I've just spent two days coaching a customer in and Ariel Atom 300 at Donington and Cadwell Park...

Stuart had some previous track day experience but hadn't actually done a track day for a few years. He recently bought himself an Ariel Atom 300 and decided that it would be prudent to have an Instructor on board when taking it on track for the first time. So a Book A Track day was booked at Donington and an MSV day at Cadwell for 3rd and 5th (yesterday) of September repectively.

Fortunately the weather was great (dry and sunny) on both days as the Atom 300 would have been quite a handfull in the wet. The Atom 300 has a Supercharged 2 Litre Honda V-Tec in the back, producing 300 BHP - hence "Atom 300" - which, with it's weight of less than 600 kgs, means it has around 500 BHP/Tonne. Acceleration is vicious and calls for careful throttle control, especially when exiting corners. Such is the performance of the Atom 300, that we were able to reach 140 MPH not only on Donington's Dunlop Straight (and 135 MPH on the Start/Finish straight just before Redgate) but we saw 150 MPH on two of Cadwell's straights, the long uphill "Park" straight and on the run from "Barn down to "Coppice"!

It proved to be a productive couple of days with Stuart's confidence to push the Atom increasing and his general technique improving substantially by yesterday afternoon.