Thursday 31st March 2005

Track Club opens for business

Adrian Rose gives a punter's eye view on Track Club's first event

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Track Club's fleet

Easter Saturday -- that'll be DIY and stuck in a traffic jam in Cornwall then? Well, not for me this year.

Instead it was the first induction day for Track Club, the track day car hire club part of the Track-Sense operation, which meant myself and 30 or so other new members visting the club's paddock near Bruntingthorpe to meet the team, see the cars and learn what we needed to know about loading and trailering "our" new toys. Oh, and we even get to drive a few of them.

Cold and windy Bruntingthorpe

Track Club is a new approach to car hire for track days - for those who don't want the costs and restrictions associated with arrive and drive days, becoming a member of Track Club simply means you book one of the fleet for your track day, collect it from the Club's base yourself, do your day as you please then return the car when you've finished.

To make sure things go as smoothly and safely as possible, Track Club's staff were on hand today to talk us through the membership terms and conditions, ensure we could all trailer a car safely with the Club's LD200 pickups (also hireable if you don't want to tow with your own vehicle) and try out a few of the cars.

Briefing

I'd met Stephen (Director) and Max at Autosport In January, but things had been pretty quiet recently while they sorted out the amazing amount of paperwork and admin necessary to get the scheme off the ground, so it was great to see it coming together at last. The new paddock building, while understandably anonymous from the outside looked the part with all the cars lined up on one side, tyres and spares on the other.

After coffee and welcome, we were all given copies of the members handbook to read through, and Stephen then hosted a Q&A session about exactly how the club would work in practice - essentially membership buys you points, you trade your points for days in the cars. How many varies according to car, day and time of year.

Trailer Club

It was then over to Aaron for instruction in use of trailers. I've towed a few things before but you can always learn something, and with the majority of the club being novices we all practiced putting the Renault Spyder on the trailer, strapping it down safely and then manouvering the trailer into a parking bay with the pick-up truck.

A quick soup and sandwich lunch and it was time to take a few cars with non standard features over to a cold and windy (isn't it always?) Bruntingthorpe for some familiarisation runs.

• BMW E30 - left hand drive with dog-leg first gear.
• Renault Spider - sequential shift and bizarre dash display.
• Renault Clio V6 - fully stripped out and sitting on the floor. Voted best noise of the day, the Clio was standing in for the Club's Radical SR3 which had refused to fire up that morning.

Regrettably far too soon it was time to go home and get planning what I'm hoping to take out when... Spyder or V6 Clio to start with I think, then maybe the Exige or the LMP and finally a run round in the Radical and enough points left over for an evening session with the Caterham. The fleet is ten cars at the moment, and with another five to come so I should have plenty of choice.

Track Sense will be at Rockingham next weekend on 3 April -- contact details below if you'd like to know more.

Link:

www.track-club.com/

[sdd]

Thanks Adrian, I think everyone found it a worthwhile day out but with the formalities out of the way it's time for the real fun.

For those on the BookaTrack day at Rockingham and Donington in the next week the Ariel Atom and Renault Spyder will be on hand to try out.

Stephen

[pablo1602]

How does the points system work for track-club?

I'm interested in doing some of the courses offered with "track-academy", could I use points instead of paying for them if I was a member.

Can anyone offer some feedback on the club and the courses. I'm fresh to track days having only done 2 in 2 years and this appears to be a cost effective way to get some experience.

Cheers
P

[adrianr]

There are some points examples on the web site, but basically each car 'costs' a different number of points depending on when you want to use it and are taken out of your allocation.

Not sure about using points for tuition, but you can use them to hire one of the club's cars for the academy courses. I haven't done one myself so I can't comment on them but did you see this topic from a few weeks back?

www.pistonheads.com/gassing/topic.asp?t=158941&f=18&h=0&hw=track%2Dsense

Otherwise drop Stephen a note and see what he thinks - the club business model seems to be pretty flexible.

Cheers,
AdrianR

[sdd]

You can use points to 'pay' for track-academy courses and there is also a discount of up to 50% on the points required for club cars if they are to be used on a course. We also offer a significant discount on our arrive and drive spot hire rates for cars that are being used for a track-academy course.

There are still some places available at Anglesey for the level one course in May.

Stephen
track-club

[14N F]

Hi

Having been on the first Track Academy course, I would HIGHLY recommend it. You will not spend better money on tuition.

I have had numerous instructions on track days and they were no where near as good as the academy course. The reason it is so good is because you learn in a classroom and then go out and practice your learnings.

I will certainly be attending a level 2 course soon.

Ian

[pablo1602]

Thanks for the feedback.
Hoping to sign up for a joint membership once I've convinced my mate.