VXR Track day only £95

[SiE]

This looks like great value for a track day

Vauxhall is giving you the chance to experience all of this and more during a VXR Track Day. It's a great opportunity to get your hands on some very powerful VXR models. You'll get 90 minutes on the track, 90 minutes of handling activities and all with top instructors.

Tickets are only £95 and selling fast.

09:00 — 09:30 Registration and welcome
09:30 — 09:45 Transfer
09:45 — 11:30 Track/handling activities
11:30 — 13:00 Track/handling activities
13:00 — 13:15 Awards ceremony
13:15 — 14:15 Lunch (buffet) and depart

available at Oulton Park, Donnington Park, Brands Hatch and Thruxton

http://www.vauxhall.co.uk/vx/microsi..._trackday.html

did one of these a few years ago in formula ford cars. Was well worth it.

[Epiphany]

Awesome find. K+

Really tempted to book for Thruxton, although i can't find anywhere that says what VXR's you'll be driving. I'm guessing the Astra, but what about the Monaro and VXR220?

Edit, just found this

* instruction by professional drivers
* a full safety briefing
* a buffet lunch
* a chance to experience the entire VXR range
* 90 minutes of track time
* 90 minutes of handling activities

The Event will consist of track drives, professional performance lap demonstrations and driving dynamics experiences i.e. skid parking and autotest type activities within the circuit paddock area. All activities will be led by professional driving instructors who will accompany all vehicles involved in the Event.

[SiE]

entire range should include the monaro and vx220 aswell as the astra.

[Over Carl]

Sounds good value to me.

[Epiphany]

entire range should include the monaro and vx220 aswell as the astra.

The VX220 isn't in the VXR range. They made a limited number of VXR220's (Only 60), but as it was limited edition i don't think they'll be included.

More likely the Astra, Vectra, and Monaro.

I booked my place on the course on SUnday in Thruxton, can't wait.
3 Hours of driving time for £95 is a bargain, and I've always wanted to learn to do J-Turns and high speed parallel parking

[SiE]

i reckon the vx220 will be there

[God is a DJ]

I couldnt think of anything id rather do less than punt shitty vauxhalls around a track. The only ones id be interesed in are the vx220 (which is a lotus) nd the monaro, which is a holden. You can shove the astra and vectra thankyou very much.

[Epiphany]

Have you actually driven the Astra VXR? It's a damn good car. Handles well, bags of torque, very responsive.

The Vectra's a pile of shite, i agree, but there's nothing wrong with the Astra.

[Clubber Lang]

Looks awesome, I might do this at Brands.

I did a Ferrari experience a few years at some place near Leicester. It was crap as you only got about 4 laps on track, the rest of the time you were just standing around. Plus they didn't really let us rip the cars, always kept us a gear too high.

This looks miles better, always wanted to do a hand-brake turn into a parking space.

[Epiphany]

Looks awesome, I might do this at Brands.

I did a Ferrari experience a few years at some place near Leicester. It was crap as you only got about 4 laps on track, the rest of the time you were just standing around. Plus they didn't really let us rip the cars, always kept us a gear too high.

This looks miles better, always wanted to do a hand-brake turn into a parking space.

My thoughts exactly. I did an F430 experience and you only got about 15 minutes track time. This will be 3 hours!

[Over Carl]

At a recent track day I went to - spoke to a lad in a 4.2 audi that probably spent about £95 on petrol just for the day.

Also the fact that you get to thrash the tits of one of their cars - don't have to worry about making it home in the same car you've been spanking all day (with all track fees covered) makes it a brilliant deal imho.

Some people were in real shitters - best example I can give is one of our group who bought a daewoo nexia for £200 just for the day. Might not have been the fastest car in the world - the only mod made was to stick a 2L coke bottle to catch oil coming from the breather system as they don't have vapour separators, and they still had great fun - the thrill of screwing a car to it's limits without fear of pedestrians, old grannies driving at 15mph in their protons, and of course the old bill.

(and selling the car same weekend for £250 was a little bonus for them )

[wtaylor]

Me and a mate are booking later for the Oulton Park Thursday 12th July afternoon session (anybody else going on this date?)
Needs driver licence number so have to dig that out aswell
Brilliant find K+
Wonder if the new corsa will be there? "Torque of the devil"

[Epiphany]

I was wondering the same, although i despise the thing. It's Epiphany's #1 law that "Thou shalt not be overtaken by a Corsa under any circumstances." A 6 second to 60 Corsa just isn't playing fair....

[Over Carl]

It's Epiphany's #1 law that "Thou shalt not be overtaken by a Corsa under any circumstances." A 6 second to 60 Corsa just isn't playing fair....

:roflmao :roflmao :roflmao

[ahleung]

Me and a mate are booking later for the Oulton Park Thursday 12th July afternoon session (anybody else going on this date?)
Needs driver licence number so have to dig that out aswell
Brilliant find K+
Wonder if the new corsa will be there? "Torque of the devil"

Just wanted to know if anybody's been on the track day yet?

I was there too on 12/7! I'm sure you may have noticed some chinese guys there...

Anyway, I thought that the day was really well organised, the parallel parking and the minirace with a J-turn was great but the best of it was getting on the red hairnets, helmet and ragging all the cars! Out of all of them (Corsa, Astra, Zafira, Meriva, Vectra, Monaro), I actually had the best experience in the Corsa! it was nippy but the best thing was that because it was so small, if felt so responsive! The track was wet from all the rain but it really held the road whereas the other heavier cars would lose it and you can hear the squealing of the tyres.

The worst car to sample was the monaro cos all the instructors were ultra-cautious and wouldn;t let you really have a go. A nice bit was being in the car with an instructor and letting him powerslide all over the place in the cars!

