Driving, Experience Gifts, Gifts
Your chance to drive a proper HGV in an Eddie Stobart style with just a normal driving licence at the off-road training centre near Exeter in Devon. Make no mistake these are powerful giants: 44 tonnes 55 ft long three-axle trailer with 460 bhp and a 12 speed automatic gearbox!
Your experience starts with you meeting the truck you’ll be driving and your expert instructor. After being shown round the artic lorry you’ll then climb aboard for a commentated passenger ride in the cab with your instructor explaining the ins and outs of driving these kings of the road. After a safety briefing and explanation of the controls it’s your turn to climb in to the hot-seat for some lorry driving fun.
The massive airfield site boasts huge expanses of tarmac and all without the hindrance of other road users and pedestrians which is perhaps just as well as the words ‘spatial awareness’ take on a whole new meaning when trying to do a nifty three point turn in an HGV!
You’ll be driving for approximately an hour and a half with the instructor by your side to make sure you get the most out of your HGV truck driving experience day. After gaining confidence driving your lorry on the long straights you will move on to negotiate tight corners a coned slalom course reversing and lane changing. You may even have the chance to learn how to uncouple the 45ft trailer.
All that driving uses loads of diesel; with a lorry doing an average of just six miles per gallon but don’t worry you won’t be expected to fill up – fuel is all included in the price!
Find out more and book your place today!
Driving, Experience Gifts, Gifts
Get behind the wheel of ‘Big Rig’ on an American truck driving experience! Clive Shaw has been trucking in his Kenworths for years now and these showcase rigs are perennial favourites at truck fests and shows around the country. This is your chance to actually drive one!
Clive first came up with the crazy idea of importing an actual American truck from the United States in 2011. After many many hours of work (and a lot of stainless steel polishing) Clive’s first rig which came all the way from Tennessee was as shiny and smooth-running as the day it first pounded those American highways.
Pretty pleased with the result and with several Best Kept Super Truck Awards on his dashboard Clive decided to do it all over again. So Clive is the proud owner of the only pair of Kenworths with matching livery in the UK and has added to his collection with a Peterbilt and even a Kenworth previously-owned by none other than Burt Reynolds.
Now (as the famous American soft drink Christmas advert goes) they’re ‘coming to your town’ with American truck driving experiences at Henstridge Airfield in Dorset and at Donington Race Track in the East Midlands.
And yes these trucks are most definitely the real thing. They boast 500bhp+ and have manual gears. Using the Eaton Road Ranger transmission this means that with lo and hi gears you have 18 in total. Yep you read that right…e i g h t e e n! As you might suspect driving one of these mahoosive American big rig trucks is not like driving your average car so each experience begins with a 10-minute in-cab briefing then 5 minutes with your host driving so you can see how it all works.
Then it’s over to you for 15-minutes on the track with you at the wheel. If you opt for the extended experience you get another 15-minutes attempting some of those classic trucker manoeuvres like reversing into a bay.
Whether you’ve always wanted your 10:4 Smokey and the Bandit moment or just love that classic snowy winter scene with the brightly lit Kenworth delivering truck loads of festive cheer we think you will relish the chance to have a go at an American truck driving experience. Dates are limited so don’t hang around!
Find out more and book your place today!
Driving, Experience Gifts, Gifts
Gear up for an HGV truck driving thrill when you go Scania truck driving! This experience gives you the unique chance to drive a powerful Scania tractor unit hooked up to an open-sided car transporter. This is proper trucking!
When you organise and operate car driving days you need to get all your fancy cars to the track. This is exactly what this Scania truck is used for. Fully loaded this beast of an HGV transports 12 supercars at once. Thankfully there’ll be no precious cargo onboard for any unexpected thrills. It’s just you the instructor and a whole load of torque!
You can’t beat Scania lorries. World-renowned for their impressive build quality environmental credentials and sheer driver comfort these Swedish trucks really are the Scandic kings of the road. They pack a punch too and this HGV boasts a six-cylinder 13l engine. Producing 420bhp and a whopping 2200NM of torque this car transporter can pull its payload of priceless motors no problem.
Climb the two steps into the cab and it’s a different world compared to your usual family saloon. It all feels really wide and spacious in there. Get settled into the super-comfy seat (every trucker needs good lumbar support!) and take in your new surroundings. The dash is a big curved console with everything you need at your fingertips.
