Large open area to 'practice' in?
Discussion
Any ideas on where I could find a large bit of Tarmac to have a play around in the old 325i I've bought? The steering has a ratio from a Leyland so I'm not going to do it on the roads, I'm also a bit too old to be going to the sainsburys car park!
Ideally near Reading and obviously fairly quiet/deserted!
Ideally near Reading and obviously fairly quiet/deserted!
fivesixseven8 said:
The sensible option would be one of those "drift" practice days I guess?
Yep.They do a 'drift what ya brund' at Santapod which isn't toooo far away. This is on 'regular' tarmac.
They also do a drifting day on the 'rally' stages at Oulton Park. These are two short and twisty tracks which are made of low friction tarmac (higher glass content). I did one last month. Good fun and low tyre wear. Taught me a lot about controlling the car, skills I've been able to take across into my sprint and trackday driving. I don't think I'd do another specific drift day, but I'm glad I've done One.
mrmr96 said:
fivesixseven8 said:
The sensible option would be one of those "drift" practice days I guess?
Yep.They do a 'drift what ya brund' at Santapod which isn't toooo far away. This is on 'regular' tarmac.
They also do a drifting day on the 'rally' stages at Oulton Park. These are two short and twisty tracks which are made of low friction tarmac (higher glass content). I did one last month. Good fun and low tyre wear. Taught me a lot about controlling the car, skills I've been able to take across into my sprint and trackday driving. I don't think I'd do another specific drift day, but I'm glad I've done One.
Oh, just remembered! The above are specific DRIFTING events to drift your own car. Depending on exactly what you want to do, there's also events at North Weald airfield in Essex run by Carlimits which are pretty good for exploring your cars limits (no pun intended).
They have two massive tarmac areas at the airfield, connected with a short (fast) access road. They set up coned sprint courses for you to complete against a stopwatch and give tips on improving your time. As the courses are on these big aprons and set out with cones it's really safe to press on. Obvisouly you only go one at a time, so appart from cones there's NOTHING to hit (just tarmac, more tarmac and then grass... it's an airfield!). So following my drifting at Oulton I had a whale of a time on the twisty sprint courses they laid out.
(Sorry for sounding so evangelical, but I had a great time and would reccomend it to anyone. Best bit is that it's only £38 on weekdays or £45 at the weekend!)
They have two massive tarmac areas at the airfield, connected with a short (fast) access road. They set up coned sprint courses for you to complete against a stopwatch and give tips on improving your time. As the courses are on these big aprons and set out with cones it's really safe to press on. Obvisouly you only go one at a time, so appart from cones there's NOTHING to hit (just tarmac, more tarmac and then grass... it's an airfield!). So following my drifting at Oulton I had a whale of a time on the twisty sprint courses they laid out.
(Sorry for sounding so evangelical, but I had a great time and would reccomend it to anyone. Best bit is that it's only £38 on weekdays or £45 at the weekend!)
fivesixseven8 said:
Now just find me that in Berkshire! 
I drive from Hampshire to Essex for these days (I'm doing my third of the year in Oct). It's only about 1h 30min from where I live.Here's a map from Reading:
http://maps.google.co.uk/maps?f=d&source=s_d&a...
mrmr96 said:
fivesixseven8 said:
Now just find me that in Berkshire!
I drive from Hampshire to Essex for these days (I'm doing my third of the year in Oct). It's only about 1h 30min from where I live.Here's a map from Reading:
http://maps.google.co.uk/maps?f=d&source=s_d&a...
fivesixseven8 said:
mrmr96 said:
fivesixseven8 said:
Now just find me that in Berkshire!
I drive from Hampshire to Essex for these days (I'm doing my third of the year in Oct). It's only about 1h 30min from where I live.Here's a map from Reading:
http://maps.google.co.uk/maps?f=d&source=s_d&a...
fivesixseven8 said:
Adamantium said:
hmmm think ill be doing a day there soon for £38
Bit of a bargain if it is the case. I couldn't find any dates other than the 4th September which I cannot do.http://www.carlimits.com/script/viewEvents.php?typ...
Edit to add: Some of the 'Club only' days don't get filled by people from those clubs, so if you call up close to the date and they are not fully booked then they will sometimes take drivers from outside the club in order to make up numbers. Obviously it depends on what their deal with the club is, but it has happened in the past.
Edited by mrmr96 on Wednesday 26th August 16:30
wombat172a said:
Yup, it's a QinetiQ test venue. I went there for the PH/Twingo 133 test and review day. Would be ideal but it's not open for public access (unless you pay I assume?)wombat172a said:
I might know a fair bit 
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