Unless you're an F1 driver or a Le Mans car driver, a ride in a Palmer Jaguar JP1 is probably the closest you will ever get to experiencing an F1 or Le Mans car. At Brands Hatch you can have the opportunity to see what this is like. I strongly recommend this.
As I waited in the pit lane area at Brands Hatch, I had a look at the machine that would shortly take me around the undulating, twisty circuit that surrounds the pits area. Someone else was having a go before me, and it soon became clear that getting into one of these cars is a bit of a faff - with no doors and the car designed for speed rather than practicality, it is a bit of a squeeze.
You must lower yourself in, suspending yourself above the car with your hands while you swing your legs in and get your lower half into a small gap below the 'dashboard'. I have fairly long legs but when I later had my turn there seemed like an endless amount of room stretching beyond my feet once they were in, which was very surprising - racing cars are generally made to fit short drivers. Ken Block was recently turned away from his first F1 test because he was simply too large to fit into the car.
Still, the passenger was in, and after a fiddly 4 point safety harness had been adjusted for him, the driver dropped the clutch, spun the wheels and left some rubber down on the garage floor where the car had been. Make no mistake, racing cars are very loud, especially in garages. It's brilliant.
The noise of a high revving, screaming V6 announced the Jaguar's arrival at Paddock Hill Bend, which is out of sight from the pit lane, and an instant later a flash of red appeared amongst the greenery at Druids, taking a tight line in and a wide one out of the corner, the driver using all the road to his advantage. What followed was a series of very fast-looking laps from the Jaguar and its clearly terrified passenger, the car finding grip and speed where the fleet of customer driven BMW M3s simply could not. I had never seen an M3 look slow before that day, especially on a track.
The car came into the pit lane at great speed, only slowing down at the last minute to turn into the garage, seemingly expecting the small crowd there to move out of its way - luckily for everyone involved, the crowd dispersed quickly.
It was my turn.
Awkward strapping in sequence out of the way, my driver introduced himself as Mr Tony Trimmer, he then told me to lower my visor as we exited the garage and off we went. As soon as the light was green at the end of the pit lane, we were off. And I mean OFF. The acceleration is immense - not frightening, just very surprising. Enough to make you notice the grab handle and the barriers a bit more than usual, anyway.
Mr Trimmer launched the car into the blind and downhill Paddock Hill Bend - that is when you get scared. You simply have to trust that the driver knows what he's doing, and luckily, he did. What surprises you most as you lap a circuit in one of these cars is the sheer level of grip these things have. I have no idea how fast we were going, there was no speedometer that I was aware of, but as we entered the corners at frankly silly speeds, it just seemed inevitable to me that the car would fail to slow down enough, understeer and skid off into the tyre wall.
But it didn't - it hunkered down and seemed to lower itself like a tiger does before it pounces, gripping effortlessly to the track and launching itself at the next section of the track. It did this over and over again, the g-force moving me around significantly inside the cramped little cabin.
On a faster speed track I think the forces involved would be far too much for anyone who wasn't a racing driver, but the speeds are low enough at Brands Hatch that you notice the force without suffering. It's not painful, but it's certainly noticeable.
If you imagine the fastest, twistiest roller coaster you've ever been on, take that and multiply the experience tenfold and you will have something similar to the experience. If you ever get the chance to ride in something similar, take it, these machines are incredible. Just make sure you're not driving, because the chances are you'll end up in a wall. But before that, it'll be the most exciting and enjoyable crash you'll ever have.
