My Airfield Activity Day
Discussion
For anyone that has never been to a carlimits day before, I absolutely recommend it above anything else you can do with your Sunday (or any other day of the week). They do two different types of day, a training day, which is either 2 or 4 cars and you get a lot of one to one training, or an activity day, which is mostly the same stuff as the training day, but up to 25 cars and a lot cheaper and almost no training other than a few pointers.
Before about a month ago I'd never done any airfield or track driving, but I thought it was time I put an end to that. I bought an MX5 about a year ago and have been slowly fixing it up as it was mostly broken when I got it. So at the beginning of this month I went on a carlimits training day, apart from having no idea what I was doing, it was a fantastic day, learnt so much, turns out I didn't even know how to steer properly! Learnt more about understeer and oversteer than any number of hours playing Forza have ever taught me. After that day I was hooked, and immediately booked up an activity day to practice what I had learnt that day.
Which brings us to today, I went with another couple of folks I know (Mellow Matt/Chappers off these fine forums), one in an mx5 and one in a Noble M12.
The day starts out with the high speed bend, where the aim is to try get through a corner without spinning/hitting the pretend wall as fast as possible (at the start of the corner). Armed only with my one training day and a new set of Toyo T1Rs, I managed to set the 3rd fastest time on the board, beating Elises and Porsches, which made me smile for a while. They then set up two circuits and you can queue up for either and get a timed lap before heading to the back of the queue again. This is a great place to attempt to put in a fast lap, OR, just screw about drifting as much as you want round all the corners, which is amazingly fun. The final activity of the day was a single full length sprint circuit. It was the fastest you could get on the day with a combination of high speed corners and lower speed chicanes and other corners. While the MX5 was definitely the slowest at this out of all the cars there, it was probably still one of the most fun. The other MX5 (MellowMatt) and I had a slight competition between ourselves and kept pipping each others fastest lap every other lap. I did however win by 0.3s on my last lap!
I'd thoroughly recommend a carlimits day if you just want a great day of pissing about, or if you actually want to learn to drive a bit better on the limit, then their training day is great value for what you learn, and the instructor Andy Walsh is a superb driver and a better coach.
Ready to go
My Rival
The owner of the Noble was already regretting letting me have a drive
Other Nice Cars of the day
mmm GT3RS Exige
Proof that MX5s go round corners faster than most things
Before about a month ago I'd never done any airfield or track driving, but I thought it was time I put an end to that. I bought an MX5 about a year ago and have been slowly fixing it up as it was mostly broken when I got it. So at the beginning of this month I went on a carlimits training day, apart from having no idea what I was doing, it was a fantastic day, learnt so much, turns out I didn't even know how to steer properly! Learnt more about understeer and oversteer than any number of hours playing Forza have ever taught me. After that day I was hooked, and immediately booked up an activity day to practice what I had learnt that day.
Which brings us to today, I went with another couple of folks I know (Mellow Matt/Chappers off these fine forums), one in an mx5 and one in a Noble M12.
The day starts out with the high speed bend, where the aim is to try get through a corner without spinning/hitting the pretend wall as fast as possible (at the start of the corner). Armed only with my one training day and a new set of Toyo T1Rs, I managed to set the 3rd fastest time on the board, beating Elises and Porsches, which made me smile for a while. They then set up two circuits and you can queue up for either and get a timed lap before heading to the back of the queue again. This is a great place to attempt to put in a fast lap, OR, just screw about drifting as much as you want round all the corners, which is amazingly fun. The final activity of the day was a single full length sprint circuit. It was the fastest you could get on the day with a combination of high speed corners and lower speed chicanes and other corners. While the MX5 was definitely the slowest at this out of all the cars there, it was probably still one of the most fun. The other MX5 (MellowMatt) and I had a slight competition between ourselves and kept pipping each others fastest lap every other lap. I did however win by 0.3s on my last lap!
I'd thoroughly recommend a carlimits day if you just want a great day of pissing about, or if you actually want to learn to drive a bit better on the limit, then their training day is great value for what you learn, and the instructor Andy Walsh is a superb driver and a better coach.
Ready to go
My Rival
The owner of the Noble was already regretting letting me have a drive
Other Nice Cars of the day
mmm GT3RS Exige
Proof that MX5s go round corners faster than most things
I've been on one or two of those:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MJ-gXFmgaCU
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5jrXrp1mck8
Always a bit of a giggle.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MJ-gXFmgaCU
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5jrXrp1mck8
Always a bit of a giggle.
My good vid from the day - recorded on my iPhone 4 with £6 ebay windscreen suction mount.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jq8dlUpWFYE
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jq8dlUpWFYE
Chapppers said:
My good vid from the day - recorded on my iPhone 4 with £6 ebay windscreen suction mount.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jq8dlUpWFYE
The stage looks a little bland? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jq8dlUpWFYE
N88 said:
Chapppers said:
My good vid from the day - recorded on my iPhone 4 with £6 ebay windscreen suction mount.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jq8dlUpWFYE
The stage looks a little bland? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jq8dlUpWFYE
Thoroughly agree with Salgar, it was immense amounts of fun 
It's totally different from a trackday, as on trackdays I've been on you really have to be sensible, and you generally aim to go as fast as possible, whereas these days are all about finding your and your car's limits. And being an idiot
It was nice and icy to begin with, but thawed out later on, but there was still enough scope for a bit of sliding
ETA: I'll get you next time btw Paul
It's totally different from a trackday, as on trackdays I've been on you really have to be sensible, and you generally aim to go as fast as possible, whereas these days are all about finding your and your car's limits. And being an idiot It was nice and icy to begin with, but thawed out later on, but there was still enough scope for a bit of sliding
ETA: I'll get you next time btw Paul
Edited by Mellow Matt on Tuesday 30th November 20:27
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