Anyone who knows us here at Simpleweb will know that we believe in working hard and playing hard, so it will come as no surprise to you that we were fortunate enough to be able to go and experience a track day down at Keevil Airfield, Wiltshire.
The cars
We were lucky enough to have 2 cars for the day, a Westfield and a Lotus Elise both courtesy of BPC on Track.
The track of choice was an old airfield (as the name might suggest!) and there is no racing or timing allowed, just driving for the fun of it.
It was a beautifully sunny day, to the point of slight sunburn (!), and there were a number of awesome cars to get excited about on the track. Needless to say there were definitely times, namely when one of us was driving in between a Ferrari and a 911, when we were suddenly very grateful for the rule that each owner is responsible for their own car as opposed to being fully comp!
Everyone had their personal preferences, some preferred the Westfield for its speed and rawness whilst others preferred the Lotus Elise for its agility, smooth gear changes and fast acceleration, either way everyone seemed to be loving the experience!
Team Building
All morning we were driving around with the BPC on Track experts, taking it in turns to learn the route and gain a bit of confidence. After lunch (some surprisingly tasty burgers from the onsite burger van) we were able to go back out in the car but this time with each other…
Now, people often talk about team building exercises and establishing trust; falling back and catching your colleague springs to mind, but there is nothing quite like sitting in the passenger seat when you know that the person you are trusting with your life drove around a track for the first time 2 hours ago!
1 more black flag and you are out!
You are told at the start of the day about certain rules you must abide by. One of these rules relates to different coloured flags that are waved around the track to get your attention and tell you something. The flag you definitely DO NOT want to see is a black flag. This means you have done something wrong; spun the car, overtaken dangerously, whatever it is you have to come straight off the track and report back to the organisers for a telling off!
If your car gets 3 black flags then you are not allowed back on the track. We managed 2 between us, which I suppose does not sound too bad, but in that I do not think any other black flags were raised all day for anyone else, it is not great!
A Sexi surprise
As we approached the end of the day, Christos was awarded the title of best driver for the day! His prize for achieving such a title was to sit in the Marlin Sexi, whilst a professional driver raced (sorry, drove very quickly!) around the track. We watched in amazement and I think it was noticed as 2 of us were then offered a chance to have the same experience! I was one of the lucky ones and I did not say a word the whole 10 laps. It is very easy to see how people become addicted!
As you can probably tell it was a brilliant day had by all, and we could not be more grateful to Tom and Mark for taking us. We just hope next time Mark can come with us rather than being stuck in the office unable to find his drivers license!
