Prestwold
Hall Driving Experience Day
Lamborghini Gallardo, Ferrari &
Aston Martin Supercar driving experiences
 On
our itinerary first for the supercar
driving experience was the Lamborghini Gallardo, an absolutely
stunning and beast of a car and if I'm honest my personal
favorite car there!
The
airfield track at Prestwold Hall was nice to drive because
it had nice long straights, sweeping fast corners and a small
chicane. The track is marked out with markers on track as
to where to aim for to get the racing line which on a track
day such as this are welcome as when you are sat in a multitude
of very expensive, very fast dream supercars sometimes your
head is running in overtime just on the excitement and adrenaline!
Sat next to you is an instructor who is there to make sure
you stay safe on track and to advise as and when you can overtake
other cars (the last thing they want is a couple of £100k+
cars having a crash), breaking points and turning marks (although
with a bit of confidence you know when to do them but they
will continue to tell you anyway). Each of the supercars we
only got 2 or 3 laps in each car (this was because the experience
day I was on was designed to give a sample of many different
cars and driving experiences as opposed to a driving experienced
focussed on one or 2 specific cars where you would receive
much more track time in each car). The track itself was not
wet but still a bit damp and drying out as the day went on
as the sun and bit of a breeze meant the conditions were not
too bad, although not perfect.
As you come back past the "pit" area and turn onto
the main straight again you can't help but smile as you floor
the throttle and move up the gears (you will be told when
to change gear by the instructor next to you, but there is
usually a couple of thousand revs more you can pull before
changing gear, if that's what you want to do...). After my
turn in the Lambo came to an end I pulled up and parked and
got out with a huge grin on my face, which was pretty much
the same reaction that everyone who got out of all the cars
had on their faces. Our group of 6 all had their goes in the
Lamborghini while the other groups worked their way through
goes in the Ferraris & Aston Martins.
 Next
up we moved to drive a Ferrari,
there was 2 available, a Ferrari 360 and a Ferrari 550. The
fastest/most powerful car there that day was the red Ferrari
550 so I naturally positioned myself to driving that one (a
previous owner of the car was Ryan Giggs according to the
log book apparently). This was a manual and the gears/clutch
were quite heavy but I guess when you have a 5.5L V12 pushing
485 horsepower through them they need to be, YUMMY!
Again, like the Lambo drive you have your instructor next
to you making sure you don't do anything daft, you can feel
free to talk to them or just listen to them if you don't want
to talk or are too busy just giggling to yourself everytime
you deck the throttle...
 Again,
the same routine as each group had had done their go in the
next car it was time to move on again and this time for us
to do our James Bond impression as it was the Aston Martin
DB9 next up. Now on this one it would be slightly different,
everyone on their last car would be accessed on their driving,
so all the tips you should have been listening to about breaking
and your racing lines would come into play as the instructors
marked you as you went round. This was an interesting and
unexpected thing so everyone wanted to end up with the best
score so put their all into the drive (pretty much like everyone
had put everything into the previous drives I guess).
 Next
on the agenda was the Rally
Driving experience part of the day.
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