Jump to content

Kill a Vauxhall VXR day


techieboy
 Share

Recommended Posts

Not sure if anyone is interested, but Vauxhall are doing half days at various UK racetracks in the VXR range of cars. Includes high speed circuit tuition and handling tuition (90 minutes of each) and costs £95.

Seems like a pretty cheap way to get 3 hours+ caning somebody elses car and tyres on a track with lunch thrown in! Some of those VXR's are pretty rapid as well, so could be quite interesting.

Full details here

Link to comment
Share on other sites

[ QUOTE ]

Surely they'll be letting people try the new VXR8 instead.

I'm probably gonna book Donington 5th July AM session.

[/ QUOTE ]

I have it on good authority that both the VXR8 and Corsa will be at these events.

Me and B055 are booked for Thruxton on 23rd July, oh and I've booked the missus on it as well as a suprise.

For those doing Brands, its a fantastic track to let loose on, so you will enjoy!! We did it last year (courtesy of Vauxhall) and had an amazing day out.

169144-ok.gif

Link to comment
Share on other sites

[ QUOTE ]

I'm tempted to do Brands as the map looks like the full track but I'll be really gutted if it's the indie.

[/ QUOTE ]

Yeah, that's why I went for Brands for this one. I really hope it does turn out to be the full circuit. Almost went for Donington myself and then toyed with the idea of Thruxton, as I've never driven that. But, Brands full circuit (even with the pain of the M25 and Dartford Crossing) is just too much to resist.

Will be great news if the VXR8 is there to sample!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 2 months later...

Nice one. 169144-ok.gif

Hoping mine turn up in the next few days. Saw a car transporter going through Bedford on Tuesday night with eight red Astra VXR's on it and they were all sporting big chrome effect VXR stickers down the side. Guessing they were either heading to Silverstone for the weekend or off to a VXR day somewhere.

Let us know how you get on, mines not until the 19th frown.gif

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I did mine yesterday at Donnington. Had a great day, the hospitality is very good, the food was great (although I arrived a little too late to grab most of the good stuff) and some of the ladies that work for VX are heart.gif

Our group did the track session first, and the autotest and handbrake turn parallel park (great fun grin.gif) second. Basically we had a 20 minute briefing and then an instructional lap with commentary and what you should be aiming for etc. After that you grab a helmet (good morning) and just dive in a car.

WARNING - YOU GET PHOTOGRAPHED IN THE FIRST CAR YOU GET INTO, DON'T DO THE SAME AS ME AND BE LAST IN THE QUEUE BECAUSE THE ONLY CAR LEFT WAS A FECKING MERIVA!

Then it's out onto the track and it's a pretty sedate affair. Some of the instructors are more relaxed than others and let you get on with it, one of them was very good and gave very good instructions on how to handle the car which I found very useful. Some of the other "instructors" just seemed to be there for the ride and weren't helpful at all.

The major disappointment for me was that you could only do 2 laps in the cars, so by the time you've just got into it again, you're being asked to pull into the pits. You can jump straight into another car and away you go again, but all the cars are very different from each other and so I felt I lost momentum.

The cars available were:

Corsa VXR 1.6T (light, quick, needs a remap)

Meriva VXR 1.6T (shite handling, too much roll)

Astra VXR 2.0T (quickish, not a bad handler)

Zafira VXR 2.0T (surprisingly not bad, nice seats, handled well)

Vectra VXR 2.8T V6 (no surge of power, didn't feel turbo'd, deceptively fast, steering very light and uninvolving, good once you learn how to drive it, easy to get the back end out with a little flick wink.gif I liked)

VXR8 (comfy, quick, not as lairy as a Monaro, wasn't blown away by the looks, interior a step above the Monaro)

It was my first time at Donnington and although I'd class myself as a average-fair road driver, I'm a beginner at track stuff. Having said that, if the intructors weren't around I think I'd have pasted the cars a little bit more wink.gif Having a slightly damp track didn't help, as Donnington is on the flight path for EMA it is VERY slippery when wet. I certainly enjoyed it but would love to go out there in my own car and drive more to my perceived limits.

I also found it difficult to heel and toe in most of these cars. I must say I'm quite a lazy heel-and-toe'er and I use the side of my foot, which is easy in the Golf. But in some of the VXR's the pedals were just a little too far apart, and after having a cable throttle car of late I also found it very difficult to control the revs coming into corners when on the brakes. Press the loud pedal and get nothing...nothing..nothing.. then 5,000 rpm out of nowhere and I've over-revved for the gear smashfreakB.gif

Also there are 2 pro drivers there showboating Vectra's around the track. They call this the "performance" lap - hop in with them just for the laugh. They fling the cars around and are obviously having great fun - at one point they came belting past me touching wing mirrors into the Old Hairpin. Fcuking mental!

So with track time over, we went to the auto test and parallel park course in the car park. First up for our group was the parallel parking.

Now this is harder than Paul Swift and John (didn't catch his name) make it look, and you WILL feck it up yelrotflmao.gif They have inflatable cars and some cones set out and you have to whack the car in behind the inflatable one and try not to kill any cones. Great fun!!!! After that, Paul lined up two Astras and whacked another Astra straight in there. I've seen Russ do it on the TV but to see it done right infront of you is jaw-dropping.

The auto test is a short agility course where you have to slalom, do a 360 into a garage, reverse out and 360 around a cone before stopping with the front wheels over the line. You get 2 runs and they're timed just for the laugh. I really enjoyed doing this part of it but I wouldn't want to do it in my own car!! The cars we did this and the parallel park in were 1.6 Astra "Design"'s and the one I did the auto test in had 56 miles on the clock - probably all in first gear!

I have to say I was disappointed with the track part of it due to the stop-start nature of the drives. But overall a cracking day and worth £95 of anyone's money 169144-ok.gif

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Great write up....and mirrors my thoughts and experience 169144-ok.gif

I was in the afternoon session (Friday 6th) and was in the last group on the track.

I would just add that there were around 28 VXR's available on the track (all with instructors) and 4 of these were VXR8's. With around 32 people in our group, this meant that you were virtually driving non stop with very little waiting for the next ride!

Tom Chiltern and Paul O'Neil were doing the "Performance" lap......an experience not to be missed...they go round virtually side by side in a mock race with headlights blazing so that everyone gets out of their way ROLLEY~14.GIF !! They're just coming back into the pits in the photo below (red and black Vectras)

All in all a great day and the hospitality was superb. Free lunch, free VXR polo shirt, free photo,

A few photos :-

IMG_3207.jpg

IMG_3184.jpg

IMG_3198.jpg

IMG_3211.jpg

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 2 weeks later...

Please sign in to comment

You will be able to leave a comment after signing in



Sign In Now
 Share

×
×
  • Create New...