This weekend I got to fulfil one of my ambitions and that was to do some Rally driving. For my birthday, Jenny bought me a half day session at Prestwold Hall, north of Loughborough. Here they have an old airfield where you can drive, amongst others, Ferraris, Aston Martins, Lamborghinis and an assortment of rally cars.
So it was an early start on saturday morning to pile up the M1 to the venue, don my crash helmet and see what they had to offer.
“Can you skid?” the instructor asked me. “Mate, I have trouble not skidding” I said, oblivious to the fact that I was just about to be shown how to really skid. And so in a little Rally Polo, I learnt to powerslide round corners, between traffic cones, over traffic cones and how to keep the car (somewhat) under control whilst doing so. After two different gravel tracks, we uprated to an RS Focus, roughly twice the power and harder to handle, but a lot more fun. This was a real challenge - I kept losing track of how much I had turned the steering wheel, but after a while I was power sliding around the tracks with wild abandon, much to the amusement of my instructor who seemed to have had his fear gland surgically removed. The thing with that type of driving is that it flies in the face of driving instinct - powering in to corners and letting the back end drift round. Once I’d stopped listening to my sensible driving voice I had a lot of fun with this one.
On to the Subaru Impreza, and a mile long rally track with twists, turns and a couple of straights. After a couple of laps as a passenger to learn the course, I was off like a turbo-charged nutter, hurtling at speed around bends that would warrant second gear on a proper road, enjoying the turbo kicking in on straights as I stamped the floor and hoped that at least the car knew what to do next.
And finally we graduated to the Mitsubishi Evolution. A proper rally car and definitely the fastest thing I’ve ever driven, accelerating so quickly it made my eyes water. Flying around the track that fast, I was glad that I had a crash helmet and bucket seats because it was one bumpy ride, but a lorra lorra fun.
I found that as I went up a level in cars, the grin on my face increased, and after the Evo laps I was like a Cheshire Cat for a good half an hour. I’ve never done anything like that and I would certainly like to do more of it. Pretty much the most fun you can have with your clothes on.
A few comments about the organisation. Everyone at Everyman Racing were friendly, helpful, and dedicated to making sure that we all got great value for money. A thoroughly brilliant experience and one I’d recommend to any. Thank you Jenny for my fantastic birthday present!
