He may be getting on a bit these days, but Jonathan Palmer still knows how to entertain 80 guests ;-)

PalmerSport

On Saturday I had one of the best days of my life, at the Bedford Autodrome with the PalmerSport team. I was put at the wheel of 7 high performance cars (plus a kart and a Land Rover) and let loose on the track to see what I could get out of them. The cars were a Palmer Jaguar JP1 track car, a Formula Palmer Audi race car, a Renault Clio Cup Racer, a Porsche 911 JP3, two types of Caterham and a Jaguar XK-R GT3 race car.

We arrived in the morning and, while I was excited, I was also quite nervous. Not about having to drive these amazing cars, that was the exciting bit, but because there was a doubt over whether I would be allowed to drive the Formula Palmer Audi single-seater (some bollocks about my age causing insurance problems or something...). For me, this car would be the highlight of the day, so to not drive it would be a real bummer. I was told that my driving would be assessed early in the day to judge whether I was capable of driving the FPA. Obviously I had every confidence that my driving was fine, but what if my group got in the FPA first? As I said, I was slightly nervous.
After a full breakfast, we were introduced to the activities of the day (like I hadn't checked the website about 20 times and knew it like the back of my hand anyway :P), and finally we were all told which group would go in which cars first. Of the 4 groups, I was in Fangio, and we were last to be called out. Schumacher group was given the Caterhams (damn), Piquet group was given the Clio’s (uh-oh, this isn’t looking good...), but luckily Senna group got the FPA, and my group was given the JP1. A bit of a daunting start, but I was too relieved to notice that :P

Palmer Jaguar JP1

Top Gear's "Ultimate track car" was all mine for 10 minutes! 0-60 in 3.6 seconds, 180mph top speed, 370bhp/tonne, 6 speed sequential gearbox... all a little daunting considering that the fastest car I'd driven to this point was my 1 Litre Corsa!!! But I was too excited to be worried! The day didn’t start well when I lost a few minutes track time replacing a helmet with a dodgy intercom, but my instructor would give me an extra lap at the end to make up for it. As I pulled out of the garage and out of the pits, the first thing I noticed was the ferocity of the power, how it literally kicked me in the arse as I stroked the throttle. It reminded me very much of a kart, not so much raw horsepower, but what it had had so little to push that it jumped like... well... 150 horses to be honest! It was very much like driving a super charged 6 speed kart really, so I felt very much at home. The one thing I couldn’t get used to was the clutch on downshifts. The idea was to dip the clutch for as short a time as possible, hit the shifter, and release the clutch, all in the space of about half a second, and use the engine braking to slow you. But my little Corsa is... well... less than smooth, shall we say, when releasing the clutch having downshifted, so I was still trained to hold the clutch down for multiple gears and release it veeeerrrry sllllooooowwwly... which didn’t really work too well in the JP1! I couldn’t get my head around the necessity for engine braking, and that the car wouldn't just loop on me if I quickly released the clutch. Eventually, after a few overshoots and two spins, I got the hang of it and set a respectable lap at the end of the session, of 1:17.83. Apparently that was about 3-4 seconds off an ultimate hot lap, and held up to be the 5th fastest time of the day (not bad considering half the guys there had been there at least once before).
What struck me most about the car was the low speed grip (at high speeds it was a little tail happy), and the harshness of the engine braking. Everything else was as expected from my karting and sim racing experience (I'll go into more detail later!)

After the JP1, my quite impressed JP1 instructor (Luke Kidsley) basically told the admins that they were talking bollocks not letting me in the FPA, and they allowed me to drive the single-seater. Thanks Luke!!!

Formula Palmer Audi

The highlight of the day, the ~160hp Palmer Audi single-seater was mine and mine alone (no room for an instructor!) for these wonderful 10 minutes. We had an extra briefing on this car, including how to sweet talk the 4 speed H pattern gearbox into doing what you want! 0-60 in 3.4 seconds, 60-0 in 1.6, and a top speed of 165mph, this car was the fastest accelerator of the lot, and was pretty handy around the corners too!!! As I pulled out of the pits, it felt much like the JP1, but quicker and more balanced... from the very first corner I felt totally at home. I was the 3rd car to exit the pits, but after 2 corners I shot straight to the front of the queue and never looked back! (That had been pretty sweet because it also involved passing one of my uncles :P). Corner after corner I was braking later, improving my lines, getting on the throttle harder and harder, shifting the gears more fluidly, and I felt totally at home. The traction control stopped me fully testing the traction of the beast, but the braking and high speed grip of the car was seemingly endless. My only limiting factor was that the car had clearly been set up to understeer at high speed, so I struggled around a few of the sweepers ending the lap, but at least I had worked out what to do with the clutch!!! The feeling I got from the car was amazing, I must admit, it was very much like driving some of the more responsive cars from our own simulators, and I guess what I could compare it best to in terms of handling was the Champ Car mod! Obviously those cars have more grip and power, but it felt very much like a low speed version of that. Good job iDT!!!
These cars weren’t recorded with all the others, the instructors wanted to discourage us from driving beyond our limits for a laptime because we were on our own and could get in serious trouble (apparently one driver in the past tried to enter the 35mph turn one hairpin at 99mph! Needless to say his day ended right there!) But there was still a prize at the end of the day for the driver whose telemetry trace most closely resembled that of a former instructor... some guy called Justin Wilson. Anyway, guess who won that little prize? Yours truly of course! I was 7.5 seconds off Justin's time (I got a 1:16.85, the top speed was limiting it from going much faster than the JP1), but not bad considering my lack of experience :D
The trace also showed I got 113.8mph, which is a new top speed record for me! Although I think the JP1 probably went a little quicker...

