Stafford Driving Experience 2016

Today was a very different kind of day, one that should have probably happened months ago. Brought for me as a Christmas present last year, I finally got around to doing my experience day. In all honestly, I wasn't really looking forward to it at first especially on the way their but, as I we got closer to the site (My dad was driving us) I couldn't distinguish what it was I felt between a mixture of feeling nervous, excited and scared.

We arrived at the site not long before 1pm and not long after sorting little bits of paperwork at the reception, I was off in my first car. The first one was a passenger ride where the guy driving me was driving a manual Lotus while explaining to me how to drive on the track, pointing out that I should aim for the green cones and brake past certain points which had big boards up either side saying it anyway but, the cones where a little trickier to spot. It became a case of looking for a green glint between orange in certain places. It doesn't particularly help when the track is surrounded by grass which is also green.

The first car the I had the chance to drive myself was an automatic Audi R8. All of the cars I got to drive were automatics so I won't bother mentioning that again. This car has always been one that I've liked the look of and it was very impressive. With it being my first couple of laps I was a little tense and didn't really manage to break out of my comfort zone with it although my driving was still complimented at the end by my instructor with a percentage score of 86%.

The second car that I drove was a Porsche and is my easy favourite from the whole day. The controls were slightly different from the last but, once I got used to them I felt fine with it. The R8 had flappy paddle gear controls where this Porsche had buttons that you either press down on the front of the steering wheel to chance up or sort of flick up from behind the wheel to change back down. I did get it wrong on the first corner but, everything went fine. No crashes or anything! The instructor that I had for this car was probably the best I had all day. He was quite comical and talkative so he was a lot more encouraging for me to put my foot down on the accelerator. One of the first things he said to me was "Can I call you Kim? It that okay? I prefer less syllables, its just a lot easier if we die." He was great.

Next up was the Nissan GTR. I wasn't really sure about this one. It was back to the flappy paddle controls which were alright but felt a bit heavier than the Audi and looked a lot more mechanical. I feel like I probably did my fastest lap in this car as I had a lot more confidence about me and I'm sure it was this one that I managed to overtake two cars in one lap. It might not have been the most prettiest car that I had driven today but, that doesn't mean that its not impressive.

Finally, the last car of the day that I got to drive was an Astin Martin. When I realised that that was what I was going to be driving I did get a little more excited. A lovely silver colour. It was very fast just like the others but, I did work out that the breaks did have to work a lot harder... and so did my breaking foot. A lot of the time I under braked and then had to break harder last minute but, this car was so much heavier. A very impressive drive though otherwise. Between all of the cars I think I managed to reach between 80-90mph on the track. I was kind of hoping for more speed and I think my dad was too but it is only a short track with two straight runs.

All in all, the whole day was a big success for both myself and my parents. I think my dad was quite proud that I came out alive and with no scratches... on the car that is. We collected all of the photos on a disc from the booth and I even got a free print of one of the photos that was in with voucher. We ended up being all finished by about 2pm which originally by the itinerary should have been when we started because we arrived quite early! On the drive home we stopped off at KFC for food and eventually got back home at about half four.

Here is a link to an album that I have created on Facebook with photos from this awesome day!

https://www.facebook.com/thekimkeeton/media_set?set=a.10204848347168104.1073741849.1821894295&type=3&pnref=story

So Much To Look Forward To...

So, as you might have guessed a lot of things will be happening over the next few months and Im starting to get rather excited about it all. It won't be long until I reduce my working hours so that I can get on with uni life and officially become a student again. It is less than two months until I get to meet everyone now. I have spoken with Carol at work, well, while I was just driving out she called me. I had bluetooth set up so now Im offically just working weekends from 26/09/16 as that is the day I have to go to the Broadway Cinema in Nottingham for the welcome event.

There is however something as equally exciting happening in the end of October, shortly after. On the  28/10/16 The Piano Guys are releasing a new album called, 'Uncharted'. Of course, I have already placed my order, I have literally just done it. I have ordered the personalised bundle for $49.95 but then $21.38 shipping on top of that makes that $71.33 total. Oops. I am really excited for this though. The seem to average a new release each year, they are very hard working musicians and I just love and admire them so much for all of what they have achieved. The other day they reached 1 billion youtube views which is insane.

Before all of this I have my experience day driving around in a few sports cars and a short holiday to enjoy as well. Knowing me, I will take most of my tech with me on holiday. We have CCTV now at home but, I still hate leaving most of my valuable stuff just incase. I treated my self to a PS Vita the other week. I had been eying them up for a while and I finally found one at a decent price, the slim model for £90. I had to pay £8 for a 4GB memory card too but its still not bad and the screen is excellent. The battery life if quite impressive too. I've tried the remote play with my PS4 and when it works it is really great its just I don't think my internet speed is really suitable for it.