February can be a risky time of year to embark on a track day. The glorious
weather at Donington on Monday was probably beyond most people's wildest hopes
when they booked. A chill day but with glorious sunshine, once the track had
been pounded a few times to wear the dew off, the conditions were ideal.
This event, organised by Bookatrack was popular as usual and with a
particularly quick set of drivers taking part. Lotuses dominated the scene with
plenty of Elises and a number of Exiges blasting around too.
Also evident were a whole range of 7 style cars including the increasingly
popular bike engined cars.
Martin Keenen of MK Engineering kindly granted me a few laps in his Fireblade engined screamer. With 14,000 revs to play with, an aural clue as to when to
change gear wasn't enough for my uneducated ear, which left me checking the rev
counter frequently as I got to grips with it.
Despite that, it was huge fun - the gearbox was superb, nicking it back
(without clutch) to work my way up through the gears and quickly banging it
foward to change down. Coupled with a well sorted and predictable chassis it was
a very easy car to drive at some pace although the single shaky mirror left me a
little blind to those lurking around my rear! The car certainly had masses more
potential than I exploited and highlights the immense fun that can be had in
relatively inexpensive cars.
Fastrackracing were there shaking down their bike engined Locosts which
they'll be renting out for track days in future.
Well, which would you prefer?! |
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Given the fun I had driving the well sorted MK car, I now fully appreciate
the idea of hiring a car for track days as a cheap way of getting into a very
fast car and providing some very different entertainment from my road car.