Welcome To The World Of Drifting In Caterhams!
Words by Laura Harris - BRB Founder
On the 16th September 2026, Be Right Back teamed up with Caterham Cars to deliver their FIRST EVER women's-only drift experience... Amazing, I know.. But also bizarre to think that it's never been done before - until now.
I don't know if it's just me, but turning up to race tracks is quite an intimidating experience before you're even worrying about anything else. I think it's the concept of money, heritage, action and crashes that have all come before - plus the feeling everyone else knows exactly where they're going and what they're doing.. Which definitely isn't me.
To set ourselves up for a long day of learning new skills, some of us drove up to Derbyshire the evening before and checked-in to some local hotels, and met for dinner at The Falcon in Long Whatton. This serves as a nice way for new attendees to meet people before the event, and a great catch up for existing Members or attendees.
A good chin-wag later and some "posh" scampi, it was time to head back to the hotel to get some sleep. Not before myself and Lavell tried to set the world to rites, talking about the job market, family life and marketing - to name a few subjects...
The Early Bird Catches The Worm...
Early starts aren't generally my favourite thing in the world, but when I'm going to spend the day ripping around in something cool, I'll always make an exception.
Our day is taking place at Donington Circuit - home of Ayrton Senna's first ever drive in an F1 car, resulting in him breaking the lap record at the time!
The Caterham team have laid out a fleet of 5 cars, all fuelled and waiting for us. They also had an extensive amount of foam padding, and Sam Parker's first Academy Series car for our more vertically challenged ladies. The effort to ensure ALL shapes and sizes were catered for was amazing.
The day was laid out in 2 halves. The first half we spent getting grips with some basics. For almost all of us it was out first time ever getting a car intentionally sideways, so we needed to start with getting comfortable with giving that accelerator a real solid 'prod'. (we couldn't really decide which word we preferred to describe this - 'stab', 'jab' 'prod', 'poke', etc...)
We had two areas set up - a figure of 8 and a more technical run to practice getting the back end of the car to move around.
Relaxing into making mistakes was a bit foreign - You could tell all of us just wanted to do our best and not let ourselves down, so some encouragement from the Caterham team telling us to "just relax" was necessary all morning!
The Thrill Of Skids
Some of you who have driven on track or got your car sideways before might roll your eyes at this, but it's addictive right? This whole in control - out of control stuff...
I was immediately hooked to trying to balance the throttle and the car, and start to link everything together. I was also pleasantly surprised at how comfortable I felt in the car. I expected the small seats, and the tiny steering wheel to feel very alien and a bit awkward if I'm honest, but I settled right in - and from what I could tell, so did everyone else.
The morning was spent honing everything, listening to the advice of the experts - "power here, look here, listen to the engine, feel it through the seat, more power, less power - what do you think you did there? ", and then actually trying to apply it - There's a great video of Caterham Dave telling me something, and I know for a fact none of it was going in my head... I just looked like I was listening.. Sorry Dave!
After our break for lunch, the Caterham team had set up a new course for us to have some fun with. It was to put into further practise everything we'd done in the morning, but on a longer run. One of the things that's hard with car experiences is feeling like you get enough seat time to really start to pull it all together.
While you're in the car though, if you glance quickly enough, you can always see someone grabbing some footage of you and uploading it into the group chat, or shouting words of encouragement. That's one of the nicest things about the BRB community and these events. Getting it "wrong" gets you a laugh, but it's ALWAYS followed by support, a cheer and, encouragement to go and do it again.
There's no ego at these events.. But there is always a competitive spirit!
At the end of the day, and what all of this work had been gearing up to, was a competition.. One of skill, and precision... and memory as it turned out. ( A few ladies struggled to remember which way they needed to go on the course.. Cones always confuse me!)
One by one we went out. We had three practice runs, and then went into the final stage - two more test runs and then MAKE. IT. COUNT!
We had to nail each turn, do a full, long drift at the top, and then, then, we had to do some doughnuts!! Yeehaw!
They were actually much, much harder than I thought they would be. Again, I struggled to put the advice into action, but I tried my best - I just ended up annoying myself. I asked my other half for advice, and he told me the opposite to the coaches, so that was also not very helpful - cheers Phil...
The end runs were spectacular, people who had been so nervous at the start of the day produced some of the best ones out of the whole group, and really proved themselves wrong - which is one of my favourite things.
The point scoring was tough - you don't stop at the end to tag the flag? You just LOST 20 points my friend!
The winner at the end?
Rosalyn - who told me at lunch "I just don't think I'm getting it", as her eyes went a little watery. I assured her that today was all about play, getting it wrong to get it right, and that no-one here was making any judgement about her for any of it.
After lunch, and my clearly exceptional pep-talk, she only went and absolutely nailed the entire course, threw some extra flair in there, that you got bonus points for, and won the damn thing.
I told you, you could do it...
I'm very much hoping I can do another day with Caterham in 2027, so watch this space.
For now though, just know that you CAN fit in the car, you CAN do a drift and you absolutely CAN do it scared.
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