Since I began writing for DSC, way back in 2012, I’ve been extraordinarily privileged to be exposed to pretty much every area of the sport and granted open access to all sorts of places and experiences. From shadowing tyre engineers during a test programme, to visiting the bowels of Toyota Racing’s headquarters in Cologne, to spending half a day strapped in a Sebring-winning Jaguar D-Type on the Mille Miglia, climbing onto the starter stand during the night shift at the Rolex 24 Hours, taking a look around Enzo Ferrari’s office at Maranello and spending a weekend at the Spa 24 Hours embedded with a team. The list goes on and on…
All of them were pinch-yourself’ moments in my career, which I don’t take for granted for a second; trust me, I don’t understand how or why all this happened either! But until last month, one thing I’d never done was actually drive a race car in anger, beyond a rained-off half-day at Blyton Park in biblical rain aboard a Ginetta Junior with Charlie Robertson, almost a decade ago.
This year, the mid-season summer break in the intense sportscar racing schedule offered an opportunity to change that and fill in some key gaps in my knowledge, with a day spent at Bedford Autodrome on a PalmerSport event.
For anyone unaware, PalmerSport has been running performance driving experiences at the purpose-built Bedford Autodrome circuit for nearly 25 years, and offers a truly astonishing full-day event to members of the public, regardless of experience levels. During your time on site, you’ll sample a ridiculous range of machinery, from a Land Rover Defender to a go-kart, to a Ginetta G56 GTA, Formula 3000 and a McLaren Artura GT4, on a variety of circuit layouts, all with assistance from experienced driver coaches.
To anyone like me, with almost no meaningful race car experience, it was daunting and exciting in equal measure going in. But I can tell you that there was absolutely nothing to be worried or nervous about, because once the day gets underway, you’re in good hands and don’t have time to overthink anything; you’re just thrown straight in.
Within half an hour of signing on, I was strapped into an Artura GT4, the headline 2025 addition, and pulling out of a garage with a coach in the passenger seat, asking me to accelerate harder and brake later than I ever have before. I’ve driven a handful of capable road cars in the past, sometimes as loan cars via manufacturers, or on supercar experience days, but never in this setting.
What surprised me was the general attitude to the experience. The coaches are not there sitting alongside you to rein you in (unless you do something reckless), put the fear of God into you, and instil caution; instead, their aim is to help you improve quickly, lap each course faster and faster, and build confidence in the equipment. It means you leave the Autodrome at the end of the day feeling like a more technically proficient driver and confident that if you returned, you’d pick things up where you left off and take further steps forward.
As someone who spends every working day watching, writing or chatting about racing, to actually get a feel for what GT cars, prototypes and single-seaters are like behind the wheel, with someone experienced on hand to help you get the most out of it, was eye-opening. I genuinely have no idea how drivers do it for hours on end, as it’s not just a physical experience; it’s extraordinarily taxing mentally, even in 20-30 minute bursts.
The Artura on the tricky, fast-flowing South Circuit is an absolute weapon; its grip and braking performance shocked me. The instructors did point out that it’s far more user-friendly than it looks before getting in, and they were right. Not for a second did I feel out of control, even when I was slamming on the brakes 10-20 metres later than my brain was telling me to, or applying the throttle hard out of corners and quickly upshifting. And actually, having one of the more intimidating cars first on the list worked out well, as it made climbing aboard the bigger, three-litre V6-powered JP-LM sports prototype on the 1.85-mile West Circuit half an hour later, after a quick karting session, feel far less daunting.
Naturally, as a sportscar devotee, the JP-LM was one of the cars on offer that interested me the most. And it was, in my mind, the most enjoyable experience before the lunch break. It’s a car that can carry mind-bending speed through flat kinks with ease, and is extremely stable under heavy braking. It was during that session that things began to slow down and click a bit. I got a real sense of the changes in tyre temperature, from stone cold to warm, and the boundaries you can push without losing control. It also presented a far more violent experience; it was louder and required a tad more aggression than the McLaren to get the most from.
