http://www.carlimits.com/

Can either just drive their car or do a driving course in either theirs or, ahem, yours

+1 Andy Walsh is amazing and tailors the day to your needs as well as spending much more time with each person, he limits it to 4 cars!

[krisdelta]

The Palmersport one is good and I've always enjoyed Thruxton, there are a range of cars there and I think they have a 15% off promotion at the moment - you can often get money off via Quidco.

[v8woollie]

Thanks for all the ideas. They all seem good and dare I say more focused than the standard Red Letter Days type experience.

Bascially my daughter wants to drive cars that she dreams of owning, such as Ferrari and Lamborghini. She loves Lambos. I may try and persuade her away from this generic 'three laps in a performance car' type of activity into one of these more focused ones that have been suggsted.

[897sma]

Pop over to the ferarri/lambo forums and see if anyone fancies a day out where you all have a go in each others

[v8woollie]

897sma said:

Pop over to the ferarri/lambo forums and see if anyone fancies a day out where you all have a go in each others

I like your thinking there Sadly I couldn't afford the insurance for her.

[Simon T]

Where are you based?

s

[v8woollie]

We are in Hertfordshire.

[Cockernee]

Simon, while I agree with many on here that the day is not that much in the way of track time, for a teenager they are fantastic value. My son went on one and had 3 laps driving a lambo and loved it. For me I would be bored of the limits imposed, for him it was the thrill of his life. Different expectations from people like us and your teenage daughter, you have asked the wrong audience.

My teenage son would highly recommend it

[NigelStn]

Has anyone any experience with these people:
http://www.driverskills.com/shop/skid-pan-training...
I'm looking for a skid pan training course for my daughter.

[v8woollie]

Cockernee said:

Simon, while I agree with many on here that the day is not that much in the way of track time, for a teenager they are fantastic value. My son went on one and had 3 laps driving a lambo and loved it. For me I would be bored of the limits imposed, for him it was the thrill of his life. Different expectations from people like us and your teenage daughter, you have asked the wrong audience.

My teenage son would highly recommend it

Good points there. I suppose I may be overthinking this. I would prefer something like the Palmersport day or half day whilst she would probably be happy with some three lap blasts in some exotica.

As this isn't really a surprise, I will show her the options and let her choose. I suspect you are right and she will go for the Lambo/Ferrari sort of day.

[notsaV8V]

Have a look at this. http://www.mithril.co.uk/Gift-Vouchers/Super-Car-d...

I have no idea what it costs as my wife gave it as present. It was well organised and Goodwood is a good location to make it a weekend break from Hertfordshire.

NOTSA

[simonspider]

Apologies for plugging 6th Gear Experience but we do supercar driving experiences nationwide - Virgin/Buyagift/trackdays etc, are all agencies we deal with and they simply pass customers buying their own branded gift vouchers directly on to us.

Our nearest venue to you is probably Longcross in Surrey. If you PM me direct I'd be delighted to do you a discount with you posting on Pistonheads as anyone else on here..
Worth mentioning though - Palmersport is excellent whereas they concentrate on race experiences whereas we are more about supercar driving experiences. www.6thgearexperience.com

Thanks

Simon G

[v8woollie]

Thanks for the additional ideas. Notsa and Simon - I'll look at those websites and thanks Simon for the offer of a discounted rate

[Simon T]

bit of a drive but Thruxton has a Supercar driving day. Combe also has a day driving various vehicles inc a FF1600

Simon

[Captain Beaky]

simonspider said:

Apologies for plugging 6th Gear Experience but we do supercar driving experiences nationwide - Virgin/Buyagift/trackdays etc, are all agencies we deal with and they simply pass customers buying their own branded gift vouchers directly on to us.

Our nearest venue to you is probably Longcross in Surrey. If you PM me direct I'd be delighted to do you a discount with you posting on Pistonheads as anyone else on here..
Worth mentioning though - Palmersport is excellent whereas they concentrate on race experiences whereas we are more about supercar driving experiences. www.6thgearexperience.com

Thanks

Simon G

I did back-to-back drives of V8V, Gallardo and F360F1 with Simon, plus a Murcielago passenger lap a few years ago. An excellent day and not silly money IIRC.