Had an absolute blast driving the Russian BMP-1 Infantry Fighting Vehicle. After doin some shopping around, I happen to click on their website and contacted them directly for a quote on the driving experience. While driving a battle tank was a little out of budget, the BMP-1 for both my wife and I was very reasonably priced to include being picked up from Prague.
Communication via email between Martin and myself was absolutely superb and he didn't hesitate to immediately respond back to my emails.
Martin showed up on time at approx. 8am to pick us up from our hotel and drive us out to his business in Milovice. During our drive, we all talked about Hollywood movies that were filmed on their range. It just so happen that Harts War, and Lord of War were filmed on location...More on that later.
Upon arrival, we were offered more clothes to add to our existing layers as well as helmets (declined) to add to our driving experience. We were then shown an instructional video starring Martin himself which explained the dos and don'ts of the BMP-1. While we did this, Martin warmed up the jeep outside the building.
We were then escorted to their garage of tanks and Martin took the time to go over explaining each one and their purposes. Of course he gave us ample time to take as many pictures as we wanted as this was our tour.
Once we were finished, it was off to the BMP-1 with Martin. Once we got into the BMP-1, Martin took us out to the driving range. Once we were there, Martin turned over the controls to me and after a bit of instruction, I was driving it comfortably. While the engine was loud and it was hard to hear sometimes, Martin ensured that clear direction was given and eventually just started using hand signals once I got even more comfortable.
Towards the end of my run time, he had me step on the clutch while he shifted the tank from 2nd to 3rd gear and man did we take off. I was told to be gentle on the gas at that point since well in that gear the BMP-1 has some get up and go.
After I finished driving, it was my wife's turn to drive and Martin took us over some fresh snow for her so she wasn't just running the same track I ran. We went over some hills, smashed through some icy puddles, and managed to slide the tank by the tail end which we were told before hand was impossible without mud.
Once we got finished, Martin took us back to the jeep and we went back to his building where we were presented with a cool certificate before departing back to Prague. On our way back to Prague, Martin told us about some other tours available via other companies (attack helicopter flights, etc.) that we could check out when we returned to Prague. One thing that will be on the list for sure will be coming back to Offroad Action to drive the T-55 battle tank.