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I mentioned a while back that, back in January, I took some of the pictures at my brother and sister-in-law’s wedding, and that they very generously arranged an ‘experience day’ at Knockhill Racing Circuit, the choice of which was up to me. So I opted for a two-parter “Skytrack experience”, which was a “single seater experience”, followed a little later in the day by a flight in a single-engined plane. Photos from the entire day are here, and inline below.

The good news is that I survived in one piece, and had a superb amount of fun all day. I’m also very lucky to have such a patient partner in Frances, who was with me to calm my nerves and also take the photographs. It all started with a rather earlier start on a Sunday than we’re generally used to. The alarm was blaring at 7.15am, which is a good hour before I normally get up for a run on the quieter streets and paths.

As ever when I’m a bit wound up, I’m keen to get going sooner rather than later, and with the roads being quiet, we made good time over to Knockhill. It’s roughly north of Edinburgh, across the Firth, about halfway to Perth. Up in some hills. Quite near the T in the Park festival as it happens. We were bang on time, so we had the pre-race briefing and were down watching the cars wizzing around the circuit. I had a high number (15), so a few folk had gone out before I was called to get my helmet.

The race event was in three parts: 3 laps with an instructor in a Seat super-charged wizzy car, with superb acceleration and brakes that were like a tonne weight on a hair-trigger. Marvellous stuff. Then there was a few more laps in a demo car, with three other participants, to have the various lines, acceleration points and braking areas pointed out, plus how it felt if you got it wrong. Super stuff, and very helpful.

Then it was in to the Single Seater cars for 6 laps, plus an in-lap. These look wizzy, and perhaps a little like a F1 car in general shape. However the engine is a motorbike engine, and clearly these things are cheap and cheerful. But great fun. Top speed of something like 80-90mph (if I recall correctly), but as you’re sat so close to the ground it feels a whole lot faster. The gear box is semi-automatic, which was the hardest part of it all. Pressing the clutch and then pressing a button on the wheel felt very alien indeed, and I struggled to get too much speed. Not that I wanted that much. It felt fast enough! But the grip into the corners was superb.

After the first hesitant lap of course I started feeling a bit more confident. My second lap was the stuff of legends (in my mind at least). But my third lap was an embarrassment, as I managed to screw up into the hairpin at the end of the lap, and spin the car, and somehow stalling it in the process. It’s at that point I realised how quickly things happened, from what was (I thought) a similar entrance into the corner as previously. So goodness knows how the F1 drivers cope. Reaction times of those drivers is truly unbelievable if they can ‘recover’ in an instant as the car slips away.

I then sat there for a good few minutes feeling like a right plonker as cars went by with no-doubt annoyed drivers who’d had their hotlaps messed up by muggins here. I wasn’t the only person to do this, which was some consolation. Plus the marshalls had a lot of trouble resetting the car afterwards that I half suspect the car might have had a bit of a problem. After a sojourn to the pitlane to be ‘checked out’, I then stalled a further 3 times (Making me almost certain there was a problem with the car, although my lack of revs was probably more to do with it: Plus the clutch was in a very awkward position… Excuses one and all, I know!). Anyway, I was let back out for a few more laps much to my surprise.

Needless to say I took those a lot more carefully, particularly the hairpin, but had great fun on the straights. My Seat driving experience was graded by the instructor, and was close to a prize – 76/100 when the 3rd prize was at 77, and first at 79 or so. Close, but no cigar. I do have a certificate though

All in all the race day was great fun, and went by very quickly indeed. It would have been better (imnsho) if there’d been fewer other cars on the track at the time. Too much worrying about being overtaken and poor rear-view visibility, as well as (in my experience) a truculent gearbox. Fewer people would have been better, but I imagine it’s expensive stuff running a circuit for any fewer people.

This was all followed by a flight in a single engine airplane. More on that in a bit.

This entry was posted on Monday, July 9th, 2007 at 6:21 pm and is filed under Personal, Scotland, Sport, UK. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.