Welcome to Howfast.com, a fascinating new website for a revolutionary new concept!

Many of us love driving cars fast, enjoying the challenge of pushing ourselves and the car we are driving towards the limit. Of course we mustn't damage anything or anyone in the process, which means the public roads are not the place to explore performance, but at my fabulous Bedford Autodrome circuit you can do just that.

As drivers we are so fortunate. Despite the increasingly restrictive highways and environmental legislation, motor manufacturers continue to offer us a menu of ever more exciting cars. Most new models, particularly high performance cars, have more power, better handling and better brakes than their predecessors. And with increasing commitment to lightness, they are getting faster too.

But exactly how fast are our cars? How fast can we drive them? Many of us love scouring the motoring magazines for the performance data, mainly, of course 0 - 60 mph times and top speeds. Interesting data, but do these figures tell us ultimately how fast a vehicle is on a real world mixture of straights and corners? No, and that's where Howfast comes in.

It's a very simple concept. At Bedford Autodrome our longest circuit is the fabulous GT, or Gran Turismo circuit. Its 3.6 miles includes a brilliant variety of testing asphalt; long straights, super-fast corners, fast chicanes, medium speed corners and hairpins. With Howfast drivers can come along to specified days and set their lap time for their car, and that goes into our overall Howfast database on this website.

We are delighted to launch Howfast with a special event with Autocar magazine, which is not just the leading motoring publication but is also committed to involving its enthusiast readers with hands on involvement, on events and meeting their staff testers. And take it from me, the Autocar road test team have some outstanding drivers amongst them, as illustrated by the times of Goodwin, Harris and Sutcliffe.

Of course cars are designed and built with a wide range of objectives. Sure, some are no compromise high performance machines. Other sports cars are designed to be sophisticated international expresses. Saloons vary from the economical basic hatchback to superbly equipped, quiet executive transport.

At Howfast we recognise this and whether taking part or seeing the results, want you to be able to compare with cars in the same category. We therefore have a sophisticated sort system, whereby you can select as many or as few criteria as you wish, to create a league table based on the parameters you select.

This website has just been born, and will continue to grow rapidly. We intend to include photos and background information on all cars and drivers taking part, as well as many more evolutions. If you would like to be the first to know of new records and events, please provide an e-mail address and we'll keep you right up to date!

We will be running regular trackdays for Howfast, when you can bring anything you like along, do some testing, set a time, and call your friends to tell them where to look to see how you got on!

Fancy a go yourself?

Contact Liz Bushnell at howfast@palmersport.com or telephone 01403 733999 for details of the next event.