About 70 cars at Brands Hatch organised by easytrack.
Robert's account
I have never been to Brands before and was looking forward to it. After a little diversion through the middle of no-where I eventually found the circuit! When the briefing was over we were eager to make our way down to the paddock so we could claim a garage.
I took the helm first, we followed out a couple of Elises out of the pits, round Paddock Hill bend, the steepness of the hill was a huge surprise! I nailed the throttle as we came through the corner and the stomach churning force as we went through the bottom of the hill back up towards Druids was amazing! I happily followed the Elises for a couple of laps but as I got used to the layout of the circuit I was starting to get faster than them. I passed them and a couple of Sevens and was really starting to carry some decent speed through the corners, Paddock Hill is just fantastic, it's like being on a roller coaster
.
I then passengered with Andy, it was only his second time driving the car and he was expecting me to give him some pointers! Surprisingly I was able to give him some and when he did what I said it actually worked! Unfortunately someone spun off at Clearways and the session was stopped to recover the car.
I decided to walk round to Druids to try to get some photos, on the way round a Seven span into a gravel trap coming out of Graham Hill so I had to take a couple of pictures of that! When we got round to Druids an Elise had just spun off into the gravel trap, he was well bogged down in the gravel! Of course I had to take a photo of that as well
The next session I let Andy go out again as he only got about 3 laps in his previous session. He was getting more and more confident through the corners until we came down into Graham Hill corner, he just touched the grass on the outside of the braking area and the car just spun round! We ended up going across the apex sideways coming to a rest on the track on the exit of the corner. The engine was still running so we just went off again! As we passed the pits we were shown the black flag!!! A little bit harsh! Andy came back round and into the pits, the pit lane marshall said that Andy needed to slow down as he had just spun! We went back out again and Andy finished his laps off
When I went out after Lunch I followed an Elise out. I was faster than him through the bends but he wouldn't let me past
I followed him round for a couple of laps but he would not pull over and the marshalls seemed
to be unwilling to show him the blue flag! I backed off a bit to give myself some room, but still managed
to catch him up quite quickly! I was then shown the blue flag as other people we catching us up so I had to
let them past There was a guy there with a 5 litre V8, 300bhp, Westfield running on slicks He came
past me twice!!
As I went out for my third session it had just started to rain! Our new tyres seemed to be pretty good in the wet
I caught up a 328 BMW who was behind a Porsche Boxter. As it started to rain more and more I was
getting to be much faster through and out of the corners than the BMW but after a couple of laps he wasn't
shown any blue flags at all! This was a little annoying as I have always worked to the principal that if you
can catch someone up then they should let you past as you are faster than them! After a coupe of laps I decided
to back off for a bit to create a large gap between me and the BMW, I eased off coming out of Druids and as I
entered Surtees he was exiting Clark Curve onto the straight. I got back up to speed again and as we were going
down Paddock Hill I caught him up again! He was still not shown any blue flags so I took a much wider line into
Clearways and was able to get a much faster exit out of Clark Curve and he eventually moved over so I could
pass him! I quickly caught the Porsche up and did the same through Druids, took a wide line in to give me a
faster line out. By the end of that lap the Porsche and the BMW were quite a long way behind! I hope the
marshalls now realise you don't need to have a thirty grand car to be quick round the track!
In spite of some poor marshalling (from my point of view that blue flags were not shown for us catching other cars) I still had an excellent day, the circuit is a lot of fun, and coming down Paddock hill flat out in the wet is a great experience
Andy's experience
My first drive on a 'real' track. The usual impressive line up of cars with loads of 7s, the odd Westfield (the most striking of which was the 5 litre Rover V8 powered Westfield, registration L1 4 KOF - see www.racecorporate.com and a very quick heavily modified Skyline GTR (the usual Elise team were as prominent as ever too!).
Rob took the car out for the first session and seemed to get the hang of the track pretty quickly - he was soon overtaking much more than being overtaken. My first impressions of the track were very positive - the roller coaster ride on Paddock Hill is the business and it wasn't as unnerving as I had been led to believe (phew!).
Anyway - my first session driving was fairly uneventful really, as Rob mentioned in his account, some valuable help from the voice of experience made a big difference to my driving. Rule No.1: The slower you go into the bends the faster you come out! Once I'd got my head around that things were looking up.
I had a l minor incident coming into the corner at the bottom of Graham hill on my second session (see Rob's account above) - but managed to end up back on the track pointing the right way with the engine running (Rob shouting "CLUTCH CLUTCH CLUTCH , GET THE CLUTCH " furiously at me as I span around served as a gentle reminder that the XRs starter motor can be prone to dodgy reliability when the engine is warm!). I was shown the black flag for this and told to slow down. Probably good advice, but a bit harsh as the session was almost over anyway!!
On my third and final session, I took Ben out as a passenger. As I didn't really know the guy I took it easier, not wanting to risk giving a close-up of the tyre wall to a stranger! The session was great fun and working on the fundamental slow-into-the-corners principle I managed to overtake a few Elises and a couple of the slower sevens. The long straight formed by Clark Curve (flat out!) and Brabham meant that in the dry we could never really get the edge on the very high power/weight cars as they could really hammer down there, achieving maximum speeds up to 35mph faster than ours (137mph max in the V8 Westy vs. just over 100mph max in the Sierra).
The best session of the day, however, came with Rob taking the final few laps in the wet. The 4x4 had a huge advantage round the corners once the track was nicely saturated and performed well against some much more expensive hardware. I definitely second what Rob said about the marshalling - they seemed to take the attitude that the Sierra couldn't possibly be faster than a Porsche/Elise! I got blue flagged for having an Elise behind me which I had just overtaken (rant etc.)!!!!
Anyway - all in all we had a great day. We'll be back!
