Car Track Day

The Too Fast crew recently did a track day at Brand Hatch, but instead of risking my Honda Integra road car we hired a race prepared Caterham Superlight from Spurr Engineering.

Brands Hatch 8:30 am, I sign on and put my name down for the Advanced group. The car arrived in the lorry with the guys from Spurr in attendance to look after me and their Caterham track beast which was exclusively mine for the day. Being over 6' 4" I had been previously been given a fitting for the seat, a thin skin of plastic between me and the floor & rear bulkhead, then filled with quick setting hot foam.

Getting in the car is a tight fit with a full race roll cage, you have to sit on the roof and drop into the tiny cockpit, with some assistance I strap myself in the 6 point race harness. Then fit the Momo steering wheel then put on my fireproof balaclava and helmet, I make my way to pit lane for the first session.

We get waved onto the track and for the first lap or so I have to keep half of my right foot on the brakes to get some heat into the racing brake pads. Soon I can feel some grip in the racing Avon tyres and I start to explore the power of the Superlight engine at 8,500 rpm coupled to the 6 speed box.

This is my first time in a Caterham and I am immediately impressed by how easy it is to throw the little car around the track and I am soon passing cars at all corners, the brakes have to be experienced to be believed, I am braking so hard, the loose ends of my shoulder straps point straight forwards as I stand on the anchors going into the fearful Paddock Hill bend. Pretty soon I am passing Porsche GT's and Imprezza' s at will.

Although you are not supposed to time laps at track days, we place a battery powered light unit at the side of the track to trigger my on-board Stack dash computer, and at the end of each session they download my times onto the laptop and we discuss where I can make up time.

The level of information is so good I could examine in detail on the readout a big slide I had at Clearways, the Stack system showed my inside wheel spinning, my slightly late over reaction and the resulting lock to lock slide as I fought to regain control.

Seeing that the Spurr boys gave me an invaluable tip, "anticipate the slide and don't back off the gas completely, you will get grip back quicker" yeah sure I thought, I was sideways at nearly 90 mph looking at the barriers looming up. Anyway on the next session I did as I was told and guess what, instead of that "OH MY GOD" helpless feeling, I found myself in control of a gentle power slide.

Soon my times dip into the mid to low 50's which would get me well up the grid in a Caterham race. To give you some idea of the performance available a good Caterham Superlight puts out 200 bhp and weighs in at half the weight of a new mini.

Too Fast For You.com Rating
Adrenalin: 8 out of 10 - mummmyyyyyyy
Injury: 1 out of 10% - Fireproof underwear and surrounded in a steel cage
Expense: 9 out of 10% - cheaper than racing but still very expensive

Very Costly but good for a laugh and a relatively safe thing to try. PS leave your brains in the toolbox before each race.

The Too Fast crew have done many race school days mostly at Brands Hatch on karts, bikes and twice in the car school, both times have been asked politely to leave.

Apparently I once completed an overtaking manoeuvre past an instructor through Paddock Hill bend, at Brands Hatch, while going backwards.

Too Fast For You.com Rating
Adrenalin Factor: 40% - You get to go quite fast on a real race track, but they do limit your speed.
Injury Factor: 10% - Controlled speeds and race tracks designed for cars going a lot faster plus a steel roll cage
Expense Factor: 30% - quite expensive but the cars are very well prepared.

Good for a laugh and a relatively safe thing to try. But nothing like real racing.

Motorcycle Track Days

Car Track Day

Racing Schools