castlecombe today
Discussion
To be honest I felt it was a mixed bag. Too many people not doing ANY maintenance on their cars, and too many people binning it. My first two sessions were red flagged which meant by 11.30 I had done about 8 laps in group C. VX220 binned it at quarry, and next session on the start finish straight some westfield tried to keep out the way and didn't look where he was going apparently and went pretty hard into the armco?tyre wall, can't remember. Any way, one mashed car and another red flag and a wait whilst they rebuilt the wall.
Once we did get some track time had some fun getting some speed up and learning the track, got mid 1.21 in a 1.6 caterham, can't help feeling I should be around 3 seconds quicker, but with my first race next week any track time in the car is good.
There was at least one absolute nob cheese out there, BMW M3 DAS who wanted to race. Refusing to let anyone past. He even came up afterwards and found me in the pits to say good dice. You t
t. Wanna be racers, go get your license. Track days are there to learn the track, have some fun and respect each other, not overtake round the outside at 130mph. I will be racing, but track days are not there for that. Any idiot can drive quick in a straight line, then we have to follow you the rest of the time. My response, no, frustrating I'd say. Lots of curteous people, indicating as usual including me when overtaken with consent. People like you are why we have safety briefings. If your reading this, its lucky you are so old..... thats all I say on the matter.
Martin, if yours was the red exige with the plates marked out, nice looking car. I was in the green/black caterham.
Paul
Once we did get some track time had some fun getting some speed up and learning the track, got mid 1.21 in a 1.6 caterham, can't help feeling I should be around 3 seconds quicker, but with my first race next week any track time in the car is good.
There was at least one absolute nob cheese out there, BMW M3 DAS who wanted to race. Refusing to let anyone past. He even came up afterwards and found me in the pits to say good dice. You t
t. Wanna be racers, go get your license. Track days are there to learn the track, have some fun and respect each other, not overtake round the outside at 130mph. I will be racing, but track days are not there for that. Any idiot can drive quick in a straight line, then we have to follow you the rest of the time. My response, no, frustrating I'd say. Lots of curteous people, indicating as usual including me when overtaken with consent. People like you are why we have safety briefings. If your reading this, its lucky you are so old..... thats all I say on the matter.Martin, if yours was the red exige with the plates marked out, nice looking car. I was in the green/black caterham.
Paul
Hi paul i know what you are saying but i think it goes with the territory. There was a red caterham on a couple of my sessions who thought it was a good idea to overtake me while i was overtaking someone else he was an older chap and he should have known better. His car was awesome quick down the straight but then as soon as we got to quarry i was almost pushing him all the way to the straight again. The caterham that crashed had his quick release steering wheel come off whilst going flat out hence the crash. Yes it was me in the red exige with the taped plates. was my first time out in it.
surely most people are curious to see what sort of times they are doing on trackdays? trackday organisers have to tell you not to do any timing for insurance reasons. As for telling people your times on a public forum. It's not like some morons saying they were doing 10 million miles per hour on public roads.That seems to happen quite often on pistonheads.
martin
martin
BertBert said:
topcarrera said:
Paul -
I notice that you are upset by the trackday "racers" but at the same time feel comfortable posting your lap times on a public forum ? - Not a good idea in my opinion unless the event was a test day.
I thought that too.I notice that you are upset by the trackday "racers" but at the same time feel comfortable posting your lap times on a public forum ? - Not a good idea in my opinion unless the event was a test day.
Bert
Theres a big difference between going for a good fast lap to get your best time, and 'racing' that might cause other drivers inconvience, or worse, cause an accident due to unskilled drivers trying to drive fast in close quarters..
do you insure your car on track martin? if so, you'll regret posting those times if ever you try and make a claim. we don't need to give the insurers ammunition in order to welch on any potential claims - hence why *any* talk of timing (in print, on the net or otherwise) is strictly forbidden.
Jonny
BaT
Jonny
BaT
Fidgits said:
Theres a big difference between going for a good fast lap to get your best time, and 'racing' that might cause other drivers inconvience..
not in the eyes of the insurers there's not. as soon as there's any benchmarking going on (even personally) then it becomes competitive and your insurance (and the organisers insurance) becomes invalid. given we spend many tens of thousands of pounds per year on our public liability insurance you can understand why we get twitchy at the thought of it being invalidated.Jonny
BaT
topcarrera said:
Paul -
I notice that you are upset by the trackday "racers" but at the same time feel comfortable posting your lap times on a public forum ? - Not a good idea in my opinion unless the event was a test day.
