Cadwell Park Track Day - with Video

Being a member of the lotus7 club has it's benefits, and one of them is low price track days. One of this years events that I was very much looking forward to was Cadwell Park.

I'd provisionally booked the day with a view to checking the weather three days before the event and  booking once I knew it was definitely going to be dry.  The forecast showed a lot of rain, so I decided not to book, and quite rightly so... By all accounts it was extremely wet, and there were three accidents - certainly not what I was making a 220 mile round trip for!

Nevertheless, another session at Cadwell was available yesterday (with MSV track days this time) and being a bank holiday Monday - how could I turn that down.  The price was only a tenner more than booking through the lotus7 club and the weather forecast was dry - it was a no brainer!



Unfortunately none of my mates could attend - so I left home early (5am!), and blatted up to Cadwell Park.  The first half of the drive there was cold and boring, but the second half was great with some fun A and B roads which helped to break up the long journey.

on track at Cadwell Park in my Caterham R500 Duratec

Cadwell Park is a really nice circuit with blind bends and lots of elevation changes - the video doesn't do it justice! You can get a little bit of air over the mountain, and the next series of corners (hall bends) flows really nice and it's a great feeling travelling under the overhanging trees - Gooseneck is also very challenging and rewarding when you get it right!  It really is a very technical circuit, so great for Caterhams (if a little bumpy in some parts)... The only problem is it’s so twisty you just catch everyone quite quickly, and there aren’t that many straights – so a lot of time is spent behind other cars... Out of the whole day I only really got ten or so laps in where I wasn’t held up by a slower car...

Having had the car flat floored by Rob at Rat Race Motorsport last week I was extremely keen to check out the new setup.  In short, the handling is vastly improved; the car now turns when I want it to - so if you're having understeer woes I'd highly recommend getting your car flat floored by Rob based on my experience.

Below is a video of three laps where I wasn't caught up by any other cars.  Hope you enjoy.