Motors and Me

In the PalmerSport brochure, this event is described as "A driving day like no other". Having just experienced it, I cannot agree more. Un-chuffing-believable. Our day, organised through the excellent Pistonheads website, started at an ungodly 8am. Registration was quickly over and we were all assigned randomly to a 'team' for the day: Senna; Schumacher; and my team, Piquet. This was basically just to split us up into groups that could use different areas of the facility concurrently. The upshot of it is that the order in which you drove the various cars was equally random. I got lucky; my day finished with the most awesome drives available. More of that in a bit. :) First for Team Piquet, it was the Caterhams on the tight and twisty East Circuit. Sadly, I didn't realise just how cramped the pedals would be and I struggled to change gear while braking. The sun strip on my visor was also so low I couldn't see more than a few yards in front of the car. Add t

Long time, no trackday. Two years, in fact. Mortgages suck. This was my first time on track in the 350Z and, while it was enjoyable, it might end up being the last time too. The car's just too heavy. While it made an admirable fist of changing direction when asked, it didn't take long to overheat its brakes, resulting in most runs being curtailed long before I felt I'd pushed it enough. Same old story, eh? Even with upgraded pads with which other users had reported a complete absence of fade. Am I just too aggressive? I don't think so; braking's where you make up most time and where you feel you're really racing. Why lose the fun? That aside, my lack of recent track experience, coupled with my sedate, petrol-saving everyday driving, saw me making loads of mistakes. I suspect it was largely down to me not sighting the track far enough ahead. The lack of discipline in my lines was appalling. Frankly, I was all over the place. My positioning approaching corners