Brands Hatch - GT86 rally experience

[bassett 48]

To kick off the GT86 rally experience has been my favourite car experience I've had the opportunity to do to date. I could take my own car on track but I haven't been that brave and whilst I've really enjoyed trackdays in various machines and circuits I've always felt limited in some way either traction, abs, rev limits or fear of a big off/blag flag etc. Where as on the rally experience it was unlimited, everything off and the only limit is your skill. Turns out my rallying skills are severely limited but I was grinning from ear to ear! 

 

Onto the day and the weather was appalling making it more fun but also more difficult with the surface a complete mix of tarmac mud and gravel and there were some huge puddles. The first track is flat, tight and twisty with one long straight to get some speed. The second has gradients all over the place with lots of wide bends. Each section I had a sighting lap, around 4 practice laps and then a timed run then all repeated again on the second section finishing up with a hot lap driven by the instructor. Each run was about a minute long which doesn't sound a lot although it was a good amount of time behind the wheel.

 

Being familiar with the GT86 definitely helped as I wasn't learning the weight and feel of the controls with the exception of the hand brake. The whole time it's frantic gear changes, searching out for grip, hard braking squirming all over the place and whipping the handbrake up with the clutch down and either having a slight off more often than not or on the odd occasion managing a hilarious drift. 

 

When I thought I was getting into the whole rallying thing I then had a huge down hill off and ended up on a grass section in the middle of the course. Being so wet the wheels quickly bogged down and I was stuck. My instructor was laughing at first with me but then he realised we weren't going anywhere fast. 2 other instructors joined him to push the car out whilst I gave them a good pasting of mud, accidentally of course. We progressed a foot then luckily one of the landrover cars from the other experience came down to give me a tow. On a circuit the embarrassment would be excruciating but given everyone was all over the place and I'd beached the car it was hilarious. By the time my car was recovered from the big off it was time for my timed run. The instructor then had his own back and threw me around on a hot lap. We finished up with a debrief where everyone had the same grin on their face and we shared stories of how crap we all were which was a nice change from the ultra competitive circuit days. The instructor then started laying on the best bits from everyone's score card. My times and score were good with highlights on BIG OFF! and lacks mechanical sympathy but then I'd never treat my car that way so I thought why not

A few pics from the day

[Lauren 2259]

Sounds good, nothing beats going sideways on gravel does it? I did a day at Phil Price's Rally School in Wales in a MK2 Escort, was a whole load of fun, spent nearly all day in the cars on the gravel course. Immense fun as I remember it. Understeer? Just give it more throttle to turn in more, immense fun.

[DanJ 374]

I bought my Dad a voucher for this and treated myself to one too, I was looking forward to it already but reading this has increased the anticipation!

Sent from my Nexus 5 using Tapatalk

[Keethos 842]

Sounds like an awesome event, really need to give these ago.