Dizzy

Toyota On Track

Well as always I had a given myself a little too much time to negotiate the tarmaced hell that is the M25 and arrived about 12 o'clock at the pub to meet up with the other Scoobyneters. I had chance to sit outside and have a pint of coke.
About 12:30 Steve rolled up and then Puff (as in PTMW), Puff the decided it was time to put on his clear indicator kit while we waited for anyone else to arrive. Sure enough 5mins later he was sporting shiny new clear indicators. Orb arrived in his nice new WRX and we tootled off to brands.

We parked up and walked off towards the Hospitality "tent", immediately we were greeted with the site of one of the F1 Toyotas (well if it wasn't it was a damn good mock-up). We signed in and with a little reshuffle we were all in the same group. We had a quick wander round and saw the Scealectrix track ("an accurate recreation of Brands" apparently), a couple of Xbox's, an array of pc¡¦s sporting the Toyota website, a Wella salon?!?!, a couple of showroom cars and a Panasonic booth.

We were then given our overview of the day and split up into our groups.

Driving accuracy
Well this was our first activity which involved driving a Yaris round some cones, reversing and parking into various coned off bays. I went first and made a COMPLETE hash after failing to follow the "Then reverse out into that bay" bit. Ah well . Puff managed to post the fastest time but he got to watch us all make a mess of it first .

On Track
This was the bit we were all waiting for, the on track session. However upon reaching the pits Puff and I legged it off back to the car park to get our own lids (I certainly didn't fancy wearing a paper "balaclava" and badly fitting helmet). We returned to a couple of raised eyebrows and got to watch the intro video and wait for a instructors to finish with the previous people.

I got some mad rally driving man called Steve (IIRC) who apparently was a WRC mazda / citeron driver. We leaped into the sporty..... Corrola :/ wich was surprisingly sporty . Steve took me on a quick sighting lap an told me about the car and its performance as we dordled around the track. We pulled straight back into the pits and it was my go . Off we went and after asking whether I'd driven around Brads before (to which I replied to the affirmative) he really let me give the car some beans . However after an all to short a period (2 or 3 laps, I can't remember) we had to pull in and then have the choice of the Celica or MR2. I asked which he would take and he said to take the Celica as it was more powerful.

Out we went again and Tyres squealing with him going "a little less there" or "don't turn in yet". I was pleasantly surprised how little understeer the car produced unless I really leapt on the power. I thought the driving position was quite good (although the wheel didn't adjust forward and back, only up and down) and contry to a friends comments I didn't find the visibility too bad either. The gear change was smooth and easy to select the gear I required. The steering was probably a little light for my liking but not as bad as some. Any way again we returned to the pits for the final swap over for the "professional" to show us "what the car was capable of". I am an extremely nervous passenger normally but I couldn't stop grinning as we tore round with some quality tyre squeal in places.

Drive out
We got to take out a Rav4 and a Turbo diesel Corrola in a convoy and listen to one of the salesmen talk us through there respective features. God I couldn't wait for the torture to end.

Driving Dynamics
The final activity of the day was the driving dynamics which, we were told, involved showing us the various first line safety features of the surprise surprise "Class leading" car. Orb and I leapt into a car with one of the instructors and were thrown around the course of cones which involved a chircane the weaving round a "Lorries spilled load" then hard on the brakes. Into first and round the roundabout (which was being continually watered) a few times back to a stop and the a flying takeoff to about 40-50mph then hard on the brakes and then suddenly turning off. These were designed to show us the traction control, ABS, EBC, EBA and stability control. We then got to do the course ourselves and to my very pleasant surprise did demonstrate very well.


[Edited by Dizzy - 5/30/2002 8:59:29 AM]

SWRTWannabe

Hope you're not thinking of swapping your Scoob Diz!

Dizzy

lol no.. although the celica was better than expected... I was still suprised how much better my scoob was. I think I'd have liked to drive the scoob around the same and see the difference.