Rockingham's F355 Experience
£299 for twenty minutes!? Worthwhile says Richard Firth
The Johnny Herbert Experience at Rockingham offers a drive in a race spec F355 Challenge around the in-field National Circuit, and it's serious, serious fun. The car has a fibreglass body, race suspension, brakes, 380bhp and P-Zero slicks so sticky you could stick the whole thing to your fridge door.
Busy Track
As the drive is sharing track space with Elises, souped up Imprezzas and Seat Cupras there's quite a few people kicking around but on track traffic was rarely a problem and when encountered offered the chance to take the odd breath and occasionally blink.
The "Experience" started with a briefing, when a few pointers concerning, cars, speed, corners and physics were covered, along with the usual safety stuff, and then we were off under the tunnel to the infield circuit, where we picked up our lids, and met our instructor, Dave Manners. I was expecting a pimply 16 year old but I was surprised to see he is even older than me.
As all the drives are shared I had a 20 minute wait whilst my fellow driver has his go. Eventually the great yellow Ferrari came back into the pits, and it was my turn. I got into the five point harness and waited for the "don't take it passed X thousand RPM" instruction, which didn't come. The only thing I was told not to do was put the handbrake on, as it warps the disks when they're hot. I hadn't been planning to use much handbrake on my way around so I didn't see this as too much of a problem.
Building up Speed
As they'd requested during the briefing I took the first couple of laps pretty steadily, to reassure Dave I wasn't going to try and deliberately kill him, and to understand the circuit a little better, as well as the car and in particular the interesting Ferrari gearbox.
The circuit is marked with cones, indicating braking points, turn in and exit points, so it was like a game of high speed join the dots. After the first right hander there's a lovely chicane which can be taken flat out, which is fantastic with a group of howling banshees over your right hand shoulder.
As I started to press-on I was staggered by the amazing amount of grip, although a couple of rear end twitches when exiting a hairpin did remind me that booting it too early was not advisable. The brakes were heavy and require a very strong stab, which isn't easy when you've got legs most sparrows would laugh at. The circuit is quite short, and generally quite twisty, so flat out we only managed to get up to around 120mph, which felt about half that.
No Interference
Dave was great, he spoke only when necessary and the odd touch on the wheel in my early fast laps prevented us both from making the odd agricultural excursion, and certainly helped build confidence in the car and my ability. But then after what seemed like five minutes, he said "we'll be going in on this lap". I thought he was joking, but a check on my watch told the truth - the 20 minutes were up.
We sat in the car for a few minutes as he explained what I could have done better, and graded my performance and then we swapped seats and he showed me how it should be done. Days of Thunder ? More like Days of Chunder.
So for £299 for a mere 20 minutes was it worth it ? Every penny. And more.
If I were to do it again, and could afford it, I'd take an Elise out first, get to know the track, and then drive the Ferrari as it should be driven.
That aside, the only problem is trying to wipe the smile off my face.
Links
Just to let others know that I recently did a Coulson Pritchard track day at Donington Park, which was similar.
I drove a brand new (300 miles on the clock) Porsche 996GT3 Mk2 for a session for £299 - but another four sessions were included in the price: Caterham Seven 1.6 race car, Seat Ibiza Cupra R, Fiat Stilo Abarth and Ultima GTR (which I had to forfeit as it didn't run on the day - they are sorting out another session for me).
All the sessions were under excellent instruction - John Hayman from Evo instructed me in the GT3. I have done a post in the Porsche Forum (Domster drives...) if anyone is interested; website for CPA trackdays is www.coulsonpritchard.com
Rgds
Dom
The later sessions would often be with you driving from the start of the session, so you could maybe get in 8 laps, although coming in after 6 or 7 may be advised if the car was getting too hot or the brakes or tyres were going off.
Certainly not as much track time as being in your own car, but maybe only 20-25% less - and at 299 it was probably half the price of a fully insured day in your private car, and a third of the price if you factored in tyre wear, brake pad wear etc. The PCGB day at Silverstone probably cost me about 700GBP in total, on a 325GBP base price. WIth CPA, it was 299+VAT all in.
After your good words about these chaps I went along to Donington today.
It was the best 550 quid I have ever spent.What a superb day with excellent instructors.
Dom & Paul provide a great, fun and completely fantastic day out. Mr Haymans one handed fast few laps really made the day for me (and the Mrs who they let have a ride)
>> Edited by Broccers on Sunday 7th March 18:47
Indeed he is a top chap, for not only does he convince the EVO boys to feature 2 wheels occasionally, I have also been alongside him on track a couple of years back and blimey he made that little Clio 172 hustle along very well around Brands GP- not letting go of a 355 or letting a track prepped E36M3 past for a session either!
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