For those of you who attend French trackdays
Discussion
Especially if in a lightweight car, please see below - quoted off a Lotus forum from one of the organisers from Lotus on Track. If you could take a minute to sign that would be great 
Hi guys and girls,
Sorry, another petition, but France is getting a bit mad against cars and new rules are being enforced for trackdays.
As far as I am concerned, both as driver and organiser, these rules would spell the end of trackdays in France for our cars due to silly weight classes and sessions (no more open pitlanes), making track days much less enjoyable and, as far as I am concerned, mad to run. It makes also running Lotus and Caterhams trackdays in practice impossible from a financial POV, even for a non profit club.
People are gathering to protest against this one way decision taken by authorities, who probably forgot that lightweight sport cars exist in other countries both on the road and on track together with other sportcars...
Up to you to sign or not, but at the end if we do nothing I doubt we will see long term trackdays in France with Lotus and Caterhams again... So I signed.
Having said that, there are of course other countries, their bad...
All IMHO
Claude
https://www.change.org/p/fédération-fran...
Hi guys and girls,
Sorry, another petition, but France is getting a bit mad against cars and new rules are being enforced for trackdays.
As far as I am concerned, both as driver and organiser, these rules would spell the end of trackdays in France for our cars due to silly weight classes and sessions (no more open pitlanes), making track days much less enjoyable and, as far as I am concerned, mad to run. It makes also running Lotus and Caterhams trackdays in practice impossible from a financial POV, even for a non profit club.
People are gathering to protest against this one way decision taken by authorities, who probably forgot that lightweight sport cars exist in other countries both on the road and on track together with other sportcars...
Up to you to sign or not, but at the end if we do nothing I doubt we will see long term trackdays in France with Lotus and Caterhams again... So I signed.
Having said that, there are of course other countries, their bad...
All IMHO
Claude
https://www.change.org/p/fédération-fran...
Before signing something in a foreign language I thought it prudent to do a little more research into the subject, which I'll summarise and share below to aid others interested in this issue.
It seems the French motorsports federation, the FFSA, has taken it upon itself to impose new rules to separate the cars allowed on track together by type and by weight, enforceable on both competitive and non-competitive events (ie trackdays). The car 'type' separation is not so much of an issue for most trackday-goers, as it seems to simply separate single-seaters from road cars from prototypes etc.
More of a concern are the weight classes, proposed as <800kg, 800-2000kg and >2000kg. Clearly most regular road cars would fall into the 800-2000 category, but a significant proportion of trackday cars would fall into the lower weight class, eg Caterhams, many Lotuses, Radicals, and most kit cars.
Why is this an issue? Well any trackday catering for cars that span these weight categories will be forced to run sessions rather than open-pitlane. Even within marque-specific clubs who regularly organise trackdays, such as the various Lotus clubs, you would have a split between just the S1 and later S2 (Toyota) Elises, before you even consider the lighter Caterhams or heavier Exige V6s, Evoras and Esprits. Any organiser not wishing to run sessioned days will be forced to choose between 'regular' or 'lightweight' cars, and so limiting their potential customer base, and probably raising prices to cover their costs.
As a trackday-goer (I've probably done a dozen or so French trackdays over the years, all open pit) I'd be much less inclined to head over for a sessioned day than the more relaxed OPL days, especially if it meant I was outlawed from sharing track time with a friend in a different class of car, or from chasing down some heavy metal in my puny lightweight Elise.
It seems the French motorsports federation, the FFSA, has taken it upon itself to impose new rules to separate the cars allowed on track together by type and by weight, enforceable on both competitive and non-competitive events (ie trackdays). The car 'type' separation is not so much of an issue for most trackday-goers, as it seems to simply separate single-seaters from road cars from prototypes etc.
More of a concern are the weight classes, proposed as <800kg, 800-2000kg and >2000kg. Clearly most regular road cars would fall into the 800-2000 category, but a significant proportion of trackday cars would fall into the lower weight class, eg Caterhams, many Lotuses, Radicals, and most kit cars.
Why is this an issue? Well any trackday catering for cars that span these weight categories will be forced to run sessions rather than open-pitlane. Even within marque-specific clubs who regularly organise trackdays, such as the various Lotus clubs, you would have a split between just the S1 and later S2 (Toyota) Elises, before you even consider the lighter Caterhams or heavier Exige V6s, Evoras and Esprits. Any organiser not wishing to run sessioned days will be forced to choose between 'regular' or 'lightweight' cars, and so limiting their potential customer base, and probably raising prices to cover their costs.
As a trackday-goer (I've probably done a dozen or so French trackdays over the years, all open pit) I'd be much less inclined to head over for a sessioned day than the more relaxed OPL days, especially if it meant I was outlawed from sharing track time with a friend in a different class of car, or from chasing down some heavy metal in my puny lightweight Elise.
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