Top Gear fans only! Retro on the track

[Speedman]

Today I popped over to Dunsfold to act as support truck to my brother and his mates in their Caterhams, last night we loaded up the Camper with three sets of wheels plus tools and jacks.


Once in the paddock we swapped over onto the older tyres to allow for maximum hoonage.




Following the drivers briefing we set off to blast up the runway, skid round the wetted skidpan and jink through the slalom course.






During the morning we bought a few laps of the Top Gear track as well, led round behind a Caterham racecar we got three laps at a time on the hallowed tarmac.







;D

[Speedman]

As the session came to a close I managed to blag my way onto the track as well, one of the organisers is a Camper owner as well as a Caterham owner and was doing some laps for some people, so we tagged on the back.














I managed a heady 70mph out of the "Follow Through" onto the main straight, foot flat to the floor;) Pulling off I nabbed a new sticker for the back of the van as well.


Theres loads more photos from the day here

[welder]

Looks like good fun. I went round Silverstone once 7 up in a Toyota Hiace caravanette. That was an interesting experience.

[bozwell]

'tis a funny old place. i was there a couple of years ago (nothing to do with Top Gear) but the circuit wasn't allowed to be used as the 747 was due to land. they didn't want any debris left on the runway. i hung around at the end to watch the landing.

they did a flypast and a dummy landing befor the proper landing as they were unsure if the runway was really long enough for a 747. cool thing to watch











don't know why they have changed the engines? Dunsfold is its final resting place although i thought they were using the 747 for filming?

[Camp Davy]

great pics sm
that 747 has been featured on a few top gear eps i think

[scoobypete]

Thats brilliant steve!
Id love to be able to say ive driven round the top gear track

[ToolsnTrack]

They changed the engines for a movie prop. The plane was used in Casino Royale as the new unveiled plane. Engines are fake now iirc...

Guess the plane is at the end of life and out of service.

[e21meister]

A trackday circuit in the layout of the TG track would be fantastic. Being that close to a 747-100 would've probably had me jaw-on-deck, I thought that particular plane had been decommissioned and was an ornament?

[Team Blitz]

Lotsa cool info here: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunsfold_Aerodrome

[Andy Camaro]

I saw the 2 Caterhams superlights *black n the orange) as they are going through guildford the other week as i had to go to work. also on the A281 that day saw a kawaki green lambo giardo? tons of ferraris etc

Andy

[VIP]

May 31, 2010 0:25:38 GMT ToolsnTrack said:

They changed the engines for a movie prop. The plane was used in Casino Royale as the new unveiled plane. Engines are fake now iirc...

Guess the plane is at the end of life and out of service.

The whole aeroplane is gutted now, the engines are fibreglass shells, there's no interior, no wiring. That's why it was so 'easy' for the Tourag to pull it...

[knobstar]

Didn't they add additional ballast to bring the weight back up to iro 155 tonnes?

[Speedman]

Thanks for the comments guys, the video of the first couple of laps is on YT now, standing start lap was a whisker under 3mins, theres no footage of the second runs, but it was a good 20-30secs quicker