Track Day or Skid Pan?

[.blue]

Evening folks,

Been a good 18 months since I've passed and was thinking of getting some beyond the road driving experience.

I'm not sure whether I should go for a standard track day or do a skid pan session. What's the view of the PH massive?

I've read the basics of track driving (cornering lines etc.) and can just about heel and toe downshift. How much would you recommend getting tuition while on track, and any recommendations on this front?

On a less important note, I've been given a present for a Ferrari taster session at Thruxton. Would I get more out of this if I've had some basic track driving experience beforehand?


Thanks

[.blue]

Any chance a mod could move this to the General Gassing section?

[mattdaniels]

If you've only recently passed and you're looking to gain some new experience then how about a skid pan session. Get some experience of feeling the car get out of shape and some coaching on what you can do to try and prevent it or try and deal with it when it happens, in a safe environment at very low speed when you are not going to hit anything or anyone else. Handy skills for your road driving unless you're the sort that bombs around town clipping apexes and trying to shave tenths off your one-way-system lap time.

Edited by mattdaniels on Tuesday 29th June 13:50

[Munter]

Probably go for the skid pan 1st.

But they are very different. To me the track is about learning how to drive smoothly so you do not get out of control. The pan is essentially for learning how to drive around town in the winter.

I've never been able to apply what I learnt on the pan to the track. By the time it's going wrong on the track I'm already a passenger travelling backwards. Everything go's wrong SOOOO much faster. But then it's probably because my reactions are shocking.

[jleroux]

individually, neither will be of much use in terms of overall driving safety as extreme driving experience comes with, errr, experience!

the skid pan will show you what's going to happen in a controlled environment so at least you know what it feels like and what you're supposed to do to overcome the loss of control - very useful if you've not done any karting or have no idea on the physics involved. however, the biggest issue when you lose control on the road is the unexpected nature of the incident (ie not being prepared for it), in which case one could argue a skid pan is of no use in helping prepare for it.

track driving will introduce that 'unknown' element, as you're less likely to be expecting it when you do lose control. however, you may do 100 track days before spinning as many times as you would do on 1 skidpan day, so the flip-side is that it's a much longer and more costly route.

in summary, there's no substitute for time behind the wheel - either on a skid pan, circuit or even (heaven forbid) on an iced up supermarket carpark when the shop's shut and there's no-one around. extreme handling training should be mandated in this country - partly funded by the insurance companies - after all they have potentially the most to save (in terms of money at least).

Jonny
BaT

[mattdaniels]

Agree to some extent - but my logic for suggesting a skid pan session is that you need to understand your cars language and how to listen to it so that you can recognise when things are about to go wrong. On a skid pan session you are definitely going to experience (and eventually provoke) "unusual attitudes" as they say, so will gain some understanding of what to expect. A trackday, in contrast, does not encourage such experimentation at that side of the envelope plus the greater speed involved reduces the margin for error should you have a dabble and get it wrong.

my 2p's worth anyway, and we both know jonny I never did it that way ;-)