Lloyd's 30th Birthday Present: Supercar Driving Experience at Dunsfold Park

For Lloyd's birthday present last year his friends pooled together and bought him a track day driving experience at Dunsfold Park.  Some people might be familiar with Dusnfold Park as it is where the hit TV show Top Gear is filmed.  For this track day Lloyd got to drive 2 laps in 3 supercars and considering the fact that it was the first time he's stepped into any car in 6+ years, he did surprisingly well!  We had to book the day almost 7 months in advance because this event is so popular and they only have limited space but Lloyd, Jonno and I took the day off of work and made the trek down to Godalming, Surrey.  After a 45 min train ride a taxi took us to the track and Lloyd could start the day that he'd waited over a year for!  He was like a little kid he was nervous and giddy and excited all at once and  he couldn't wait to get in the car!  He even did some 'practice driving' on the Playstation the night before.

When it was his turn Lloyd was driven around the track by an instructor where he got to see how the track was laid out so that he could start getting used to where he'd need to go and once he was through with that he was ready for his first drive.  The first car was an Aston Martin DB9 (new ones go for a whopping £131,999), pics and videos are below.

He was also lucky enough to get professional photos and a really cool video of each of his rides.












Next up was the Ferrari 360 in a beautiful sky blue color, and my favorite car of the day (based on the color, of course).  This car was a full manual transmission - no gear shift pedals on the steering wheel - so it was a bit harder to drive than the others.

Look at that grin! 

Happy Lloyd! 

Jonno's video of the Ferrari laps:





Jonno's video 2:







The last & final car was the mighty Lamborghini Gallardo (retailing around £186,000!! yikes...) which boasts a 5 liter 90 degree V10 engine with a max of 520 metric horsepower and paddle gearshifts behind the steering wheel (don't ask me to explain what any of that means...).  This was Lloyd's best and final ride and he really pushed the Lambo to the limits.  The instructor also scored his drive at a 38/40, which he said was the highest score in the Lambo he'd given all day!

First to explain this picture...there was a very obnoxious guy also waiting for his turn to drive the cars and he had brought his license plate with him so that he could hold it in front of the cars to 'visualize' that it would be his car someday.  He took lots of pictures with the cars, complete with flexing, chest thumping, etc.  He kept boasting that he'd 'have this car in 2yrs' and some guy walked by and muttered, "you wish..." which caused this guy to get his feathers all ruffled and he jumped around proclaiming that he worked for Goldman Sachs and that he'd buy this car in 2 years when he was a millionaire.  Ugh.  He then walked up to the car, pulled up his shirt and flexed his abs & biceps so his friend could get a mucle-y shot in front of the car.  Not to be outdone, Lloyd made sure to show his abs with the Lambo right before his drive!! hahaha And that's exactly why I love this guy!!

Grinning from ear to ear! 

Jonno's video 1:










It was a fun day at the track and Lloyd absolutely loved driving in those cars and can't wait to go back! He's been bitten by the supercar bug and I now know what he'll request for every Christmas and birthday present from now on... :)

Until next time,

Jen