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Rally school Ireland, based in Scotstown, Co Monaghan, is Ireland’s only purpose-built rally school.
They have a range of experiences from half-day courses where you get to drive a small selection of rally cars over their purpose-built rally stage to a monster three-day supercar driving experience where you get to drive all the cars on site with the aim of mastering their Porsche 911 by the end of the experience.
The list of cars available to drive on the limit is every driver’s dream garage: A Ford Escort MK2, BMW 325i, Subaru Impreza, Nissan 350Z, Toyota Gt86, Porsche 911 and an amazing Ariel Atom.
The Atom is Ireland’s fastest accelerating car, with a 0 to 60mph time of a little over three seconds. The school also has a Ford KA for the younger aspiring rally driver in the family.
It not all about rallying. Recently, they have started doing a drift experience using the Nissans, which can include a chase scene using their police-styled car. This course can only be booked by two people so the chase can ensue.
I have done the full-day rally course using the Old escorts and found it to be a very fun and exciting day. Courses start from €225 for the half day, with three different cars up to €4,500 for the full works three-day experience.
Mondello Park Race School
Mondello Park is Ireland’s premier race circuit based in Co Kildare. The circuit offers a plethora of experiences for the car enthusiast this Christmas.
The original race experience gives you a tutored experience in a race-prepared saloon car and then a number of timed laps in an single-seater race car on your own. Having done this experience myself, seeing the open wheels out in front of you as you hustle the little single-seater around the iconic circuit is an amazing experience.
In recent times, Mondello has extended its offering which now includes a BMW M experience which I undertook earlier in the year and found it very enjoyable. There is a drift experience and a super car experience.
The super car experience involves driving a pair of Porsche super cars, a Boxster and 911.
Recently, Mondello has started an auto test experience. Auto testing is where manoeuvres which often include the handbrake are undertaken around cones under time pressure and is seen as one of the best ways to learn extreme car control. Courses start from €169 for the simplest race experience and go up to €299 for some of the top of the range courses.
Offroaddriving.ie
This is based at Palmerstown house near Naas in Co Kildare. The course here has been enhanced with some brilliant manmade challenges like a rock garden, giant concrete stairs, camel bumps and an off road see-saw.
The vehicles are all 300TDI Land Rover Discovery models which have been rebuilt and modified for off-road driving. An off-road driving instructor accompanies each vehicle to guide you through the course, which is essential as some of the obstacles are quite daunting the first time round.
No matter how good a driver you are, or think you are, the off-road driving course is taken in really low gear and requires control and nerve so it is a completely different kind of driving to anything you have experienced before.
You will be pretty amazed at what the vehicles can actually do as they seem to defy gravity going over some of the obstacles. This course would make mincemeat of a standard car or the so called 4×4s you would see on the school run.
But in these Land Rovers, despite bouncing around the obstacles and taking a bit of punishment, it’s quite a nice comfortable ride on the inside.
I have been at this venue for the launches of some road-going 4x4s with some off road ability, most recently the Mercedes X-Class.
Moving through the course, many of the parts that were avoided on these press days are the route the Discoveries take and it does look like impossible terrain to the untrained eye but the instructors say that the whole course is navigable with the old Land Rovers.
Prices start from €59 for a 30-minute experience.
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