A voucher; good or bad? I don’t agree with the opinion that a voucher is a lazy present, so I was delighted when, for my birthday present, Mr A  bought me a voucher from Virgin Experiences which entitled me to “blast” 6 supercars over 3 miles each.  They offer several different packages of different numbers of cars and different miles driven.  Once you activate your voucher you’re given guidance on how to book your experience, including choosing your preferred location (from venues across the UK).  The actual booking is then taken on by the company which owns or operates the track days at each location.

I decided to use my closest venue, which was at Dunsfold Aerodrome in Surrey, which happens to be where the TV show ‘Top Gear’ is filmed, and which is managed by Everyman Motor Racing, who also sell the driving experiences themselves directly.  When you phone up to book your Experience day (you can do it online too) you need to specify which of their cars you want to try.  They always have a good range of top marques, but you only name your preferred marque, not the model.  So while they advertise that they have Ferrari, Lamborghini, Porsche etc, they don’t tell you the particular models.  On the day, I found out that you can pay for an upgraded car, to a particular model, if they have one there.  I paid for some add-ons when booking, including Collision Damage Waiver, a “familiarisation lap”, and in-car video recordings of all my drives, which you get on a memory stick at the end.

I booked my Experience to start at 11:00, but we had to arrive an hour earlier: You have to park your car on the airfield near its entrance, then a minibus takes you to the part of the airfield they operate from, you queue to “check in”, where you’re given a slip of paper with details of the cars you’ve chosen, including estimated start times, and then you attend a “drivers briefing”.  Some Experience packages, mine included, include a couple of “familiarisation laps” where a few people at a time are taken out in a ‘standard’ road car (mine was a pretty nippy Skoda) to start ‘learning’ the track layout and its features.  After that you head off to the spots the cars you’ve selected start from and “register” as being present and ready to go.  The first few times I didn’t have to wait longer than 10 minutes to get into the driving seat, but as the morning went on I was waiting more than half an hour for each car, which I found quite tedious.  Especially on a weekend, a few hundred people might be taking part in the event.

The package Mr A bought for me included a “hot lap” as a passenger in a car driven by a professional driver. If you get this too it happens after your other driving laps because they don’t want you to learn the “racers’ line”; you’re to stick to the lines shown to you on the familiarisation laps.

My first car was the Audi R8. On every drive you set off gently and then ‘test’ the brakes, while still in the ‘paddock’ area. Of course they all work, but you need to test how soft/firm they are, how far you need to push to get them to ‘bite’ etc.  Then you filter onto the track (which is quite busy) and push the accelerator!  All of the cars I drove had “paddles” by the steering wheel for changing gears up and down, and your instructor advises you when to change gears.  This was my first experience of using paddle gears, but my instructor thought I took to it very well.  And of course because the cars are essentially automatic, they don’t have a clutch pedal, but you’re instructed to keep your left foot on its rest plate – no left foot braking!  This is a hint that they want you to drive reasonably sensibly; not “going for it”.  I found this a little inhibiting, particularly when the instructors were shouting “brake” long before I would naturally have done so, but I guess they know best. (And they want to protect their expensive assets, as well as their and your lives!).  So to manage your own expectations you need to look upon a day like this as a chance to drive a supercar, not to race one.  The cars aren’t set up to race: no safety cages, crash helmets, racing seatbelts or plastic windows; they are just as you would buy them from the showroom to drive on normal roads.

A human’s self-preservation instincts also stop you being silly, and this instinct was very much in evidence on the early drives, as I struggled to remember the track layout, which gear paddle to use, and the lines I needed to take into corners. As Dunsfold is/was an airfield with largely straight lines of concrete and asphalt, some corners and both of the chicanes are indicated by cones on the road. If you outbreak yourself it’s better to hit a cone than a barrier! (I didn’t hit any cones!)  So my A8 laps were not very quick (although they felt quick, and sounded quick with the V10 engine growling behind my head).  By the time of my 3rd drive I was better equipped to push harder, subject to the instructors’ grace.  I found the Audi to be a good introduction to my day, both the car and I felt very safe and stable.

Car No. 2 was a Nissan GT-R, the least costly of the cars I’d selected (£80,000), but a car with a great reputation among “petrol heads”.  I was expecting a lairy beast with a wobbly rear end, but I found it to be very well behaved and most enjoyable to drive. Without doubt this would be a very good ‘entry level’ supercar for a driving enthusiast.

My third car was an Aston Martin DB9.  I can’t actually recall anything in particular about this car, other than it was a comfortable drive, but a little heavy in feeling.

Next up was a Porsche 911 Carrera 2. I’ve been a Porsche fan for years; they make great cars that can be used every day. I’ve owned a 944S2 and a 968S and found them to be very practical cars, and I was really looking forward to driving a 911.  But once again I didn’t feel anything remarkable in it.  But this car had a different paddle shift system to all the other cars, which was more “button” rather than “paddle”, which I found quite hard to use without looking down at the button as I pressed it. I got quite an acceleration kick on the back straight, but it only happened on one of my 2 fast laps for some reason I don’t understand.  Although this car was a convertible, the roof was kept closed and inside there wasn’t any buffering or flapping at speed.

My 5th drive was to be in a Ferrari; everyone’s favourite marque. The wait was quite long, when I overheard a Marshall telling someone they could pay to upgrade to a Ferrari 458 which had a shorter queue, so I agreed to that £20 cash deal.  It turns out I would otherwise have been driving a Ferrari 355 spyder, which one of my earlier instructors had told me was “quite clunky”.

This was the drive I enjoyed the most over the whole day. Any petrolhead would want to drive a Ferrari, and this one is recognised as a particularly special car. It is so beautiful and its 4.5l V8 engine sounds so good, inside and out.  Driving the 458 felt noticeably different to the other cars that day; it felt light and nimble, and its steering was so precise.  I loved it.  And it was RED.

I stayed Italian for my final drive: a Lamborghini Gallardo Spyder.  It was fun to drive in an open top cabin on such a lovely, sunny day. I could enjoy the sound of the engine more, and there wasn’t any buffeting when I was driving at speed.  BUT… this car was the hardest to drive because when changing up the gears at speed, the car made a ‘kick’ to the left, requiring immediate steering wheel correction.  It was rather unsettling, but my instructor didn’t appear to have witnessed the ‘kick’ before.

The final part of my day was the “hot lap” driven by a ‘real’ driver!  The “hot laps” are driven in a 4-door 525 bhp Vauxhaul VXR8, so three passengers go at a time. I was lucky enough to grab the front seat, but to my surprise I wasn’t scared by the professional’s driving, even though he got to significantly higher speeds than I’d managed earlier.

Overall I had a good, fun and memorable day, made all the better by the bright sunny conditions. 8/10

Things would have been better: if I had been encouraged to drive and corner faster, and to brake later; if there were less queueing for the drives; if Everyman Racing didn’t appear to be constantly looking for extra money, through car upgrades or the cost of photos; if the in-car video recording (paid for) had actually worked properly; and if they would give you an extra lap if you’ve been held up by slower traffic.

 

 

 

 

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