Top Gear Track Experience

[Midhurstman]

A rant!!!
Interested what others think of this experience.

My son booked a drive in an ariel atom for me on the top gear track at Dunsfold as a Christmas present. It was booked on Amazon and the company offering the product is called Top Gear Track Experience. As they use a BBC logo I assume they are licenced by the BBC to run this. Sometime in February I got round to booking the day, I chose 23rd July 2015, close to my birthday. True to form, I have only just replied to the emails I received in confirmation, to ask for details of the format on the day. Imagine my amazement to be told it is a 15 minute experience of which 5 minutes is a safety brief and helmet fitting. So that'll be 10 minutes in the Ariel then! The cost of this 15 minute experience, £130. My son checked when buying, and going direct to the company to purchase was the same cost, so amazon were not charging more!

A further disappointment is that it is not even on the full Top Gear track, they use a 'specially constructed, special handling part of the course'. I believe that this must allow the 'star in a reasonably priced car' experience that they offer to take place at the same time, as this is only on the short course track. Nothing like doubling up your assets is there, sod the paying punter! In all seriousness, I believe that paying this amount of money should give access to the full course as this is all part of the fun and something that any motor enthusiast deserves as a minimum.

I am absolutely disgusted by this whole shambles and rip off. It was pointed out to me that I can also have up to 2 hours in total LOOKING ROUND A MOCK UP OF THE TOP GEAR SET! As if this somehow justifies the cost. The fact that I am only allowed one other adult(wife) in with the price (only spectating) is no good to me as we want our son and daughter(both now adults) there as well. I believe we can pay £15 extra per adult, £30 more TO COME AND WATCH!

As if this is not all bad enough, it now appears that Amazon have ditched the product (could it be, like most of us, they are sick to death by the BBC's attitude over the Top Gear/Clarkson Saga) and the price on the Top Gear Track Experience website has reduced to £99. Still a rip off for 15 minutes! I have to say though, that the other experiences they have are reasonable value, now that the prices have been cut.

I have emailed asking if I can cancel and have a refund or, if not, change to another experience, even paying extra. I can guess what the reply will be but I will update this topic once I receive it. For anyone interested in seeing what their other experiences are, here's the web address: https://topgeartrackexperience.com/

 

[nick_l]

One of my work colleagues did this a few months back after we bought it for her birthday. She drove an Aston Martin, and a Lambo. She was massively disappointed. It was just a loop rather than the actual track. When she went out in the Aston the instructor constantly told her to slow down, even though everyone else was overtaking at massive speed and she was crawling along. The best part she said is when I let her drive my Z round the airfield ring road to the exit.

 

[Mr Tidy]

The Top Gear stuff is way over-priced! :evil:

My nephew got a ride with the Stig last Christmas from his GF. She paid £130 for it and he got 1 lap of the track in a V8S Bentley - he couldn't have been in it more than 3 minutes! I suppose at least he did get the full track.

 

[Scooba_Steve]

I've just had a look and there isn't really much mention of content, that could work in your favour. For that money I think you could argue it reasonable to expect at least an hour with half an hour on track?

Well worth looking into further - if you're not provided with all the details at the time and as it is booked online then you might have some ammunition from the Consumer Contracts Regulations 2013 - I'm not really up-to-date on these.

If they refuse outline all of your grounds to why you think the experience was misleading - might buy you some time to do some more research. For the amount it's probably not worth paying for legal advice but CAB might be able to offer something.

 

[ben g]

You usually get 3 laps for that sort of price on any driving experience day so maybe 10 minutes is about right?

 

[-Tom-]

I have done a driving experience at Dunsold, driving an atom, GTR and a ferarri. It had no affiliation with too gear, I think it was Everyman. To be honest , having done these experience days before, I've been disappointed in the past, as they really were just "experiences". I can't vouch for yours, but my laps at Dunsfold were amazing. The drivers really really pushed me to the limit where I was backing out a bit and they were joking about calling me a pussy I genuinely found it difficult at speed to spot the green cones from the orange for the makeshift corners!!!! The guy corrected me at one of them Found it difficult changing gear when they told me to etc, but I guess they have to look after the cars and that's the lonly control they can have!

I did 3-4 laps in each, and yes the track was sections of the top gear lap but on reverse. It can't be the exact layout because that actually involves a figure of 8 and so couldn't work with multiple cars on track. I hope your experience is more like how I found it!

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