I want to get my Dad a day/session at a track driving an Aston Martin. The prices start from about £100 where you get 6 or so laps and there seem to be loads of companies out there offering this.

I am confused as to where to spend my money so am turning to STW as I know it has the answer to everything.

Can anyone recommend a company to go with and/or generally tell me how good or bad these kind of days are?

I it specifically driving and Aston he would like?

Might be worth popping ono the Caterham cars site and have a look at Slalom and Drift days, get a lot more driving for your money, but think they are a fair bit more than £100.

The Jonathon Palmer stuff is very good, although I've only been there on corporate do's.

They are all expensive, in cash terms, but then you are driving expensive cars with tutors on private facilities – so a lot of cost there to recoup.

Yeah, he's got a thing for Aston Martin cars. I'll check the Caterham site though, it's nice to have options and I quite fancy the idea of that.

Thanks

I was going to suggest that if he specifically wants to drive and Aston, you might want to look into hiring one for a day and doing some miles on twisty roads in the middle of nowhere…. but it appears these things kick off at ~£300 a day…….

The Caterham days are very good and definately the most driving you will get to do with the bonus of the most flat out driving too, they expect you to be spinning it etc, not pootling it about..

None of the ciruit based days seem a bit skimpy on driving time. The rally ones like Forest Experience are better value imo. Have fancied Prodrive's driving days though.

The ferrari 360 one I did had me on the track for about 15 laps. No Aston at Wigan though, which I'd rather have driven. The instructor was fairly relaxed too, didn't mind me nailing all the time, there was just one long fast corner when he sometimes dibbed the restrictor as we were coming out. I was probably going really slow but it felt quick to me.

really enjoyed myself but if I go again I'd rather have a blast in the single seaters, they looked like a lot more fun. They were passing us in our Ferrari's and Porsches on the corners like we were stood still.

I heard a couple of bad reports – not being allowed to take it over 3000RPM or some such nonsense. Can't remember which company that was though.

It's nowhere near as glamorous but a plain old trackday in anything even vaguely warm can be hugely entertaining. Or you could hire an Elise or something…

really enjoyed myself but if I go again I'd rather have a blast in the single seaters, they looked like a lot more fun

I did a Formula Ford day at 3 Sisters (presumably where Samuri went) about 15 years ago -It was great and the twisty track was ideal.

I agree that a racing car or a Caterham/Lotus 7 Replica rather than a flash road car is the way to go.

caterham slalom day/half day if you can't run to the full one.
he might like astons, but a slalom day might get him to buy a 7 🙂
i'd do another one tomorrow. and the day after. and the day after that.

I could recommend everyman at mallory park. Adam crowton is the instructor.

My mum got me a trackday voucher with Extreme Trackdays . I think it was about £200 . This was for the supercar double, driving a Lambo and Ferrari for 4 laps each . HAving done a shed load of trackdays, and witnessed these super drives ( rubbish, slow , queues of peeps waiting ) I opted for a half day Caterham driving round Brands Hatch. Many more miles per £££ , probably faster and more entertaining.
In truth I would rather put the voucher towards a trackday and source a manual Skyline /Soarer / Supra from the imports and use it once and sell it on. Trouble is i know i will be coerced into keeping it, tuning it , fixing it by my rich, fat and very lazy friend.

Did a formula ford (open single seater) experience day at castle coombe – great day

My wife booked mine from into the blue . com. I went in an ariel atom and was smiling down the straights as all the supercars could not get near me!!
My mates wife hired a porsche for a day, it cost £400 and a £3000 deposit. he had more fun and spent loads on fuel!!

Paulio,

I can highly recommend a company called motorsports events, link below.
They do an Aston Martin drive, which earlier this year we gave to a friend as a thank you for helping us out.

I have done a couple of events with this company and the aspect of their company I can best recommend is that the instructors are all race and or rally drivers, so that you get real tuition.

They have worked with Aston Martin and Ed, who runs the company trained Daniel Craig for the current Bond films on how to drive a DB9.
How much more of a recommendation do you want.

As part of the experience they also give you a full rundown of how the car is built, bonnet up and explain the engineering, great guys and no, I have no financial interest in the company but I do like to get good value for money.

https://orders.motorsport-events.com/DrivingGifts.aspx

Most of their events are in Wiltshire, not too far for you.

With all these experience days,
when they say 'you get 3 laps driving a…' i wonder does that mean out lap. fast lap, in lap.
or out lap, 3 fast laps, in lap

I've been on a few of these, the best without a shadow of a doubt was at http://www.everymanracing.co.uk/ they really let you let rip in the cars. Others limit revs and make you go pretty slowly.

I bought a track day experience for my Dad 60th and I'll say right now that I can not remember where it was.

However, we did a fair bit of research into which one we were going to buy as my Dad is disabled. He drives a Jag which has hand controls fitted to it. Not surprisingly we couldn't find one anywhere that had cars fitted with hand controls. So actually driving the cars was out of the window for him.

However, he came back grinning from ear to ear as while the other paying customers were gingerly coaxing (in most cases) a bunch of supercars around the track he was being chauffeured by the instructors who were driving each car on the limit.

He loved it.

buyagift.co.uk are normally pretty cheap, and if you go to hotukdeals there's normally a 20-30% off code available as well

I did this, but you only get 6 short laps or so. Disapointing really!

http://www.treatme.net/experiences/ferrari-lamborghini-rally

on the formula ford day they said the revs were limited…

but what they actually said was don't go over…. X but there was no limiter on the engines 😉