Evening,

For christmas just gone my g/f bought me a driving experience day and on Saturday I finally managed to experience it!!!! And what can I say except absolutely amazing!! I drove a Porsche 911, Ferrari F355, Lotus Elise and Subaru WRX Turbo and it was really was great fun.

When I was driving the Porsche 911 my adrenaline was pumping like crazy and as I turned into the bends and touched the gas you could feel the back end twitching. I definitely feel that LFS put me in a good position as the instructors seemed very impressed with my driving. One thing that struck me IRL was how late you can turn into the bend and as you can see in the video below there is a blue cone indicating where you should start turning (I would have been lost without that )

After driving the lotus elise the instructor was very impressed and he thought I had raced on a track before. I told him I hadn't and he seriously recommended that I get to a track ASAP

Anyhow enjoy the video of me in the porsche 911 (not sure of the exact model) and if you compare my brake lights to the other drivers you can see me lifting off the brakes between the chicane

http://www.zen33231.zen.co.uk/Porsche.avi

cant tell if your going faster ... or everyone else is going slow

looked like fun, (well.. besides the weather looked kinda nasty)

should have told your instructor about live for speed

this is kinda O/T, but like you said about the rear twitching, im scared as hell about my sliding my car around under any condition, because truth be told, in LFS i can go slide around like its nothing, but when im sitting in a car, i honestly am scared to death that i would have absolutely no control in my car if i were to ever slide it

confront your fear with practise on some old airfield and some "older" tyres, i'm guessing after a few days/sessions, you'll partly loose your fear.
I'm not saying to be feared is totally bad but (helps you stay alive) and i think it's more worthy to feel confident and not that distracted by your fears.

reagrds

Nice video, sounds like you enjoyed it. Would you recommend the company to others? I've considered doing something like this but I suspect my money might be better spent on some VPP pedals.

awsome man yeah sounds like alot of fun

@XCNuse, in response to micha: A big wide open parking lot might work, too. Just don't get caught.

Sounds like a great experience, ebola. Something we should all try at least once in our lives!

Quote from Forbin :

@XCNuse, in response to micha: A big wide open parking lot might work, too. Just don't get caught.

Yeah, I heard of a few local tuned Supra's being charged $300 for doing donuts/drifting in a parking lot last weekend. So just make sure you're nice and out of the way :P

Quote from Forbin :

@XCNuse, in response to micha: A big wide open parking lot might work, too. Just don't get caught.

sounds like something to do one early sunday morning..

but now that my county and another county split there are cops.. everywhere

the huge problem would be that if i were ever seen, i'd be written up for 'laying of tread' so.. there isn't anywhere that i can think of thats close that i can do that stuff

Quote from Michael Denham :

Sounds like a great experience, ebola. Something we should all try at least once in our lives!



Yeah, I heard of a few local tuned Supra's being charged $300 for doing donuts/drifting in a parking lot last weekend. So just make sure you're nice and out of the way :P

Good points unlike XCNUSE, might as well call him NURSE, put a little hat on him
, seems fitting. Like a night Nurse.

Quote from jtr99 :

Nice video, sounds like you enjoyed it. Would you recommend the company to others? I've considered doing something like this but I suspect my money might be better spent on some VPP pedals.

After my experience I would definitely recommend them. It was very organised and the instructors were very good but the best thing was they didnt rush you. Also they didnt try and sell you every souvenir under the sun.

I was very sceptical to begin with but I was impressed and that was saying something. If any of the cars break down then that can cause problems but I was lucky. The Mitsubishi Evolution broke down but luckily they had a spare.

How much time do you get in each car? And could you only drive it on the small layout?

If you got to drive them all which was your favourite?

Sounds fun, I bought my dad a single-seater experience at Silverstone for father's day, I think he's doing it next week. What track was it at?

Quote from XCNuse :

this is kinda O/T, but like you said about the rear twitching, im scared as hell about my sliding my car around under any condition, because truth be told, in LFS i can go slide around like its nothing, but when im sitting in a car, i honestly am scared to death that i would have absolutely no control in my car if i were to ever slide it

If you caught a slide in real lfie once, you will notice, that it isn't too difficult. I once avoided an accident in the last second, which resulted in a slide. Which I caught. My co-driver was kinda scared after that, but I just thought: "Whoa, just like in lfs"

Quote from ebola :

[text]
http://www.zen33231.zen.co.uk/Porsche.avi

I don't know, you seemed quite a bit faster on the lap without the others in front of you, or is it just my imagination? Anyway, seemed like great fun, I had a bit of similar experience, but we could just drive BMWs

Quote from sil3ntwar :

How much time do you get in each car? And could you only drive it on the small layout?