Climbing out, with my eyes on stalks, I couldn’t get over just how much concentration was required. Of course, every car we were cycling in and out of had its own feel, and you had to get used to it in just a few minutes in order to soak it in and make the most of each track run. But still, with so much to think about: cars in front, cars in the mirrors trying to come past, meeting braking points on an unfamiliar track, getting a feel for grip levels, acceleration and steering input, all while listening to instructors in your helmet earpiece and actively trying to push a little harder lap to lap.
Climbing out, with my eyes on stalks, I couldn’t get over just how much concentration was required
One mistake, and you’re looping round and parked up in the grass or on a kerb feeling sorry for yourself. Thankfully the instructors keep you calm, and Bedford Autodrome couldn’t be better equipped for this sort of programme. I only spotted one gravel trap all day, and all four circuits in use are pancake flat with plenty of run-off. Any fear of running into an Armco barrier can be put to one side.
That didn’t mean that the next session, spent aboard the Formula 3000, could be shrugged off. After the briefing, it dawns on you that this time you’re out on track, with the other participants in your group, on your own. No spotter. No corner dynamic coaching. No stream of brake now… power… brake hard instructions being fed into your helmet.
It will come as no surprise that my lap times didn’t improve; my best was just over seven seconds slower than my time in the JP-LM. But I did learn that there’s a driver trapped inside, somewhere, deep down, that wanted to block out the road user in me that would be quite happily pootling around at 60 miles an hour. It’s how I found the nerve to pass through the trickiest part of the West Circuit, the longest on the schedule, which features a sweeping left-hander into a fast right before a tight chicane, flat.
I now have a deeper understanding of why people get the bug and go to all lengths to get track time in thoroughbred race cars. Simulators don’t really cut it if you’re looking for an adrenaline rush that leaves you almost shaking.
The second half of the day had an entirely different feel, with two sessions aboard Caterhams, an off-road experience in a Defender, showcasing just how capable a proper 4×4 can be, and track time in a Hyundai IONIQ 5 N EV and a Ginetta G56 GTA to finish the day.
The toughest segment of the day surprised me; it wasn’t the Formula 3000 solo effort; it was the Race-of-Champions-style head-to-head pursuit run in a Caterham. It has you throwing the car around a coned-off circuit while keeping an eye on the competition over the other side of a tyre wall, trying to reach the finish first.
I’m not afraid to admit that I simply couldn’t get the hang of doing a doughnut around a cone, and found the technique of throwing the car into a spin under braking far more nerve-wracking than chucking a McLaren into a chicane at more than twice the speed. Still, Caterhams are bags of fun, especially when we were asked to push them on the East Circuit later on. You learn a lot about car control very quickly. I can’t pretend I didn’t end up facing the wrong way more than once, but I can claim the sixth-fastest time of the day among the 41 drivers on the course, a time of 49.2 seconds.
The final experience of the day was with the Ginetta. And naturally, with multiple driving sessions banked, it was the perfect car in the range to bookend things. I felt infinitely more confident and comfortable behind the wheel than I did when I first set off in the morning. This time we were on the North Circuit, which combines tight, technical slower bends and high-speed curves, headlined by a fast left immediately into a heavy braking point for a hairpin. It really tests your mettle and ability to apply enough force to the brake pedal to avoid an embarrassing moment in the gravel. I absolutely loved every second.
The G56 GTA was everything I wanted it to be. It’s a proper, meaty GT car, with near-perfect weight distribution, enough power to go from 0 to 60 in 3.6 seconds and an impressive V6 soundtrack that feels almost too easy to get lap time out of. It’s no wonder it’s been such a successful one-make product for the Yorkshire marque over the years, and a key pillar of the PalmerSport experience since it was added to the line-up in 2023. And it’s no wonder that the gap between me and the more experienced members of my group – who were taking on their third PalmerSport experience of the year – had closed to within a tenth by the final session.
If I take a look at it from an analytical perspective, in just one day at PalmerSport, I got a sense of just how tough it is to drive a race car at speed, and learned a lot about myself and what I’m capable of. I’ll take the feeling behind the wheel with me to every race meeting, as a tool to help comprehend what I’m watching. And I’ll never look at an onboard video the same way again…
Images courtesy of PalmerSport
