Donington trackday

[Rae420]

From reading many glowing reports about donington, I fancy giving it a try. Rather than book through a broker would like to book direct. Trying to work out which tdo to use as I don't want to be inundated by loads of quick machinery! Which are doing days over the next 3 months or so?
Cheers

[mattdaniels]

Bookatrack have several dates in July. It is a great circuit, in my top 3 in th UK.

[Rae420]

Cool, I'll have a look. Which is best layout, gp or national?

[mattdaniels]

They are both good. Personally I prefer the National layout. The GP layout isn't used that often so it makes a nice change if you get the opportunity to do it. I'm going to the July 6th BaT day as a spectator. I've just looked and they've actually got several day and evening sessions coming up in May and June too.

Nice thing about BaT days is they are open pitlane and tend not to be mega crowded on track, and Donington is nice and wide with decent visability so you shouldn't feel intimidated.

[CatDriver]

Or you could try BHP in June. They are doing half days as well and provide pretty much the same high quality OPL days as BaT.

[purds]

Another vote here for BAT

[boxsey]

Rae420 said:

Cool, I'll have a look. Which is best layout, gp or national?

Not keen on the GP myself because it works the brakes much harder and doesn't flow as nicely as the national. Therefore I try to book days/evenings that are run on the national. I'll be on BaT's evening session on the last Friday in June.

[DiscoColin]

Rae420 said:

Cool, I'll have a look. Which is best layout, gp or national?

I don't believe that I know anyone that would choose the GP over the National - it amounts to a couple of short extra straights and a hairpin and does nothing for the flow of the circuit IMHO.

[Elderly]

DiscoColin said:

I don't believe that I know anyone that would choose the GP over the National - .

IIRC it's the same cost for the TDO to hire either variation but the circuit limits differ.

So you could get more cars on track with the GP and each participant should pay less than being on the National,

or you could have the same (lower) number of cars running on the GP as the National,
pay the same as the National for each car but have a less crowded track (on the GP),

or the TDO could hire the GP variation, run to the GP circuit's larger limit,
charge each participant as if it was the National and make more profit on the day .

[mattdaniels]

I'm not sure how much input the TDO has in choosing the layout. I think it's a case of using whatever configuration the circuit is set up for based on whatever race meeting they last had / are about to have.

[jonnyleroux]

mattdaniels said:

I'm not sure how much input the TDO has in choosing the layout. I think it's a case of using whatever configuration the circuit is set up for based on whatever race meeting they last had / are about to have.

That used to be the case at Donington, but when they changed the final chicane (Goddards/Roberts) they amended the config so that it was easy to swap between GP and National without having to move all the tyres as they had done previously.

In the past we'd be limited by what the race meetings around our dates had booked (GP or National) but now we can pick & choose as we like.

Jonny
BaT

[mattdaniels]

jonnyleroux said:

mattdaniels said:

I'm not sure how much input the TDO has in choosing the layout. I think it's a case of using whatever configuration the circuit is set up for based on whatever race meeting they last had / are about to have.

That used to be the case at Donington, but when they changed the final chicane (Goddards/Roberts) they amended the config so that it was easy to swap between GP and National without having to move all the tyres as they had done previously.

In the past we'd be limited by what the race meetings around our dates had booked (GP or National) but now we can pick & choose as we like.

Jonny
BaT

Ta, records updated.