Palmer Sport Track day

So August last year, I was very fortunate to get to experience the plamer sport track day. This was my first ever track day, in cars that I thought I could only ever dream of driving, especially at my age (20). The day started off with us signing in and being sorted into teams (there were around 50 people attending), and of course breakfast! Once everyone had finished eating we all had a drivers briefing on what to expect throughout the day and all the typical safety aspects, flag meanings and such. The teams were then split off and assigned what the starting activity was, my first 2 cars of the day were the Palmer Jaguar JP-LM and the Formula 3000. once taken out to the west circuit of Bedford Autodrome standing in front of thousands of pounds worth of race cars gets the pulse racing just a little

So after another drivers briefing, on the Formula 3000 specifically, they let us loose, in groups of 3. After watching the groups do their laps, and look at their times, it was my turn…. I had an instructor make sure I was strapped in correctly and happy, asked me if I had any questions and gave me a few tips.

We did 1 lap behind a pace car, then that was it, on our own for the session, and what an experience that was! The pure acceleration and grip the car had were phenomenal, of course the aero package helping to generate a lot of that down force, the car just encouraged you to go faster and faster, especially as the laps racked up and the confidence grew. But that didn’t quite prepare me for the Palmer Jaguar.

This time we had an instructor on board, who really did push you to the limit of you own ability and the car! A constant bombardment of instructions, which as the session went on, eased off slightly. I had a few moments and spins, but there wasn’t a moment where I wasn’t smiling! But the next car, well that just blew my mind!

So the Ariel Atom, this was the Honda engine version, putting out 245 BHP. This was on the mile long north circuit, very fast with some excellent sweeping curves and some tight ones too. I had to change car on this one due to faulty comms. As I was heading down the start/finish straight, there was a very tight left hand hairpin, the brake board was very easy to miss, and with no comms to my instructor, I braked far too late, and tried to get the car into the corner, which of course resulted in a spectacular spin. But what a fantastic car to drive!

The next part of the experience was an off road course in a Land rover Defender, including a see saw and 26 degree traverse, It has to be said I enjoyed it but I was rather shocking scoring some of the lowest scores in the group, but its all about fun! While one half of the group did the Land rover experience, the other half did a Caterham persuit, which was a course that was almost endless drifting and doughnuts, absolutely fantastic fun!

So after a good feed, we were handed these awesome pieces of kit! I can personally say that the Caterham 7 superlight was my favorite car of the day! On Bedford’s east circuit very fast mainly tight track with a few sweeping corners. I felt very at home in the Caterham, it felt right, and my god was it fun! Just feeling yourself improve lap times as you go on, being pushed by the instructor, everything about the Caterham was perfect.

So the final car of the day was the BMW M4 GTP. I was very surprised, which isn’t a bad thing, being a big modern car, I wasn’t expecting the responsiveness and agility, and talk about torque, again a fantastic car and a fantastic day! I would certainly do this again.

The whole experience was fantastic, with gourmet food, and fantastic and supportive staff. Prizes were given at the end of the day, I was unfortunate and didn’t win anything, but that’s not what I went for. I don’t think there was a day that I have ever smiled and enjoyed so much before. I hope you enjoyed reading this and I must apologise for the terrible photos, I was far to engrossed with what was going on at the time.