Woburn Grand Prix (Woburn Safari Park)

Member Name: superguinness

Product:	Woburn Safari Park
Date:	10/06/01 (350 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: didn't breakdown, free voucher, penguins

Disadvantages: no sealions, very busy, penguins smell

Last bank holiday I took part in the first ever grand prix event to take place through a safari park. The circuit was a tricky mix of tight corners, long straights, rhino, lions, giraffes, elephants and some rather slow back markers clearly not keeping to the racing line.

I lined up pretty low down on the grid. We had travelled down from Sheffield in the morning so didn't arrive at Woburn until about 12.30pm. I reckon we were actually about 2567th on the grid. The warm up lap to the start of the actual safari part of the park took nearly an hour.

Tyre selection for my car was fairly straight forward. Making their Grand Prix debut were a couple of Hankooks on the rear, and some trusty Bridgestones on the front. Also making its debut was the car itself, a plucky Hyundai Accent Coupe 1.3si (the Alfa had to go - too unreliable). Another novel idea to Formula 1 was the introduction of my daughter as a passenger. However I noticed that several other drivers appeared also to have had this idea - indeed some had brought along several generations of their family - surely a weight disadvantage.

Just at the start, we had to swerve to avoid a rather surly Finnish couple in an old Merc that had overheated, so that made us 2566th. We negotiated the first sweeping lefthander very well, I even had time to glance across at a couple of zebra munching on some hay.

We managed to pass a family in an mpv, and before the hippo wove past a couple more cars - 2563rd - and round a long righthand bend. Next up we sped past some rhino, which are indeed quite large looking, even from about 100yrds. I was surprised at the lack of a gravel trap in between road and rhino - if a car skidded off it would definately lose its front spoiler when it collided with one of these beasts.

We accelerated through various types of antelope and African cattle before turning through a sharp lefthander. Here some cars were out of the race by the looks of them. Eith
er that or they had stopped to look at the elephants bathing in a small pond. We surged ahead - 2556th.

Next up something I had never seen on a GP racing circuit - some closed gates with a lion sign on them. Other drivers had stopped too. I awaited the appearence of the safety car, and sure enough there it was - in the form of a landrover with the number plate TIGER1. It switched off its flashing light, the gate slid open and we proceded.

We took the next section of the circuit quite steady, past some tigers, wolves and lions, out through some more gates and on to some giraffes. I was getting the hang of the circuit now and was gaining places by the second. All the other cars seemed to keep stopping for some reason.

Next the bear section. This is well known to be the most hazardous part of the circuit. My confidence took a bit of a dent when we saw a car coming out of the exit to the section being pursued by a crazed woman on foot and another safety car.

We raced through this section very cleanly, taking a good line to avoid a big lumbering grizzly, which then got onto its hind legs and scratched itself against a tree in classical fashion - again other cars seemed to be not maintaining racing speed, so we climbed several more places - 2544th.

We weeved through the camel and ostrich section and I took the chequed flag a creditable 2540th with an impressive lap time of 1 hour 25mins, then we parked our car in the judges enclosure for inspection and wandered off to look at the zoo part of the park.

Here there were penguins, monkeys, parakeets in the Rainbow Landing area which actually flew onto your hands (and head), snakes, lemurs and other critters. The sealion demonstration and the animals encounters areas were closed though. Luckily we had been provided with a free second trip leaflet as part of the park's re-opening promotion, so we shall return later this summer. Hopefully by then it will be a little l
ess busy too.

Prices: Adult £12.50 Child £9.00

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