Aston
Martin DB9 Driving Experience at Bruntingthorpe Airfield race track
Date:
May 2010
Location: Bruntingthorpe Airfield Race Track, Leicestershire
Vehicles: Aston Martin DB9, Subaru Impreza WRX
Author: Matt Johnson
My driving experince day was bought for me by my parents as an 18th birthday present. I was given a present that was tissue
box size. I opened it and there was a scale DB9 in it. I asked if it was a special collectable to which they replied no open
it. Inside was the ticket and being a car fan, beamed from ear to ear!
 I immediately rang the company up, Drivers Dream Days and found out that it was closed over the winter. So, in the new year I
rang up and booked it. There was about 14 weeks to wait! I found some youtube clips on the internet of the track I was
visiting and learnt the track from this. This track was at Bruntingthorpe on an old airfield. I was very excited, as the cars
where doing about 140mph on the main straight, a bit quicker than my then Rover 214si!
The day soon came around and I woke up with an absolute buzz in me, like it was christmas when I was younger. I looked out
the window, yes it's dry. My experience was 12noon so we left Cambridge at about 9am, not wanting to be late! A mate of mine
came with me, who is a petrol head aswell to see if he wanted to do one.
I got there and booked in, it was about a 45 minute wait. So I went out in brand new Subaru Impreza WRX, and was taught the
track properly. I then had about half an hour to wait for my time to come. It went very slowly!
I walked round to wait where the Aston Martin experiences started from and I knew I was next. Then the woman called out my
name, I was very excitied. The instructor gave me the key, "There you go buddy, have the keys to your new car." I got in
and made myself comfty. Starting the engine was fun in itself, having never used a push to start button.
I joined the track and my instuctor said "power" so I responded, "more power" he said. He eased me round the first few
corners getting to grips with the acceleration, braking and steering of the car. Then there was a bit of a straight, "power"
he again said, and at that moment I relised what I was actually doing. Driving a V12, 480bhp, supercar!! WOW!!
I started to get the feel for the car quite quickly and the instructor acknoledged by letting me go a bit faster each time on
the corners and letting me brake later on. We overtook a few slower cars, which was fun.
 I remember the DB9 being an absolute brute on the straights, the way it accelerated was epic. The speed would pick up but the
revs didn't seem to move. I remember looking at one point and I was doing nearly 7k revs and the noise was just brilliant. I
got onto my final lap and they let you go down the main straight, about 1.5kilometers. I pulled onto the straight and he said
"foot down, hard, into the floor." I had never driven a flappy paddle car before but even though it didn't have a dual clutch
it put the next gear in very quickly. At the end of the straight he said "look at the speedo", 141mph! This was the fastest
I've ever driven a car and came round the last two corners with a massive smile on my face.
Unfortuantly my 5 laps where over, but what an amazing way of spending 15 minutes with my favourite car. I was slightly sad
afterwards, thinking that I will probaly never own that car.
Drivers Dream Days provided me with one of my top 5 best ever days in my life. The instructor was really nice and didn't kill
joy it by not allowing me to do the speeds that the DB9 was capable of. It would have been fun to do more laps, but that makes
me want to work hard in my life, and have my own supercar.
This
was a Driving
Experience review by Matt |
