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Easter Saturday -- that'll be DIY and stuck in a traffic jam in Cornwall then? Well, not for me this year.

Instead it was the first induction day for Track Club, the track day car hire club part of the Track-Sense operation, which meant myself and 30 or so other new members visting the club's paddock near Bruntingthorpe to meet the team, see the cars and learn what we needed to know about loading and trailering "our" new toys. Oh, and we even get to drive a few of them.

Track Club is a new approach to car hire for track days - for those who don't want the costs and restrictions associated with arrive and drive days, becoming a member of Track Club simply means you book one of the fleet for your track day, collect it from the Club's base yourself, do your day as you please then return the car when you've finished.

To make sure things go as smoothly and safely as possible, Track Club's staff were on hand today to talk us through the membership terms and conditions, ensure we could all trailer a car safely with the Club's LD200 pickups (also hireable if you don't want to tow with your own vehicle) and try out a few of the cars.

I'd met Stephen (Director) and Max at Autosport In January, but things had been pretty quiet recently while they sorted out the amazing amount of paperwork and admin necessary to get the scheme off the ground, so it was great to see it coming together at last. The new paddock building, while understandably anonymous from the outside looked the part with all the cars lined up on one side, tyres and spares on the other.

After coffee and welcome, we were all given copies of the members handbook to read through, and Stephen then hosted a Q&A session about exactly how the club would work in practice - essentially membership buys you points, you trade your points for days in the cars. How many varies according to car, day and time of year.

It was then over to Aaron for instruction in use of trailers. I've towed a few things before but you can always learn something, and with the majority of the club being novices we all practiced putting the Renault Spyder on the trailer, strapping it down safely and then manouvering the trailer into a parking bay with the pick-up truck.

A quick soup and sandwich lunch and it was time to take a few cars with non standard features over to a cold and windy (isn't it always?) Bruntingthorpe for some familiarisation runs.

• BMW E30 - left hand drive with dog-leg first gear.
• Renault Spider - sequential shift and bizarre dash display.
• Renault Clio V6 - fully stripped out and sitting on the floor. Voted best noise of the day, the Clio was standing in for the Club's Radical SR3 which had refused to fire up that morning.

Regrettably far too soon it was time to go home and get planning what I'm hoping to take out when... Spyder or V6 Clio to start with I think, then maybe the Exige or the LMP and finally a run round in the Radical and enough points left over for an evening session with the Caterham. The fleet is ten cars at the moment, and with another five to come so I should have plenty of choice.

Track Sense will be at Rockingham next weekend on 3 April -- contact details below if you'd like to know more.

Link:

www.track-club.com/