Last week I went for the first time racing around a real race track here in Sydney! Well I wasn’t racing it was more of a first timers teaching session from a professional racing driver and racing driver instructor Mat. Lotus invited me for an afternoon at Eastern Creek Raceway in Sydney in a bid to say sorry a bit for the delay on my shiny new Lotus so far. They gave me and 3 others who were prospective customers for Lotus to go out on the track in Lotus Exige S for a afternoon of fun. The car was similar to what mine will be like to drive on a track so was a great experience to see what the car could do in the environment Colin Chapman and his team designed it for.

The afternoon started with a long powerpoint presentation in the pits of all the corners and their names, entry, apex point (middle point of a turn), exit points and some safety instructions. Then there was a slow drive round the lap with the instructor a ‘sighting’ lap. Next was 6 laps of me driving with the instructor giving me tips, jee’s I was slow haha, then was a break and then 8 laps again of me driving and getting more confident and faster in and out of the corners and then to finish off the day was 2 ‘hot laps’ of the instructor driving at race speed, jee’s that was scary! I almost fell out of the car afterwards shaking and making everyone laugh haha.
This is Jon, the guy in charge of Lotus Australia, he’s English too, was sent over here for 4 years by Lotus to basically increase awareness of Lotus cars here and so to start sales in this country as they are still fairly unknown. He’s a good laugh and enjoys working for Lotus I get the feeling and knows back home in Sussex well so he’s good to catch up with.