Track day warning

[Brett James-McCall]

[ QUOTE ]
Lastly I think that Nasa Racer Pete's valid, if brutal, comment about total destruction of car and driver at any time equally applies to road driving. Perhaps more road drivers ignore that than track drivers!

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I couldn't agree more Malcolm, having to punt up the M25 everyday near the bridge. I see more than 50% of drivers, who IMO are not aware, or do not use those funny orange things before suddenly pulling out at 70+. Please, also do not get me started on the Lorry driver, who think they can drive an artic like sports cars...

Brett

 

[ChrisL]

If I may make one further point about this matter. It is not enough for someone to say that they think that something is "dangerous" or "high-risk" or for that matter "frightening".

Actual risk is mathematically calculated using statistics and has almost nothing to do with personal experiences or personal fear. Suggesting that something should be avoided because it "may happen" is meaningless on its own. Yes, there have been deaths on race tracks, but that needs to be balanced against deaths in other activities and the lives saved by improved skills on the road. One statistic without the other is meaningless.

To drawer an analogy, if we were to take the statistic of the number of people dieing while jogging, without taking into account the number of joggers who have avoided heart disease, then we would get a much skewed view of the activity of jogging.

There was a study that was quoted by the Confederation of Australian Motor Sport (CAMS) a number of years ago that showed motor sport had a very real benefit to those drivers once on the road. I hate quoting studies without the detail so I’m making an effort to re-locate this study and post the information on the forum at a later stage.

 

[Howard Jones]

The thing is most people I know who started racing bikes 25 years ago didn't have a pot to piss in and started with NO buget. This usually ment a used 125 motocross bike and amature 20 min motos. So you had a very low performance machine and fairly low speeds during the steep part of the learning curve. After a few chashes most people without any talent gave up and left it to other people.

It seams that in the car world we are talking about here some of those guys have come back with very large checkbooks and a desire to make up for lost glory.

My view is that the first couple of times on the track everyone should be driving a stock power/tires VW rabbit. If the lap times don't come down, then you keep your 600HP corbra on the trailer.

I think we could avoid a lot of grief this way.

 

[Lynn Larsen]

Malcolm, thanks for the insights. My friend is not opposed to racing cars at all; indeed, he does it quite regularly. His comments were definitely pointed at Goodwood, but I wasn't certain if he was talking specifically about the track, the event, the participants, or all three (this is the most likely.) If you combine the situation described by Howard (I think he is probably spot on, as well), very high performance cars, along with an unforgiving track, I think the probabilities of calamity, mentioned earlier, go asymptotic.

I think what my friend was saying is that you need to pick your battles wisely!

Regards,
Lynn

 

[Malcolm]

Agree with your last statement Lynn. But Goodwood is not the worst for run off in this country! Oulton Park is worse in my books.

 

Hi Malcolm, you are quite correct; Oulton Park does indeed bite - very hard - and particularly to mid-engined cars as with it's high speeds there's no warning of break-away. Tregedies ensued there as with Cadwell Park which has even less run-off at which two of our competitor friends tragically lost their lives not too long ago.

 

[Ron Earp]

I am hoping to make it over to the Goodwood Revival this year - the Festival of Speed was fantastic and the Revival can only be better.

The situation at Goodwood might be unique to speak about in relationship to the Revival. I've only been able to to see video/TV of the track, but there are clearly a couple of areas there where you would not want to have an off in multimillion dollar car. Or any car for that matter.

But, the unique thing about the Revival is the quality and caliber of the cars and drivers there, as well as the fact the cars are getting used for what they are intended. Personally, I think it a shame to only see some of these storied cars sitting on a golf course somewhere whilst people in suits and gowns fawn over them. They are race cars, they lived hard lives and look better wearing road grime. And they look best doing what they were meant to do, not sitting in a museum or someone's garage.

I feel the same about track days, in a different context. They can certainly help you to become a better driver, but they will also allow you to enjoy your car. What is the point of having a GT40 replica, or any other high performance machine, with huge performance potential if you can't experience it or enjoy it from time to time? Sure, there are risks on track days, but I feel they are completely acceptable and very managable.

I wonder if we could have a GT40s.com track day......I was speaking to someone the other day about Virginia International Raceway track rental and the whole thing can be had for around $5k-$8k on a weekday....get enough people and you have a green track for 7 hours out of the day and the price would be cheap per person for that amount of track time.....

 

[Jim Pearson]

Bob/Malcolm,

Which UK tracks, ideally in the north of England, would you recommend for a track-day virgin, Oulton Park being my local?

Jim

 

[Jos]

NOT Oulton PArk - its difficult and there's little runoff - if you get the chance Bedford or Prestwold Hall both have lots of space

 

[Malcolm]

I really like Donnington.