Track day for the New Year...Suggestions??

[Drmatrix]

People,
Happy new year i find myself tasked with finding a location for our track day at work.
I have looked at palmersport and the initial indications are that it will cost in the region of £600 each for the day.
Apparently the cheaper ones with the exotic cars restrict your speeds and they cone off the track quite a bit.

This leaves me with some questions:
Is there anyone else i should be looking at.
Has any one used them before and what was it like?

any views and input or suggestions much appreciated.

 

[Silverfox42badger]

Recently organised an afternoon session at Palmer in Bedford and was really disappointed with the evnet. In comparison to the original Palmer days they used run in 2000/2001 - the last time I went - the cars were not as niche, the instructors who come in the car with you have too much control with the dual-control pedals and are too eager for speed from you... I found moving straight from a Clio Cup to a JP1 Jaguar with the instructor expecting record times on the second lap was quite frankly scary! There were a lot of cones out on the tracks and it was all too controlled.

The original 2000/1 Palmer set up was a lot more raw, no dual controls and clearly they were also learning then - On my first ever Bedford Autodrome session I drove a 225 TT Coupe, S3, B5 S4, A4 2.8 quattro, Caterham superlight and of course the Audi Palmer single seaters - it was excellent and made me a lifelong fan of Audi's.

My recent experience taught me that out of the Toyota Landcruiser (or whatever the offroader was), entry level Caterham, Nissan 350z, Clio Cup 2.0 and JP1 Jaguar, the best drive of the day was going home in my 4.2 S4!

The full day includes a more advanced Caterham, the Audi Palmer single seater and a 911 Carrera in the line up, but for £550 a head, its a lot...

I would recommend a DIY job down at somewhere like Castle Coombe - you can 'run what you brung' for about £100, and if you can find a suitable supplier - the one I used to use has moved onto bigger things - you can get them to bring a transporter with 8 Caterham superlights for a fixed fee of £250 or so per car.

I was part of a couple of these days during 2003/4 and over 20 people, the cost worked out at £225 per day with no restrictions, and the only other costs were generally insurance for the hired cars...

I can investigate more if you would like it...

Happy hunting.

 

[Drmatrix]

Thanks for that the impression i got was that it would be as good as when they had the TT`s.
yeah and at £550 it definately aint cheap
any more info would be appreciated though

 

[Silverfox42badger]

3 places to look are:
http://www.batcats.co.uk/
www.bookatrack.com
www.easytrack.co.uk

Good luck!