Last year some friends clubbed together and bought me a rally experience for my birthday.

As my birthday comes around again this year, it occurred to me that I’d failed to book it in, an error I’ve since remedied. I’ve never done one of these things before so am looking forward to the trip to Silverstone in a  couple of months time to power a Ford Fiesta through some dirt and mud. I imagine, however, that I’ll be moderately terrible at it – my friends have always commented that my go-karting skills resembled someone driving a Mercedes-Benz whilst not in anything approximating a hurry.

But hey, maybe that’ll look good on a rally track….? Or not…. Anything I should particularly aim to do, petrol head friends, please tell me.