HURTLING around a disused airfield in brand new Bentleys weighing a couple of tonnes at speeds of up to 180mph while using fuel at the rate of one gallon every seven miles is not what you would call environmentally friendly.

It is not politically correct, could be classed as highly dangerous and doesn’t do the cars much good either as the tyres are stripped of rubber and the brakes glow red hot.

However, it is not simply a case of men behaving badly but the sort of corporate day of fun and frolics that are becoming increasingly popular.

Critics would argue that such occasions are little more than a distasteful display of boys enjoying their toys while accelerating the destruction of the planet in the process.

The car companies argue that it is not just exhilarating to exploit the performance potential of their vehicles within the expanses of an empty airfield but to demonstrate their safety superiority in the process.

Drivers experience not only the performance prowess of their charges but also their handling and braking abilities so if an emergency does occur their avoidance actions will be more measured and less panicked.

Certainly if I ever find myself faced with a sudden obstruction just six feet ahead of my Bentley travelling at 110mph in a real-life situation I will now have a degree of experience to draw upon.

This is one of several high-speed avoidance exercises performed by those who attend the day.

You sit alongside a professional driver who shows you how to do it and then swap places.

Next thing you know you are flooring the throttle of a car with more than 550bhp on tap with the capability of topping 200mph.

When you reach just over half that speed, a fraction of a second before you plough into a set of cones, you swerve violently to the side while maintaining control of the car before swinging back into your original line of travel.

This demonstrates the effectiveness of the electronic stability programme which would possibly enable you to avoid hitting a child who runs into the path of the vehicle in a real-life situation.

Switch it off and perform the same manoeuvre and the back end of the car veers out violently and the vehicle goes into an uncontrollable spin.

Being able to experience this within the relative safety of an airfield is probably the most effective way of appreciating ESP.

Not all cars are fitted with this yet but every new car has to have anti-lock brakes, which are another life-saving electronic device.

Again, the idea is to show that in the case of a car equipped with a combination of ESP and ABS it is possible to take dramatic avoidance action while coming to a shuddering halt without panicking.

Bentley is keen to point out to its punters that when they spend up to £200,000 on one of its cars they get more than just a bulging bonnet and enough leather inside to wipe out a herd of cows.

It is a mechanical masterpiece, as indeed are rivals from Ferrari, Maserati, Audi and Porsche, that can only be fully appreciated by taking the driving experience to extremes.

This is why I found myself driving the Continental GT at 180mph on the very runway at Elvington in Yorkshire where Top Gear presenter Richard Hammond came to grief.

NASA paid for the runway to be lengthened to a couple of miles so they have somewhere in the UK to land their unfeasibly large planes.

Bentley use it to show that their cars can top 200mph, which gives owners a degree of confidence when cruising on public roads at a mere 70mph.

Bentley’s sales may be booming but they face increasing competition from a host of supercar rivals, including ironically former stablemate Rolls-Royce.

Apart from displaying the safety prowess of the vehicles the object of such track days is to engender an affinity with the product and to reinforce the extraordinary lengths to which the designers and craftsmen go to in their pursuit of engineering excellence.

When Bentley introduced its first small car, the Continental GT in 2003, its buyers switched allegiance mainly from Mercedes-Benz, BMW, Porsche and Jaguar, which are not exactly rubbish brands either.

Already used to what they considered to be the best, Bentley’s mission was to raise the stakes for those in the market for an immensely powerful sporting saloon, coupe or convertible, which are covered by the Arnage, Azure and the three Continentals.