As an Ex Lotus owner my membership of Lotus on Track is still running. A few days ago the club was approached by an MG owners club who were struggling to fill a track evening to be held on the GP circuit at Silverstone. £99 was too good a deal to miss so with the briefing starting at 5pm i made my decision and set off at 4pm!
The entire day had been a complete wash out and the daytime event had been pretty dramatic. An M5 was written off and a Ford GT came off exiting the last corner before the start finish straight. Ouch - that has gotta hurt!
Anyway the circuit was completely water logged and was super slippery. I quietly ignored all the advice to leave the traction control switched on and hit the button that is worth 100 sport buttons.
OMG - I have never had so much fun. I started pretty timidly but had reasonable grip for most of the circuit. The Vredestein Sessantas were as usual fantastic at clearing standing water and surprisingly communicative when the grip levels dropped. It was strange but on some parts of the circuit moving a car's width off line provided huge amounts more grip. On the approach to Vale (slowest corner on circuit) I did an experiment and deliberately provoked the ABS for a few laps. Once I had worked out where I needed to brake I approached off line and did the same again. My braking point moved towards the corner by about 40 or 50m. Incredible.
So where's the fun in that?
Sideways! With almost no tyre wear I was drifting everywhere at up to about 100-110mph on some of the faster parts of the circuit. The slow (road car, wet!) and long corners such as Luffield and Club I could hold the car sideways the entire way round. But my favourite was Stow because it was higher speed needing total commitment and the line tightens two thirds of the way round. So the drift got slower and the arc touched both sides of the track. Bliss!
I found that setting up a drift in the right hand bends was instinctive and easy (probably due to roundabout practice - private obviously!) and the exit was smooth and clean but I struggled a little more with left hand bends. I was not able to totally predict the cars exact reactions. I spun twice and both of them were on the same left hand bend (Vale). Totally safe place to learn. Despite my lack of experience on left turns I did manage to string a few transitions together which made my day.
Fantastic fun and now I want to do an Oulton drift day even more than before.
Sorry for the long post but I have had no-one to share the experience with so far!
The entire day had been a complete wash out and the daytime event had been pretty dramatic. An M5 was written off and a Ford GT came off exiting the last corner before the start finish straight. Ouch - that has gotta hurt!
Anyway the circuit was completely water logged and was super slippery. I quietly ignored all the advice to leave the traction control switched on and hit the button that is worth 100 sport buttons.
OMG - I have never had so much fun. I started pretty timidly but had reasonable grip for most of the circuit. The Vredestein Sessantas were as usual fantastic at clearing standing water and surprisingly communicative when the grip levels dropped. It was strange but on some parts of the circuit moving a car's width off line provided huge amounts more grip. On the approach to Vale (slowest corner on circuit) I did an experiment and deliberately provoked the ABS for a few laps. Once I had worked out where I needed to brake I approached off line and did the same again. My braking point moved towards the corner by about 40 or 50m. Incredible.
So where's the fun in that?
Sideways! With almost no tyre wear I was drifting everywhere at up to about 100-110mph on some of the faster parts of the circuit. The slow (road car, wet!) and long corners such as Luffield and Club I could hold the car sideways the entire way round. But my favourite was Stow because it was higher speed needing total commitment and the line tightens two thirds of the way round. So the drift got slower and the arc touched both sides of the track. Bliss!
I found that setting up a drift in the right hand bends was instinctive and easy (probably due to roundabout practice - private obviously!) and the exit was smooth and clean but I struggled a little more with left hand bends. I was not able to totally predict the cars exact reactions. I spun twice and both of them were on the same left hand bend (Vale). Totally safe place to learn. Despite my lack of experience on left turns I did manage to string a few transitions together which made my day.
Fantastic fun and now I want to do an Oulton drift day even more than before.
Sorry for the long post but I have had no-one to share the experience with so far!