If you got to drive them all which was your favourite?

Quote from Leifde :

Sounds fun, I bought my dad a single-seater experience at Silverstone for father's day, I think he's doing it next week. What track was it at?

I only got 6 laps in each car but still felt like I had a decent run. We could only drive on the small layout as it was an old airfield in Seighford (Near Stafford) and it looks like the track was made for this purpose.

Leifde I'm sure your dad will love the single seater at Silverstone

damn that Aston sounds good!

Years ago my brother had a driving day in a Formula Ford, but the car was rev limited to 4000rpm (way way way below the power band). Got quite a few laps (about 3 in a hatchback, 5 or 6 in a faster saloon, and maybe 10 or a dozen in the FF). that was at Brands.

Quote from Jakg :

damn that Aston sounds good!

That Aston was like music to my ears

Days like those sound alot of fun, to get to drive cars that in normla life dont get to drive.

Was that the baby V8 aston, cause somedays going to uni i see one of them and OMFG it sounds nice

I did a day at Thruxton driving an MG ZT, Merc SLK, Ferrari 360 and FRenault when I was 18 which was fun. I'd highly recommend using them as they're fairly liberal with speed...although FRenaults were max wing and rev limited. Having raced karts for a while now though there's no way I could do another driving day as I'd want to actually race....hence why I'm going to do a couple of season in the Caterham Super Grads provinding the race insurance isn't too rediculous :P Definitely worth while doing though if you've never driven a track though.

Quote from AtomAnt :

Good points unlike XCNUSE, might as well call him NURSE, put a little hat on him
, seems fitting. Like a night Nurse.

if you have something against me, say it in private, cause no one wants to look through a thread with someone trying to be mean over the internet by typing some words

edit- in other words, if you have something to say to me, PM me rather than fill up a thread with no addition to thread topic

Come on you two, anybody would think you were both married.

Just watched you driving in the porsche and I can appreciate how nervy you would actually be driving that round especcially in those conditions and I think you should have backed off as the two infront were definetely slowing you down.

As for the cars and track, I have to say that the Aston Ferrari and porsche looked like fish out of water, track was to small for them IMO. The caterham and elise looked although they would be fun and were probarly better suited for the track.

Well done on it though, now get out to a real track and show em how it's done.

Quote from Bawbag :

Come on you two, anybody would think you were both married.

Just watched you driving in the porsche and I can appreciate how nervy you would actually be driving that round especcially in those conditions and I think you should have backed off as the two infront were definetely slowing you down.

As for the cars and track, I have to say that the Aston Ferrari and porsche looked like fish out of water, track was to small for them IMO. The caterham and elise looked although they would be fun and were probarly better suited for the track.

Well done on it though, now get out to a real track and show em how it's done.

Cheers for the comments and yes I agree the track was definitely more suited to the Elise. If I actually decide i want to start doing some "proper" driving what would you advise be my first step?

Buy a car for trackdays (something road legal so you can drive it there and back, but if you can afford it not your daily driver). If you like it after that I'd have though a single make series, like Sevens or even MX-5's would be a good bet. Alternatively, if you like older cars, the HSCC 70's road sports has some good racing and a nice atmosphere, but you'd (obviously) need an older car.

Quote from ebola :

Cheers for the comments and yes I agree the track was definitely more suited to the Elise. If I actually decide i want to start doing some "proper" driving what would you advise be my first step?

Pfft, AFAIK there is hundreds of things to do as your 1st step, and me only being 16 I doubt i'm eligable to give that sort of advise! As Tristian says though, a track day car but I wouldn't say one that was road legal, been to knock hill pleanty of times and all the guys up there doing testing and stuff are all off small trailers.

Hopefully we do get some really nice starting tips up here as it's hopefully the way i'm gunna go when the bank allows it and I don't wanna be spending money in places that arn't needed and i'm sure you feel the same.

As for a car, most of the actual cars that people are up there to test (Unlike the boy racers who try to race their corsa and get humped) usually have something like old citroen AX's or the oldest Fiesta model with GTi engines in them and they smoke the scoobys and evos. So ebay I guess because people sell these cars for nothing as it will cost them money to get it scrapped.

Whatever you do, keep us posted with what you are doing as i'm certainly interested in the turnout and how you go about getting into the sport.

If you people want to explore the performance envelope in your real cars there is a very inexpensive and redily avalable outlet. Autocross. At least here in the US is cheap and you can often fine several venues a month.

And from my experance in LFS and the autocross school where I discovered I have a drift car, all I can say is LFS was a great tool for developing the skills to react with out thinking and just do whats needed to catch, hold and correct slides. By my 5 attack of the cource I was one with the car, using the throttle as much as the steering to turn the car.