[mort666]

Just thought I'd post up some pictures from my Dad's 60th birthday pressie treat from me

I probably mentioned it at the time last year but I got him a Ferrari driving experience thing at croft circuit near Darlington in the NE.

He was very aprehensive beforehand but once he got there and realised the other spectators didn't give two shits whether he cocked it up or not he seemed to chill out and enjoy it a lot

started out with an instructor driving them round in a Mazda 3 MPS to show them the circuit:







Then onto three laps with my dad driving a Porsche Cayman:














This was followed by 4 laps in a Ferrari 355:





Looks like he enjoyed it


Then 5 laps in a race prepped Ginetta (G20 I think):












with the grand finale being a high speed passenger lap with one of the instructors driving a Caterham at silly speed

[Midnight Blue]

That is my kind of present - I would love it ..... bet it's expensive though!!

Great pics to remind your dad what a great time he had.

Happy birthday Paul's dad

[mort666]

I'm planning on using the pictures (i have quite a few more than those posted) to do a little photo book for him to remind him which will also include scans of his certificate and score card, especially as the instructors gave him some very good feedback, with one of them asking if he was going to start racing because he was that good

It would normally be £250 for that particular experience but when I booked it I'd got £32.50 in tesco vouchers saved up and they have the deal where they are worth 4 times their face value with certain partners, so I managed to get £130 off the cost which was pretty good. The only way I could really afford it

[Sex Kitten]

what a fab present!

[Midnight Blue]

Now I know what to save my Tesco vouchers for then!!

[mort666]

it's one of the few really good uses for them

If you don't want to go all the way up to croft, they also do them at Thruxton in Hampshire. They seem to offer a more varied selection overall at Thruxton, but I think there are only certain ones you can redeem your clubcard vouchers against

[Midnight Blue]

Sounds a great way to spend a day

[mort666]

definitely although they are much more slick at croft compared with the last one he did about 6 years ago.

The first time he was in a group of 3 or 4 (can't remember exactly) and each group was effectively assigned a set of cars. they then took it in turn in each car before moving onto the next one so you got a 20-30 minute break between each one. I seem to remember there was a track day running along side it too as I'm sure I had pictures of other cars belting round the track which definitely weren't experience day cars (things like Mk2 escorts etc lol).

This time they seem to have a group of people at a time who are on different exeperience dya things so that once you have finished in the Mazdas you can more or less go straight from one car to the next. This kept the excitement level up as you didn't have chance to relax between drives, but it also meant that you weren't there for very long. I think from the briefing to the end of the caterham passenger ride it was only about 2 to 2 1/2 hours. The first one 6 years ago was more like 4 hours all together

[angelbabes34]

Great pics, again Paul

I could do with a lesson on the Sony, looking at the quality of your pics but still not got a new lens, i'm looking for

one and hoping that one may pop up on e-bay at the right price, Sony lens seam to be more expensive that Nikon and Canon.

[Spike]

very amazing day i bet...

very similar to the thruxton one i did!

[mort666]

Great pics, again Paul

I could do with a lesson on the Sony, looking at the quality of your pics but still not got a new lens, i'm looking for

one and hoping that one may pop up on e-bay at the right price, Sony lens seam to be more expensive that Nikon and Canon.

Thanks julie. Might see you this weekend at the NE meet if you make it up and I'd be happy to answer any question you have or give a few tips.

Not sure the lens I used for those pics would be the best for you as it's a pretty heavy one and after a day's shooting I feel it in my arms for sure. the camera and lens combined is about 2Kg in total. It's quite unwieldy too.

When comparing the sony lens costs to the ones from Nikon, remember to do a proper like for like comparison. Remember that the Sony has the image stabilisation built into the body so to get a comparitive lens from canon or Nikon you need ones with IS or VR in their names respectively.

for example the sony 75-300 is around £180 whereas the canon IS 70-300 is £425 and the Nikon 70-300 VR is £425 also.

if you get the non stabilised versions of the Nikon and Canon they are often a bit cheaper though

Spike, I think the croft and thruxton ones are effectively the same apart from slight differences in cars used