10/10 from me as a 1st timer and will defo go again!

@WTaylor - did you get one of the instructors asking you if you wanted to race lotus cars for £200? I think he said 20 laps!

ahleung

[Swiss Tony]

we did one once, turned up in a saab 9-3 with a few mods, pissed on most things and left (PS the engine was from a mercedes AMG) people didn't have a clue what hit them ! i'll dig out the photos of the two chaps with red smoking jackets and pipes it was a stunt for the new saab 9-3, which may or may not feature in the new adverts for fast bio power engines...apart from the engine the car looked totally like a 9-3 aero from the outside / interior...... i still feel for the poor m3 driver who looked mortified that two chaps in a saab had made his car look like a shopping trolley

[Epiphany]

Sounds good. I've got my day coming up on the 25th July and can't wait. How long do you get in each of the cars? how many laps?

[ahleung]

Sounds good. I've got my day coming up on the 25th July and can't wait. How long do you get in each of the cars? how many laps?

You get circa 3 hrs to test drive all the cars there. The only thing is that you need to be with an instructor and have 2 laps with them before you're chucked out of the car. Once out, it's a race to the next car that you can find! Oh, defo get a lp or 2 with the drivers' and you as a passenger. V nice!

ahleung

[Epiphany]

Just got back from the day at Thruxton and what can i say! Fantastic!

Thoroughly enjoyed it, the rain made it more fun, and I was surprised at which cars i liked the most.

We started off with the handbrake parallel parking. It should have been between two inflatable astra's, but some pikey had nicked the generators the night before, so we had to make do with boxes. These weren't you're average boxes though, these were VXR boxes!
This was remarkably hard, and as everyone needed to have a go and have it explained to them 1 by 1, you only got 2 attempts at it. You have to drive parallel to the space, then turn 90 degrees as though you are going to drive through the space, whilst yanking the handbrake at the same time. In theory it's easy, in practice, your brain wants you to hit the brake pedal (which 90% of people did). First go i braked and stuffed it up, 2nd go i did it fine, but bumped the front box.
I think it would have been better if you'd have had 3 goes, but time constraints meant it was only two.

We then had a slalom course to run through, which involved wiggling through cones, pulling a sharp 270 into a parking space, reversing out, and then back through the cones again. Again, you got two goes and you were timed on the second go, although we never found out who won overall :/

Then it was on to the best bit of the day, the track. There were 28 cars to 34 people for us, so there was practically always a car to hop into.

The Corsa VXR was great fun, very chuckable and handled like a go-kart. Quite a lot of umpf, but like most of the VXR's, i felt that the power delivery was too linear and you never really felt like you were accelerating very hard.

I thought the Meriva VXR was awful. It was really twitchy, the back end was all over the place, as was the front. It also had a very high driving position and too much body roll on corners. Didn't enjoy driving it at all.

I was really surprised by the Zafira VXR. It handled remarkably well and was also very quick. I outpaced and overtook a Corsa VXR and 2 Astra VXR's i had so much control. Stiff suspension and good weight balance allowed you to really carry your speed through the corners.

The Vectra VXR also blew me away. After seeing Topgear rip it to shreds i was expecting it to handle like an absolute bitch. I was wrong. If you pushed it too hard or were too twitchy through corners then it did lose traction easily, but by god was it fun! I ended up drifting it through two corners (once by mistake, the 2nd time the instructor told me to do it as i was so calm the first time ) I managed to top 130mph in 4th down the back straight, and took Seagrave corner at 95 (in every other car it had been 80). Even when the car was on the verge of sliding out, i still felt 100% in control of it. I thoroughly enjoyed this car, and it was my favourite drive of the afternoon.

The Astra VXR really disappointed me. The instructor in the car with me was a complete knobber though. which didn't help, but i didn't like the way the car drove. Like the Corsa, the power delivery was too linear and it didn't feel exceptionally quick. Handling wise it was quite good, but it seemed to oversteer a bit too easily, and it really didn't inspire confidence on fast corners. The Astra normally gets slated for torque steer, but i didn't find any problem with that, but under heavy braking it felt unstable. I wanted to give it another try with a different instructor, but unfortunately i ran out of time.

Now for the new contender, the VXR8 (they had this instead of the Monaro). 6.0litre, rear wheel drive nutter. It sounds fantastic, looks evil, and drives like a crock of shit. I was SO disappointed with this car, maybe it would have been better in the dry, but in the wet it was awful. The gearbox was one of the worst I've ever driven, and was definitely the worst of the VXR range. It was heavy, clunky, and the distance between gears felt huge. It also, despite being a RWD car, under steered more than it over steered, and due to its weight, was shockingly slow through the corners. Whilst in a Corsa, i was stuck behind one of these and I was far far quicker than it through ALL the corners, but due to it's straight line speed couldn't get past the damn thing. And i guess thats the main feature of this car, its brute strength. It has bags of torque, and pulls like a train no matter what gear you're in, but its just a shame that changing gear is such a chore, and that it handles like a barge. This car was easily the biggest disappointment of the day for me. However, at least they didn't make you hold back and they let you drive the car.

The fast laps with the pro's are something else. We had Tom Chilton (BTCC) and Paul O'Neill, and my god, these guys can drive! I never realised quite how fast you could go through a chicane when you're sideways!

Anyway, thats my VXR day review, and for £95 it was the bargain of the year and worth every single penny of it! If they run this again, i'll definitely be taking part in it, and i'd urge anyone else to do it as well!

[urbsy]

Cracking and well written post m8, sounds like a fab day indeed.
K+

urbsy