Driving Experience, North West location and car choice help

[ajprice]

I'm looking at booking my dad a driving experience day in the north west/north Wales for his birthday. He's had one before with classic and modern Mustangs at Hooton Park, so I'm looking at supercar days, he's dropped hints about doing it again, and driving a Ferrari.

Virgin have All Star or Supercar Blast days, and I'm looking at Hooton again, or Three Sisters, which is a bit further away to get to from North Wales, and I've seen quite a few comments that Three Sisters is a tight circuit and a bit of a waste for a supercar as it won't get much speed. How is it compared to Hooton? I looked at Wales locations, they're west or south Wales and a bit far for a day.

The other query is car choice. The supercar day states "Ferraris, stunning Lamborghinis, luxurious Aston Martins, sporty Porsches and many more.", has those cars and an R8 in the images, the All Star day states "an impressive line-up of over 60 vehicles including the likes of supercars, classic, muscle and sports cars" with images of a Ferrari, Lamborghini. and Nissan GTR. These are going to depend on what's available on the day, last time the only way to see what was actually available was on the website to book a day after it was bought.

Any advice appreciated, cheers.

Edited by ajprice on Monday 1st June 10:13

[Jim Spencer]

Hi

Three sisters is a top notch Kart track, similar to Hooton park, done sprints at Wigan and if it's something small, light, nimble it's a good laugh..

I'd suggest Anglesey Circuit, lovely location, great track, they have their own 'performance driving centre' which is Lotus's IIRC and a few of the Supercar providers go there too (Google;- Anglesey Supercar Experience, and they'll pop up), IMHO it'd be much more suitable for anything that needs to stretch it's legs.. and a much nicer day out too.

I'd suggest.. that he'd probably get to 'press on' a bit more.. in the circuits own kit!

[Glenn63]

Three sisters is tiny, really a kart track or drifting. Oulton park has some good experiences. A couple years ago my mates dad had a M4 and single seater one that he couldn’t make last minute so i went and it was great fun.
M4 first with the instructor, having a chat in the pits and asking if I’d ever been on track, told him i was a regular here and other circuits he got almost excited and was on the radio to the other instructors to let us through and really pushed me to go faster, then a flying lap with an instructor which was an eye opener for what the car could really do.
Single seater was a great experience too, felt like I was going a million miles an hour but think they where actually slower than the M4s.

[mmm-five]

Agree with the others that Oulton Park and Anglesey are the only two 'proper' car race circuits in the area.

Here's a taster of what MSV offer at their various circuits (but I think Oulton only offers F4 driving and Rally/Radical passenger experiences:
https://www.msvdrivinggifts.com

Of course Oulton Park is also used by some of the other experience organisers:
https://www.trackdays.co.uk/driving-experience/oul...

This is the sort of stuff you can experience at Trac Mon, which is not a supercar 'fun' type of experience, but it means to teach you track driving techniques in a Lotus / Fiesta / MX5 / Formula Ford:
https://www.angleseycircuit.co.uk/holding/performa...

Edited by mmm-five on Monday 1st June 11:21

[drmike37]

Agree re Oulton. Did the M4 experience a couple of years ago and the instructor was worse than a teenage boy, egging me on to go faster, reaching over to flash the other cars to let us through etc. It was tremendous fun. It really helped that I knew my way around having done numerous bike track days there (but the line through druids is different on a bike).
Btw, also did the 4x4 and the rally experience on the same weekend. They were not nearly as good.

[ajprice]

Thanks for the suggestions, I'm looking at Oulton or Anglesey now, Three Sisters/Hooton is out. He did an M3 drive experience and passenger ride at Oulton Park Fosters circuit, and when people were on the passenger ride you could hear the tyres squealing from the pro driver getting the car sideways at the corners all round the track from the pit area , never been to the Anglesey circuit though, leaning more towards that as its something new.

[mmm-five]

ajprice said:

Thanks for the suggestions, I'm looking at Oulton or Anglesey now, Three Sisters/Hooton is out. He did an M3 drive experience and passenger ride at Oulton Park Fosters circuit, and when people were on the passenger ride you could hear the tyres squealing from the pro driver getting the car sideways at the corners all round the track from the pit area , never been to the Anglesey circuit though, leaning more towards that as its something new.

If you do find something at Anglesey, remember to take your shorts & t-shirt, factor 50, brolly, winter clothes, wellies, dust mask, and ground spikes in case it's windy...you'll probably see all those conditions in one day

[Steve H]

Anglesey definitely a good choice.

It would be worth trying to book with the actual event operator rather than a broker like Virgin. If you want supercars it won’t be Anglesey Circuit themselves but someone like 6th Gear or Everyman.

[Alex Z]

Oulton park was fantastic fun on the Vauxhall VXR days.
Doing a smaller track in a faster car would be very limiting.

[ajprice]

Thanks again for the help, I've booked a drive at Anglesey through 6th Gear.