More details have emerged about Track-sense's plan to bring a track-day car club to fruition and, as promised in our story last month (see below for address) here are the details.
The business will have three main parts, track tuition (Pistonheads will be organising exclusive courses, keep your eye on the forum running in the Gassing Station) data acquisition (facilitating lap and sector times where and when allowed) and, the most exciting of the three initial businesses, a track-club. This is as close to a track version of Damon Hill’s P1 as you’ll probably get albeit with a slightly more realistic fleet.
Track-club will initially have around 15 to 20 track focused cars which will be available only for the members of the club. The fleet will include some seriously focused track machinery such as the Ariel Atom, Radical and Lotus Exige, while for those of a ‘classic’ persuasion there will also be an E30 M3 and a Porsche 968 Club Sport. For those who want to hark back to their teens there will be a nicely prepared Mk1 Golf GTi and Pug 205. Among this lot will be a few Lotus Elises and Caterhams of various specifications.
All the cars will be stripped, lightened and will be fitted with roll cages, harnesses and fire extinguishers but, other than that, they will be largely true to the original car. Members will pay an annual subscription which will give them an allocation of points to use in exchange for use of the fleet. The first track-club paddock will be in the East Midlands situated for easy access to tracks like Silverstone, Bedford, Rockingham and Donington but other pick up points will follow. Members will pick up the car from the track-club paddock and take it to whatever track day they wish to do, no need for accompanying instructor or supervision, just some basic guidelines on the use. As we understand it the period of hire will be around 36 hours in order to give members a bit more flexibility than a 24 hour hire would allow, such as being able to pick the car up the evening before if you want to. It’s probably as close as you can get to owning a fleet yourself.
Prices will be available shortly but we understand that the entry level will be below £2k per annum which, for those who find it hard to justify the costs associated with owning a track toy, means this could be the answer. A strict ratio of cars to members will be maintained and all of the cars will be have geometry checks and services along the lines of a race car programme, one of the directors is a senior figure in a multiple UK Le Mans entrant so you can probably be assured that the standards will be fairly high.
Sign up for more info at www.track-sense.com, and don’t forget to quote Pistonheads if you complete the enquiry form.