A glance outside and you’ll note that the Scania has great visibility (handy for when you’re manoeuvring around the slalom course that you’ll be attempting) and large door mirrors too (all the better for seeing where you’re reversing which you’ll also be doing!). Start up the engine and you’ll find it’s surprisingly quiet too.
As you trundle off in your HGV to the dedicated truck driving course be prepared for some testing challenges. Luckily the Scania handles corners with ease and almost no sway. And there’s no doubting in this Scania car transporter you’ve got the right truck to get the job done! Have fun with this HGV truck driving thrill offered at track locations around the country.
Find out more and book your place today!
Driving, Experience Gifts, Gifts
Bringing you the ultimate truck driving session to a venue near you! These double trucking experiences are offered at locations around the country and they give you the chance to drive a duo of trucks; one American and one European. It’s going to be a brilliant transatlantic truck fest for you!
This truck experience combines the best of the trucking world. There’s the all-American Peterbilt which is rarely-seen sight in the UK but one of the most popular trucks in the USA. Then there’s the Volvo FH460. You see trucks like these pounding the motorways every day but this time it’ll be you who’ll be at the wheel of this true workhorse of the roads.
What’s more the Volvo isn’t just any old trucking set up delivering everyday goods. The cab is attached to a 45ft-long trailer which transports supercars to track days. It’s just like the ones you’d expect to see at motor racing events with huge dropdown sides that become the mobile team HQ. It’s actually pretty neat and makes your Volvo trucking session quite unique!
The Peterbilt 379 is a flashy and out-there as you’d expect from a truck that rolls those long-distance cross-county journeys across the pond. It’s got shiny chrome everywhere that huge aggressive front grille the long long nose those high double exhaust pipes reaching into the air and of course air horns. There’s even a fancy flame livery licking the sides of the cab. Surely it’s the ultimate truck to drive?
You’ll be at the helm of each truck for between 15 and 20 minutes. In that time you’ll have tackled moving off (and we have to say it’s nothing like starting off in a car!) steered around a slalom course and had fun on a straight where you can feel the acceleration of these impressive trucks.
For us this is the ultimate truck driving experience that is the stuff of dreams. If you’ve ever watched any American road movie trucks like the Peterbilt appear all the time. And if you’ve ever had the joy of driving nose-to-tail on the M1 you’ll certainly have been alongside a time-served ever-faithful Volvo truck at some point. Now it’s your turn to be a trucker!
Find out more and book your place today!
Driving, Experience Gifts, Gifts
It’s the best of both worlds rolled into one with the truck and supercar experience! Not only do you get to drive the supercar of your choice you also get to drive the truck that brought it to the track.
Rather than individually drive all the cars that are in the fleet to the track days it’s actually easier logistically to load them onto a specialist transporter lorry and drive them all there in ‘bulk’ as it were. That means there’s always a big HGV lorry at these events. (You can see where this is going can’t you!). The organisers had a eureka moment when they thought they should offer drives in them rather than being parked up all weekend.
Then someone had the even smarter idea of combining a truck and supercar drive to create this brilliant dual experience. It means you get to taste the sheer power of both a truck and a fancy car of your choosing. Interestingly both types of vehicles boast around the same amount of horsepower. Modern fuel-efficient trucks need every one of those 400-odd horsepower to tow 16 tons of a full load on the motorway. For the one to two ton supercar 400bhp or more is just sheer indulgence.
Although truck racing is very much a viable motorsport that’s alive and well you won’t be taking the transporter out on the track to hustle in amongst the Ferraris and Astons. You’ll be on the perimeter roads trying your hand at manoeuvring the monster. Even just pulling off from standstill is quite different to your average car. Rather than reveal all we’ll let you find out when it’s your turn to be at the helm of the truck.
As for the supercars they need no introduction. Each and every one is a star. We all have our personal favourites and there’s bound to be one of yours in the fleet. You’ll be driving for three miles around the circuit giving you enough time to appreciate the awesomeness of the car. An instructor will be in the passenger seat giving you tips on the getting the racing line spot on.
Little vs large big vs small slow lane vs fast line 16 gears vs 6 – that’s the beauty of this truck and supercar experience for you!
Find out more and book your place today!
