Wet Track days...love em or hate em?

[jamiem555]

I haven't done a track day in years but when I head my Impreza I used to do one or two a year at Knockhill. Most of the time they were wet or very wet. I loved it. So much grip and very little tyre wear. I remember overtaking a Porsche GT2 and an 800 BHP Skyline.

[iguana]

When I'm king of all the world my edicts for trackdays will include amongst many other commandments, that of the stipulated 10 trackdays before you can remove your dayglow novice tracker spakker sticker- all are to be done in a manual rwd with no traction control or any of the 'let retards drive fast with no skill' driver aids, plus 5 of those days must be in the wet with at least one being a biblical typhoon & you on worn 888s.

All of the dry days must be done on regular road tyres before you can move onto stickies or regular slickys or for wet- wet race slickies or go 4wd or a fudge wheel driver or spakmatic gear boxes etc.

I haven't given much more thought to this as most of my time has been spent figuring out world peace & how to make Kate Upton jog in a bikini everywhere.

Edited by iguana on Wednesday 7th March 14:29

[mark411]

I actually enjoy a wet or damp trackday, great field leveller. It also allows you to play in your car in a way you would never even dream of doing on a public road. I have fond memories of hooning down the back straight at RAF Marham in the pouring rain, still accelerating as I pass 140mph then soon after the windscreen wipers stop moving (most saabs do this over certain speeds for some reason) and stayed in the upright position. Thankfully I had applied Rain-x a few days prior and was able to push on a bit quicker till I ran out of balls. Once below 140 the wipers started again....yet another Saab quirk. Sadly though, my camera's weren't rolling for that run.

However, a group of us attended PPC in the park in 2012, the early sessions were outrageously wet so didn't bother filming my run. By the time of my 2nd session id had dried up a little but was still very greasy with the added issue of oil over the track making things....well, interesting lol. My point though, is that if you know your car well, really well, then just go out there and enjoy.

Below is a little vid of the wet and oily session at Mallory, filmed from both my Saab and my friends M5 (I've set the link to start 1/2 way through as its where it gets abit slippy.

https://youtu.be/pMRKtaANzfU?t=7m34s

Edited by mark411 on Wednesday 7th March 22:18

[Frimley111R]

Another lover of wet track days. On dry days i always keep sessions short to let engine and tyre/brakes stay reasonable but on wet days I can pretty much go out and come back in when I start running out of fuel!

[Dinoboy]

jamiem555 said:

I haven't done a track day in years but when I head my Impreza I used to do one or two a year at Knockhill. Most of the time they were wet or very wet. I loved it. So much grip and very little tyre wear. I remember overtaking a Porsche GT2 and an 800 BHP Skyline.

Same here, it's a laugh being held up by an Aventador when your in a 30 year old E28

Edited by Dinoboy on Thursday 8th March 10:35

[upsidedownmark]

Iguana for president

Definitely a fan, makes you work for your kicks, and levels things out somewhat. Much fun to be had in just about anything!

[shost]

Love wet track days but only in car I'm less worried about binning. Really get to play with and understand the balance of the car.

Just back from Snett and last half hour to myself was brilliant fun.

[mr2turbogts]

shost said:

Love wet track days but only in car I'm less worried about binning. Really get to play with and understand the balance of the car.

Just back from Snett and last half hour to myself was brilliant fun.

I was at Snetterton yesterday too, and found the constant red flags massively frustrating, just as the car got up to temp red flag.

Not sure if it was down to the rain, or down to it being pre season and all the race teams testing/fine tuning their cars and not really giving a flying F.

I was there at the end of Jan and we had ice then sun then rain and the whole day went very smooth covered around 200miles on track. Yesterday only done 70 miles for comparison.

This was only my 2nd track day is this pretty standard?

[wellground]

mr2turbogts said:

I was at Snetterton yesterday too, and found the constant red flags massively frustrating, just as the car got up to temp red flag.

Not sure if it was down to the rain, or down to it being pre season and all the race teams testing/fine tuning their cars and not really giving a flying F.

I was there at the end of Jan and we had ice then sun then rain and the whole day went very smooth covered around 200miles on track. Yesterday only done 70 miles for comparison.

This was only my 2nd track day is this pretty standard?

It's not standard everywhere. I did a wet day on Saturday with BHP Trackdays at Castle Combe. The organisers marked the cards of race teams from the briefing, as they have had problems with racecars recently. It was very well run and Policed. A few offs, but no real problems compared. Well done BHP Trackdays.

[Wh00sher]

I was at Croft yesterday and it never stopped raining all day and there was a lot of standing water around. During the briefing Colin specifically singled out the race teams and said if they weren`t going to abide by the TRACKDAY rules, they`d be going home as it was NOT a test day.

After a couple of overtakes that were borderline, he gave the drivers a bking. Can`t fault that and they were absolutely fine for the rest of the day.

Sadly, there were too many people driving beyond their abilities on a circuit with a lot of standing water and there were several stoppages to collect cars that ended up stuck in the mud.

I`m sure some people think there are race team driver scouts stood on the pitwall sometimes


I thoroughly enjoyed myself, drive to the conditions and get used to the car moving around at lower speeds that in the dry. Take time to find the wet line and build up to speed throughout the day rather than going out in the first session at full pace. I didn`t like wet days when I started out but now I don`t mind them at all. They are a really good opportunity to learn about your car and how it drives in reduced grip conditions, you just need to change your approach to the day that`s all.

[QBee]

What tyres were you running in the wet Wh00sher?

[Steve H]

He cheats and runs full wets

[QBee]

I call that automotive preservation, not cheating! I have spun my car on a drying track on track tyres. Three and a half revolutions waiting for the inevitable is not a lot of fun.

[Steve H]

Gives you time to figure out how it went wrong

[QBee]

Yup.....shouldn’t have taken that extra dab on the brakes at 90 mph (normally at 125 there) on a drying track. Couldn’t believe a) how fast it let go and b) that my instinct to slam both feet down on the brake and clutch was the right one. Car carried on straight down the track - end of the start finish straight at Snetterton. Saw the looks on the faces of the three drivers coming out of the pits - highly amusing! About 15 minutes later a racing MGB had the same issue, but he trashed both ends of the car on the armco.

[Chr1sch]

I have learnt a huge amount around car control on wet days at Bedford, massively beneficial and enjoyable from my perspective.

[Lee GT]

Hate Em’ .... We did Anglesey last Saturday and it pissed it down Anglesey style. Running R888R’s as your only set of tyres was interesting. M3 we were in broke too, numerous times!!!

[Itsallicanafford]

Brans yesterday, love em...

[Steve H]

Lee GT said:

Hate Em’ .... We did Anglesey last Saturday and it pissed it down Anglesey style. Running R888R’s as your only set of tyres was interesting. M3 we were in broke too, numerous times!!!

I was there, great conditions I thought. Shame that a couple drivers decided to ignore the advice given in the briefing about not exceeding talent limits but once that was done it settled down to a good day with everyone playing quite nicely in the wet.

[itsallyellow]

Itsallicanafford said:

Brans yesterday, love em...

I was there as well, was a good day I thought, nice to get a proper wet track into a full fry track in one day. Wasn’t the best weather to be running in an engine though!