Monday 18th September 2006

Caterham adds more drift days

Ever wanted to learn how to drive sideways?

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Sideways Caterham

Caterham has added two additional drift experience dates to its calendar: Saturday 30 September and Sunday 1 October, both at Silverstone. Places are going fast, reckons Caterham.

Caterham Motorsport Club drifting

New for this year, you can experience the awesome feeling of drifting a car sideways. The light weight, high power and great handling, the Seven is an ideal car in which to hone your drifting abilities. Spend the day looking out the side of the car as you gracefully slide the car around our specially designed drift courses.

An orientation and demonstration from our instructors will familiarise you with the cars and you will be taught to steer the car using the throttle. Initially you may find yourself spinning the car as you deliberately provoke power oversteer. You will then learn how to kick the tail out and hold the slide by balancing smooth steering and throttle inputs. There are few feelings more satisfying than controlling a drift and the ‘grin factor’ is simply off the scale.

The instructors will teach you both in groups and individually and Caterham guarantees that you will have drifted a car before the day is out. When your confidence has grown you change to a more challenging track layout designed to allow you longer drifts. There will be four courses, with the last giving you the opportunity to show off your new drifting abilities at a higher speed and through multiple corners.

The three best drifters of the day win prizes, but everyone leaves with a smile and improved driving skills.

• www.caterham.co.uk/trackdays

[mikey_p]

I did this a few weeks back at Silverstone and its well worth it I thought. Really good fun, good atmosphere and a lot more time in the car (whilst on your own) compared to most other "Driving experience" days.
Learnt a lot and was a lot of fun, and coming 1st place at the end of the day always helps

[mikey_p]

Can't say exactly but i was out on the course probably about 8-10 times, and you get a couple of laps for each time you go out. I've done a lot of trackdays and if you think its going to be like a trackday then you'll obviously end up disappointed. It's a driving experience/training day so your not in the car all the time, however compared to a "Ferrari Exerience" type event were you get to do about 3 laps of an airfield this Caterham day provides much more time in the car. And if your a virgin drifter like I was you learn a lot from the day.

[mikey_p]

havoc said:

mikey_p said:

Can't say exactly but i was out on the course probably about 8-10 times, and you get a couple of laps for each time you go out.

So probably 20 laps of Silverstone tops?

And I suppose you're not going THAT quickly, so what's that, 2 - 2.5mins/lap?

Just trying to work out if it's as good value as a track-day or not?

It's not done on the circuit. If it were everyone would have to be pulled out of the gravel traps every 2 mins. It's just done in a large carpark with cones so there's little chance you can do any damage. And I really wouldn't try and compare it to a track day. They teach you how to control a drift, and yes at fairly low speeds. Personally i'd find it selfish and irresponsible for someone to try and learn to drift on a track day. So if you can't drift but would like to learn how then this is very good, but if you want loads of time in the car then do a trackday, however I wouldnt use a trackday to learn how to drift, you could end up doing a lot of damage to your car.