Racing at a new track

[LennyM1984]

I'm thinking of expanding my racing next season to a few tracks a little further afield but I wanted to see how people dealt with racing at a new track. I have a fairly busy life (two young children) and so don't get a huge amount of time outside the race weekends to be driving 150+ miles for a practice session. Up until now, I have been racing at circuits where I already have some prior experience and so - barring a few shakedown sessions at the beginning of the year - I can pretty much just turn up on the morning and jump straight into it.

I'd now like to do a few other circuits (Snetterton, Brands, Donnington) and so need to begin planning accordingly.

So...do you feel that it is essential to get a few track/test days in beforehand or do some of you just turn up on the day and learn the track during qualifying/race?

[LennyM1984]

I do have a sim setup (fairly basic but not too bad) and Project Cars 2 has my exact car on it and the tracks in question. Will perhaps try to take a combined approach of doing the bulk of the learning on the sim and then doing a track day to get a feel for the real thing.