Have onboard video, and afterwards the video software tells you your laptimes, so yes I feel pretty comfortable with it. If you have a whopping great big display sat in your car thats a different story altogether.I notice that you are upset by the trackday "racers" but at the same time feel comfortable posting your lap times on a public forum ? - Not a good idea in my opinion unless the event was a test day.
pw75 said:
topcarrera said:
Paul -
I notice that you are upset by the trackday "racers" but at the same time feel comfortable posting your lap times on a public forum ? - Not a good idea in my opinion unless the event was a test day.
Have onboard video, and afterwards the video software tells you your laptimes, so yes I feel pretty comfortable with it. If you have a whopping great big display sat in your car thats a different story altogether.I notice that you are upset by the trackday "racers" but at the same time feel comfortable posting your lap times on a public forum ? - Not a good idea in my opinion unless the event was a test day.
pw75 said:
By the way, its a sad state of affairs when someone mentions a time round a track gets jumped on by 4 or 5 people, yet driving aggressively and/or potentially dangerously is either ignored or accepted. Unbelieveable.
to be fair - aggressive/dangerous driving is not something we're going to sort out on a forum. this is something the organiser in question needs to keep on top of.Jonny
BaT
pablo said:
pw75 said:
topcarrera said:
Paul -
I notice that you are upset by the trackday "racers" but at the same time feel comfortable posting your lap times on a public forum ? - Not a good idea in my opinion unless the event was a test day.
Have onboard video, and afterwards the video software tells you your laptimes, so yes I feel pretty comfortable with it. If you have a whopping great big display sat in your car thats a different story altogether.I notice that you are upset by the trackday "racers" but at the same time feel comfortable posting your lap times on a public forum ? - Not a good idea in my opinion unless the event was a test day.
I've yet to meet anyone who tells me at a track day they aren't interested in how quickly they go. Whether that is purely a subjective thing, or has more fact behind it is to some extent irrelevant don't you think?
To me at least there is desire to go as fast as that car can go round a track, and judging by everyone else that seems to be the view of the masses.
pw75 said:
I've yet to meet anyone who tells me at a track day they aren't interested in how quickly they go.
We've got a fairly large core of regular clients who have no interest in their lap times. I personally have no interest whatsoever. Laptimes breed hunger (both for power and grip) - both of which become fiercely expensive very quickly. I guess i'm just very fortunate that I can still have a whale of a time in a 135bhp Superlight on road tyres where most people would have felt the need to move onto a radical on slicks or similar.Jonny
BaT
jleroux said:
pw75 said:
I've yet to meet anyone who tells me at a track day they aren't interested in how quickly they go.
We've got a fairly large core of regular clients who have no interest in their lap times. I personally have no interest whatsoever. Laptimes breed hunger (both for power and grip) - both of which become fiercely expensive very quickly. I guess i'm just very fortunate that I can still have a whale of a time in a 135bhp Superlight on road tyres where most people would have felt the need to move onto a radical on slicks or similar.Jonny
BaT
Not with you on the upgrade thing. As I said in my previous post to me its about trying to achieve the best the car thats underneath you and measuring yourself unsubjectively or subjectively. Upgrades would be about IMO chasing someone elses laptime. If I only do one season in racing I expect I would still keep the car which only has 120bhp and road tyres I would see no reason to change anything.
On a serious note, tell me you don't measure your performance. As I said, doesn't have to be laptimes that just adds fact into the equation. My point was people still measure themselves and how well they are going and try to take each corner quicker. Some just have more science behind it.
jleroux said:
pw75 said:
By the way, its a sad state of affairs when someone mentions a time round a track gets jumped on by 4 or 5 people, yet driving aggressively and/or potentially dangerously is either ignored or accepted. Unbelieveable.
to be fair - aggressive/dangerous driving is not something we're going to sort out on a forum. this is something the organiser in question needs to keep on top of.Jonny
BaT
Regarding the posting of lap times - Many of us like to drive quickly and have an interest in our times. However given the non-competitve nature of trackday events and the insurance/legal position affecting both the organisers and other participants then making reference to lap times on a public forum like this is frankly not very helpful. Whatever you might think openly broadcasting the fact that you are timing MAY help to persuade certain insurers/underwriters currently willing to provide cover to organisers/particpants from refusing to do so in future.
pw75 said:
By the way, its a sad state of affairs when someone mentions a time round a track gets jumped on by 4 or 5 people, yet driving aggressively and/or potentially dangerously is either ignored or accepted. Unbelieveable.
Not at all. The OP put the case against moron driving very well and it always get's full PH support whenever it is aired. But at the same time posting times is poor form. It's not very responsible to invalidate the organiser's public liability insurance is it?Bert
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