On Thursday 14th, I took the Elise to Thruxton Motorsport
Centre to do the Skid
Pan Experience. This is a great experience. I didn’t want to use my Elise
(especially whilst it’s under 1000 miles) so went for the standard Skid Pan
Experience (this really is a bargain at £99). In the future I’ll come back and
do the Skid Pan One-2-One with my Elise.
The cars we used were the Toyota GT86 and Mini Cooper. First
up the Toyota GT86 - coming from an Elise this seemed liked a big car. I
actually found the Toyota GT86 a lot more controllable than the Mini Cooper,
and the reason for this was well explained by the instructor. The thing with the
rear wheel drive GT86 is that the rear will break traction and you can
reasonably easy regain control by coming off the gas and countering the break;
whereas the Mini, with a much less balanced chassis (the GT86 chassis is pretty
much 50:50 balanced), when it breaks it’s much more tricky (I’d say less
forgiving, if you catch it early enough you might be okay), and it breaks much
earlier (even with the same tyres.) Also, rear wheel drive cars require more
finesse, so if this is your style it’s better for you; front wheel drive cars
work more like on/off switch, because it’s pulling from the front you might be
able to put your foot down and the front wheel drive will pull you out of
trouble (but maybe not.) I definitely preferred the GT86, and this experience
made me think I’m definitely not going to buy a Mini Cooper (I was thinking
about it as a backup plan if my daily driving a Lotus Elise hits difficulties.)
When I turned up at Thruxton I’m sure there was a Tesla
Roadster in the car park, and I’m kicking myself for not taking a photograph
since it looked awesome. Here are some photos from the day:
Image: Mini Cooper
and Toyota GT86
Image: The skid pan
Image: A slightly
dirty Elise parked up
My route to Thruxton was just 22 miles via Hurstbourne
Tarrant. Not sure if I misread my SatNav, but I ended up heading into Thurxton
Industrial Park, and a route that definitely wasn’t on. I did have reservations
about driving over some things on the road - not sure what they’re called “direction
blockers” maybe - but this turned out to be fine, and the car did get a bit
mucky in the Industrial Park whilst I was driving around lost. The return
journey at 28 miles was much less eventful.
Image: “Direction
Blockers”
Image: The SatNav
wanted to take me onto the circuit (top left in the picture)
Image: 22 miles to
Thruxton
Image: 28 miles
from Thruxton
Finally, when I was back in Newbury area, I went to the
Waitrose (to use up some gift cards), and here’s proof that I went shopping in
my Lotus Elise.
Image: Lotus Elise
in Waitrose carpark
The car got cleaned, put the car cover on (mostly to
protect it from bird dropping hits which always seem to follow after a car
wash), and it’s ready for tomorrow.
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