About 25 cars at Oulton Park with an open pitlane organised by BookaTrack.com
Robert's account
What a GREAT track! Definitely one of the best tracks I have been to, there is just so many corners and so much to do! We managed to clock up 240 miles on the track
and that was giving the car plenty of time to cool down between sessions and only doing 15 minute sessions so as not to kill the tyres!
The only downside was we weren't allowed to put the camera in the car, bloody Octagon Motorsport 
Due to the fact that there were probably at most about 10 cars out on track at any one time there was never much traffic around to deal
with which was good as there was a lot to learn! The map really doesn't do the track justice as to how cool it is.
I'll run through a lap just to give an idea ..... Cross the start/finish straight, line the car up on the left, up to about 115mph before stamping on the brakes, knock it down to 3rd, turn in aiming for the apex, you need to get close to it as the corner tightens slightly on the exit. Let the car drift out to the left and stay there.
Grab 4th as you fly down The Avenue, turn right to bring the car over to the apex of Dentons which is a blind hill, keeping the throttle nailed as you drop down the hill up to about 115mph. Brake and take 3rd gear for Cascades, about 75mph, get the car in to the late apex and open her up and let the car run out to the kerb.
Take 4th along Lake Side and keep the throttle down till very late before braking for Island Bend, about 110mph, a quick stamp on the middle pedal, knock it down to 3rd and throw the car round the bend at about 90mph. Back up to full throttle in the middle of the first part of the left hand corner as the second part is quite shallow and you can run out wide and still have enough time to get over to the left. Take 4th briefly to get you to about 105mph before a big braking effort to pull the car down to about 40mph for Shell Oils Hairpin.
Keep to the outside for the first part of the corner and turn in really late to the apex. The hairpin is heavily banked so can be taken quite quickly, as soon as you turn towards the apex you can nail the throttle and let the car run wide on the exit. Hit 3rd gear down the hill and get back over to the right for Foulstons Chicane.
Brake from around 90mph, down to 2nd, turn in quite late as you need to be in the middle of the track for the right part of the chicane, once the car is lined up for the apex of that you can floor the throttle as the exit is quite wide. Run to the left of the exit of Foulstons, just clipping the kerb, still floored, and the car will then drift out to the right of the track.
By this time you need to take 3rd gear, over the brow of Hill Top at about 70mph and down the other side hitting about 110mph before braking quite late for Knickerbrook. Need to watch the kerbs as they are quite big, slow through the middle, again keeping the car in the middle of the left hand part of the chicane, then you can nail it and throw the car to meet the right hand apex and the car will run wide out to the kerb on the left.
Slowly bring the car over to the right, take 3rd, and keep the throttle down as you aim for the apex on the left over Clay Hill at about 80mph. This is a little disconcerting as it is totally blind, you have to trust the marshall as you fly over the crest.
Let the car run out to the right of the track, this is important as you need to keep the left hander before Druids as flat as possible so as not to unsettle the car, up to 4th, then turn in and get the car to the far left of the track, doing about 105mph
A quick stomp on the brakes, grab 3rd gear, to bring the car down to about 70mph, turn in right for the first corner, you don't want to hit the apex, stay approximately in the middle of the track, when you are about halfway through the double apex you can get back on the throttle but you need to hit the second apex then run the car out the left.
Take 4th , under the Warwick Bridge, up to about 115mph before heavy braking for Lodge Corner. This is one of the slowest corners on the circuit and the exit drops away from you so the car can run out quite wide to the left, I could never decide whether to use 3rd or 2nd, it didn't seem to make much difference really!
Then get over to the right for another blind corner
, Deer Leap,
travelling at about 75mph through the corner, down the middle of the straight, take 4th, then you are back across the start
finish line ready for another lap
Andy's account
Any track day where there are only 26 cars booked in on an open pit is bound to be a good one. When the track is Oulton Park (at 2.8 miles long, well 2.776 anyway) you can't go wrong!
The day was supposed to be an Elise owners club event, but a nice mix of other cars showed up, even a standard Cavalier 2.0 CD (very well driven it was too!!). Rob took the XR out for the parade laps. As we drove around it quickly became apparent to me that this track was _MUCH_ more challenging than anything I'd driven before. Also much more interesting as a result, with the banked hairpin at Shell corner, two chicanes, lots of nice long flat-out bends and a deceptive double-apex at druids.
Straight away, you also notice the distinct lack of run-off! All you have is a few feet of (wet&slippery) grass, then the tyre wall (although some corners do have gravel traps to be fair). This meant that in all but a few places, extra caution was required, as one mistake could easily lead to disaster! I've never been on a track where the braking, turn-in and apex cones were so useful. Without them, Oulton Park would have taken twice as long to get to grips with. With them, it was possible to execute very nice laps at a reasonable pace without being too hard on the car (or risking injury!).
After a couple of sessions I started to push it a bit more. The usual problem with the brakes appeared on a few occasions, making the chicanes extremely 'challenging' at times (or even impossible! I had to take to the green stuff to save some cones after a late braking bid went horribly wrong.) On the whole it's a fairly fast track, due to the long straights following most corners, but this makes it even more important to keep the car in shape and carry some pace through the bends!
The XR seemed to stand up ok to the competition (erm, not that it was a race of course), and I think we surprised a few people.
240 track miles later, the end of the day was brought about when a Porsche had a small oil fire
somewhere along the straight after Hill Top (well, he had been pushing it a _bit_).
We certainly proved the resiliance of Yokohama rubber (A539s) - they stood up to the beating surprisingly
well considering the mileage on a dry (and very twisty) track.
Everyone should try Oulton at least once - if only for the sake of driver development :) It's a long way to travel, but I'll definately be going back.
