Trackday as a gift?

[ispcarsurvey]

Hi

It's my brother's 21st on March 6th and my parents are looking at purchasing a "supercar experience" type trackday. Just wondered if anyone has had any experience of these at all - don't want him to only get 20 minutes of driving for £400-£500?

Ideally something in the south would be bestand they have been looking at Thruxton and I've mentioned Castle Coombe as this is only just down the road from me. He lives in Bournemouth,so anywhere within 2 hours would be ok.

He actually has quite a nice car himself (Leon Cupra R) and have heard of track days where instructors take you out in your car as well but pretty sure he isn't covered on insurance. Have googled all this but any advice would be much appreciated.

Thanks

[daydreamer]

Top Cats Tuscan racecar day - (do a search for Topcats racing). All round brilliant day and the start of my slippery slide into racing

Rich

[KateB]

If you wanted to hire a Lotus Elise, try Heritage Trackdays - they have days at both Thruxton and Castle Combe. www.heritagetrackdays.com. They do one-to-one tution in their cars

[Don]

Nope. Call Jonny at Bookatrack.

For the money you're talking about you'll get a Caterham that, despite being well worn, will be blazingly fast and fun in comparison to his own motor. He'll get ALL DAY on a track - none of yer twenty minutes nonsense - like as not he'll get instruction too.

It is - by far and away - the very best value track action you can buy. Not cheap - but when you compare "bang for your buck" its outstanding.

I also cannot recommend Jonny and Bookatrack highly enough when it comes to friendly low-key service and a safely run day.

www.bookatrack.com

I am nothing to do with them, BTW. Just a happy customer.

[ispcarsurvey]

Thanks for the suggestions.

Just been looking at the Caterham option on the Bookatrack website after seeing a link for it somewhere on this forum. Speaking to them later on to discuss what options there are and also mentioned the ultimate car control day on the PH homepage which might be an option...

Thanks again
Chris

ps if you have bought a new car in the past 5 years, it would be great if you could fill in my quick survey I'm using for my dissertation at www.ispcarsurvey.co.uk - there was a link that PH put in their news a while back.

[zumbruk]

daydreamer said:

Top Cats Tuscan racecar day - (do a search for Topcats racing). All round brilliant day and the start of my slippery slide into racing

I'd second that. Fabbo day out, real race car on a real circuit and an instructor shouting "Power! Power! Power!" in your earole. GT3s eaten for lunch.

[anonymous-user]

ispcarsurvey said:

It's my brother's 21st on March 6th and my parents are looking at purchasing a "supercar experience" type trackday. Just wondered if anyone has had any experience of these at all - don't want him to only get 20 minutes of driving for £400-£500?

nooooooooooo. dont do it. every 'experience' day ive done has been a total waste of my life (luckily all corporate freebies) the worst are the 'supercar experiences', esp thruxton. the major exception being the jonathan palmer day, but that is in a different league price wise. agree fully with the posters above re. hiring a caterham to do a 'real' trackday. if the total price is slightly more than you looked at you could share with him; you get so much tracktime compared to any other day that sharing wouldnt ruin the day for him at all.

edited to add that ive not done the tuscan day mentioned above but heard very good things about it.

>> Edited by francisb on Wednesday 1st March 11:51

[elderly]

We bought a day at Mallory for a 22 year old.
All kinds of cars from a Seat Cupra something or other,
through Caterham and ending up with single seaters.

There was lots of track time but he ended up putting
a single seater into a wall after Gerrards !!!

He loved the day but said that he would have prefered it
if it had ALL been in Caterhams.

That echos what others have said here.

[trackdemon]

Forget the supercar day's - done one and at least I've driven these cars on track but 3 laps is nowhere near enough to learn the car and enjoy. Added to which instructor will keep you slow. Caterham / Bookatrack all day long.....

[lee3105]

francisb i done the ultimate supercar experience last saturday at thruxton porsche 911 tt, ferrari 430 and the lambo. Whilst the event was well organised and the cars and instructors were good, i dissapointed about not being able to use the full revs in each gear. The instructors keep telling me to change up quite early so only got up to about 6k in ferrari and lambo. So ended up using mostly 3rd and 4th round the track and although in terms of top speeds they were ok, got up to 130, i wanted to feel the full accleration and experience of these cars. Did you find the same?

[anonymous-user]

lee3105 said:

Did you find the same?

yep it was pretty naf, 2 speed restrictions, rev limits in the 'supercars', 3 laps per car and the instructors were purely there to look after the cars not teach you anything. the rev limits in the single seaters were set so low you were on the limiter in top for 90% of the circuit. i was pi55ed off and i nor freinds had even payed, felt sorry for everyone else...

[ispcarsurvey]

Thanks for all the advice. I have passed it on and think they are going to let my brother decide on what he wants to do. I'll post back with his experience/decision. I personally would go for the TVR I think. Get the fact you drive a marque with the prestige etc as well as not being restricted but the Caterham might work out to be better value.

Cheers
Chris