While R2 were in the Fife area for a Sunday Run last weekend, we took up a kind offer from the owner of Crail Raceway to visit the facility after their first track day of the season for a look-see and maybe a few "taster" laps. We are hoping to organise a session there in September, so to give members an idea of what's on offer, I've collected some comments from those who were able to get along and try it out.
(I invited R1 and R2 members who had already responded to an earlier email to see who would be interested in such an event.)
The Comments:
"I always thought there was just a Drag Strip there but it is far more than that. I was impressed with the racing track as it offers novice track drivers, like myself, a chance to try out their cars in relatively safe conditions. The track is very wide so an "off" may not be so bad as there is room for correction unless you really over-cook it." - Iain Cameron
"I loved driving round the track and whilst a little scrubby in places it was fun and no worse than some of the roads up here!" - Robin Provan
"The Crail racetrack has a reputation of a no frills venue and has pretty basic facilities. The only refuge from the cold wind was inside the car fortified with hot drinks from the solitary burger van. The local organisers were very welcoming , extremely friendly and led us around the track for the first lap to help memorise the layout. Being an old WW2 airfield the tarmac surface was well used and patched in many places using concrete, the change of surfaces not the best for stable grip levels when driving fast. The actual track configuration worked well , the main "straight" had a fast left kink leading down to the first of the hairpins. Being an old airfield the entry and exit parts of the track at the hairpins were exceptionally wide making it more of a fast U-turn well up the rev range in 2nd gear. Then onto the short back straight and into sweeping right, left, right long radius corners to bring you back to the final (again wide) hairpin and on to the front straight. Although the track surface is changeable in places and not as groomed as you would like, it's very wide allowing easy and above all safe overtaking. It's quite a short track, I managed 105 at the end of the main straight, 60-ish in the hairpins and at 70-90 through the sweepers which made things feel fast enough. My 3.6 gen 2 997 is fitted with PASM and on the harder of the two settings was drifting sideways in some corners as the wheels skipped across the surface bumps. On the softer setting it felt a lot more composed , the extra suspension movement allowing the car to track more accurately to the chosen line . All in all a good fun afternoon. Should you be in the area the venue has many WW2 buildings including the original control tower, the ambiance is positively haunting ..it's well worth a visit." - Ian Dryburgh
Catering facilities
The pictures above were taken by Iain Cameron, and he also took some video...