Racing At Thruxton

Had a nice morning out at Thruxton race track today. My wife gave me a racing day for last Christmas, and I finally got around to using it. I did this once before last year, but it was in Mazda RX-8s rather than Mini Coopers. Since I own a Mini myself, I was looking forward to getting out on a track in one.

You don't just jump in a car and scream off at Thruxton. First you do three or four laps with a professional driver, who shows you the course. You learn all about doing racing lines, which is straightening out curves as much as possible. You've got these red cones at the beginning of a curve that you need to drive next to, then you aim toward the yellow cone further down and "exit" at the green cone. You rapidly get cones on your mind.

After this orientation, you're off. It was a lot of fun taking the Mini, a car I'm completely comfortable with, around the track. The only disconcerting thing was wearing a helmet.

After the Mini, I had a few laps in a SMART coupe. Wow -- much different than the Mini, gripping the track much better and feeling more comfortable out there.

The highlight of any trip to Thruxton remains the final lap. This is when your driving instructor takes the wheel and lets rip. You hit corners at high speed and feel like the car is going to completely flip over. The first time, I spent the entire lap just reassuring myself that he was a professional, he knew what he was doing. This time, I knew what to expect and completely enjoyed the high-speed run without a worry in the world.

sounds fun - a lovely race track; i raced a friend's mini cooper-s (a highly tuned one, now up to 205bhp!) whilst in montana on business this summer. was most impressed with how such a high-powered front wheel drive car handled the power. i guess FWD has come on somewhat (my regular transport is an mx-5).

ps, i won my class - http://egoboss.com/wowwon.jpg - hammering around in a left hand drive car was most weird from a gearchange perspective, though ;-)

rgds

carl

Comment by carl griffith | November 27, 2006 2:01 PM

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