In between the JP1 and the FPA we had been given karts to keep us interesting. Not much to say, other than I set the fastest time of the day in them. Yay for me!

Renault Clio Cup

We left the West circuit and headed over to the North circuit, where next up was the mighty Clio! Front wheel drive, 180bhp, 6 speed sequential, 0-60 in 4.1. Not your Sunday shopping run Clio by any stretch of the imagination! These things were amazing to drive, "drive it like you stole it" has never felt so true! I had a crazy Danish instructor called Benny for this one, and he really pushed me to the limit "trust me and brake when I tell you" seemed to be his catchphrase! This was definitely the most raw fun I've ever had behind the wheel, even if it wasn’t the sensational experience the JP1 and FPA were. On my in lap, we caught one of the Porsches who were on track at the same time, and there just happened to be my instructor's roommate in that car... so, of course, the Benny instructed me to drive down the inside, get totally sideways, and wave the bird at Porsche! Then he grabbed the wheel and blocked all the way down the straight! Hilarious stuff, but I didnt make good friends with that Porsche instructor... and guess who I saw in the passenger seat of the Porsche I stepped into? :P
Anyway, as well as having an absolute blast, I set the 2nd fastest time of the day in the Clio (58.74), about 2 seconds off a really good lap from an instructor. I must admit, these things were nothing like anything I've driven in a sim, the superb mechanical grip is badly under rated in current cup car mods...

Porsche 911 JP3

This is a PalmerSport tuned Porsche 911, which gets similar performance to a Porsche 911 Cup car. It has 320bhp, can do 0-60 in 4.5 seconds (actually slower than the Clio), and has a top speed of 177mph. I didn’t get along too well in this car, partly because my instructor wasn’t my biggest fan, but mostly because the confusing and unresponsive paddle shift screwed me up on almost every corner (it automatically upshifted, but there was no jerk when it did this, and I couldn’t see a gear indicator, so I was left wondering what gear I was in every time I hit the brakes). Still, I was amazed to find the basic driving characteristics were extremely similar to what I had learned in GTR2 in the G3 class Porsche Cup, so I got on with it despite the annoying gearbox and set a 58.15, the fastest time of the day! The car required a smooth and delicate touch, which contrasted heavily with the Clio that I had just got out of, but as I said, it felt familiar.

Next we headed off to the 4x4 track and cruised some Land Rovers over some obstacles. It was all rather dull in comparison to the other cars really. But next up was a head-to-head dual in a Caterham around a tight autocross style course…

Caterham 7 Superlight

Probably the most fun machine on the day, we drove the Caterham 7 twice, once on the autocross course, and once on the twisty East circuit. Now, I’ve never driven the RACE versions of the Caterham, but the rFactor Caterham mod got the physics spot on! The way the back breaks loose when you squirt the throttle, the controllable slides, the gear shifting, everything felt totally perfect between the two. I couldn’t imagine racing these things, spinning around a skid pan would be fun enough for me to kill a weekend!!! I loved sliding around in these so much that I think I’ll have to buy myself one when I get older… if I cant afford a JP1 that is! :P

Jaguar XK-R GT3

Comfortably the prettiest and most powerful car I drove, the XK-R packs a 420bhp punch, with a top speed of around 180mph. The longest straight at the South circuit only allowed me to reach a measly 125mph, but it is one seriously fast machine. But, like the Porsche, it had an unresponsive paddle shift gearbox, as well as far too obtrusive traction control, and limp power steering. I struggled to really get any feedback from the car, so ended up throwing it into corners at 90mph with blind faith in the car and my instructor that it would work. And apparently it did! I set the 2nd fastest time of the day in this car, but I couldn’t help feel a bit annoyed that the experience was so sanitised. If only the TC was turned off, the power steering was halved, and a sequential shifter was installed, this car would be amazing. The way I was chucking it around like it weighed half what it actually did weigh was awesome. This was one of the few cars that I felt really didn’t translate so well over to a simulation (the closest thing to it would be the Viper Competition Coupe in GTR2, but I found the Jag would take far more of a beating than the Viper).

At the end of the day, I was fastest in 3 vehicles (karts, Formula Palmer Audi, and Porsche 911), second fastest in two vehicles (Jaguar XKR and Renault Clio Cup), and came 3rd overall (only my 29th best time in the Caterham [I was too busy sliding around having fun!!!] spoiled me winning overall), and my group won the team prize. It was a heck of a day, and I must say that my sim racing experience certainly helped me out a lot more than I was expecting… I’m not so sure it would be necessary to go fast, but I have absolutely no doubt that it was what allowed me to get up to speed so quickly. So keep at it guys! All this practice will help you when you get the opportunity to hit the track!