Car Track Days
In preparation for my first car race I drove a racing Caterham Superlight at a Brands Hatch track day.
A well setup Caterham is a brilliant track day weapon. Very light with a big twin cam motor up front quickly turns the Kent scenery into a blur. But a racing Caterham takes things much further. The full roll cage not only provides much more protection it also stiffens up the chassis making the handling at racing speeds much better. And talking of safety I was strapped in with a six point race harness plus additional arm restraints, to prevent limbs straying out of the safety cage in the event of a high speed roll over.
Also being a racing machine, this Caterham was fitted with data acquisition and the team were able to anylize my driving in minute detail feeding back ways to go faster, for example I got into a big slide going through Surtees, they could see where the back end started to come around on me and where I backed off the gas to catch it with a big handful of opposite lock. Drifting around a track with tires smoking may look impressive but it really slows you down. In the next session on track, with the teams feedback I was able to anticipate the slide, back off the gas less and go faster.
The only down side in doing a track day in such a fast car is that almost everyone else is driving normal sporty road cars which can't compete against a race prepped car, and I found that Subaru Impreza's et al simply getting in my way.
A well setup Caterham is a brilliant track day weapon. Very light with a big twin cam motor up front quickly turns the Kent scenery into a blur. But a racing Caterham takes things much further. The full roll cage not only provides much more protection it also stiffens up the chassis making the handling at racing speeds much better. And talking of safety I was strapped in with a six point race harness plus additional arm restraints, to prevent limbs straying out of the safety cage in the event of a high speed roll over.
Also being a racing machine, this Caterham was fitted with data acquisition and the team were able to anylize my driving in minute detail feeding back ways to go faster, for example I got into a big slide going through Surtees, they could see where the back end started to come around on me and where I backed off the gas to catch it with a big handful of opposite lock. Drifting around a track with tires smoking may look impressive but it really slows you down. In the next session on track, with the teams feedback I was able to anticipate the slide, back off the gas less and go faster.
The only down side in doing a track day in such a fast car is that almost everyone else is driving normal sporty road cars which can't compete against a race prepped car, and I found that Subaru Impreza's et al simply getting in my way.
The amazing Caterham Superlight.
