Gold Track Trackdays, what's so special?

[JQ]

I'm just doing some hunting on the web for some trackdays in the coming weeks (get my car back next Saturday with it's new roll bar installed) and have some across Gold Track. They are considerably more expensive than anyone else, at least £100 more than even MSV. Do you get anything extra for the premium price, or are they just the same as all the others?

Cheers

[Elderly]

JQ said:

..... Gold Track. They are considerably more expensive than anyone else,

But probably only about half the price of RMA Track Days .

[PetrolTed]

I do most of my track days with Gold Track. They have a simple no nonsense approach, driving standards are high, muppet count is low and generally they do a day a month at Silverstone which is my nearest decent sized track.

[phatgixer]

Jellybabies

[andye30m3]

I've done spa with gold track this year and last, don't think they were any more expensive than anyone else, I'd quite happily use them again.

[shim]

full of old tossers who think they are above anybody else imho

i use nobody else for my trackdays!

[Baby Blue]

+1 jelly babies

Decent attitude and generally pretty strict ................if u dont believe this try having a pop at Melindi !

Lifes never perfect but u tend to get what u ve paid for .............

[y2blade]

the professionalism and the attitude of the staff is the key

for my trackdays I'll only use Gold Track http://www.goldtrack.co.uk/
and Focused Events http://www.focusedevents.com/

these two are the best imho and personal experiance
once you have done a badly organised Trackday you will see why people are happy to pay slightly more

[edb49]

Generally the cars/driving at Goldtrack days are faster - so if you are quick yourself, you spend less time waiting for a straight to overtake someone.

[chris7676]

y2blade said:

the professionalism and the attitude of the staff is the key

for my trackdays I'll only use Gold Track http://www.goldtrack.co.uk/
and Focused Events http://www.focusedevents.com/

these two are the best imho and personal experiance
once you have done a badly organised Trackday you will see why people are happy to pay slightly more

Funny as Focused Events is one of the cheapest available...

[y2blade]

chris7676 said:

y2blade said:

the professionalism and the attitude of the staff is the key

for my trackdays I'll only use Gold Track http://www.goldtrack.co.uk/
and Focused Events http://www.focusedevents.com/

these two are the best imho and personal experiance
once you have done a badly organised Trackday you will see why people are happy to pay slightly more

Funny as Focused Events is one of the cheapest available...

and.....?


they run a very good day though, they are the only firm I'll do motorBike trackday with

have you tried them?

Edited by y2blade on Monday 20th September 11:38

[enduroboy]

chris7676 said:

y2blade said:

the professionalism and the attitude of the staff is the key

for my trackdays I'll only use Gold Track http://www.goldtrack.co.uk/
and Focused Events http://www.focusedevents.com/

these two are the best imho and personal experiance
once you have done a badly organised Trackday you will see why people are happy to pay slightly more

Funny as Focused Events is one of the cheapest available...

focussed have had some of the worst driving i've seen on a track day, they are not the allsinging Track day operator IMO - for cars anyway- bikes may be another ballgame altogether

[chris7676]

I have, been fine, can't complain.
There is the sentiment on here to say "you get what you pay for" though and the price contrast with the Gold Track. So yes, interesting

[Chuggaboom]

Sounds like you pay more for less effort tho.....1/2 hour sessions...pah....someone has an off and you lose a great chunk of your track time through no fault of your own.

Don't think I'll bother with that set-up again thanks.

Why not open pit lane ?....Coz they're too flippin lazy to monitor the number of cars out on track in order to let pepes out as and when !

Other TDO's can and do tho.

[mrmr96]

Baby Blue said:

+1 jelly babies

Decent attitude and generally pretty strict ................if u dont believe this try having a pop at Melindi !

Lifes never perfect but u tend to get what u ve paid for .............

Yeah, not always. See this thread, comments from 11th Aug onwards:
http://pistonheads.com/gassing/topic.asp?h=0&t...

The thread was originally about a guy moaning about having 7 red flags. Myself and Maxx were on a Goldtrack day on 11th August and there were 10 (yes ten) red flags that day. There were a lot of radicals and race teams there who were pushing hard and KEPT coming off the track.

To say I was unimpressed is an understatement, having paid a premium for decent track time. I spoke to Melindi about it on the day and followed up with an email expressing my concerns, but have recieved no reply and no offer of any money back or a discount off a future event.

I wouldn't use them again unless it was the only company operating on the track/dates I wanted.

[GT03ROB]

shim said:

full of old tossers who think they are above anybody else imho

i use nobody else for my trackdays!

You refering to Phat again??

[PetrolTed]

Chuggaboom said:

Sounds like you pay more for less effort tho.....1/2 hour sessions...pah....someone has an off and you lose a great chunk of your track time through no fault of your own.

Don't think I'll bother with that set-up again thanks.

Why not open pit lane ?....Coz they're too flippin lazy to monitor the number of cars out on track in order to let pepes out as and when !

Other TDO's can and do tho.

I've done dozens of days with them and it's never really been a problem. I did happen to be a spectator at one (probably the one another poster referred to) where there were endless red flags but that was incredibly unusual.

The other argument for not doing open pit lane is that they can split the groups according to experience (roughly). That has benefits too. I've done plenty of open pit lane and sessioned and it really doesn't bother me what format is run.

Silverstone, 29th is my next outing

[TVRMARKUB]

mrmr96 said:

Baby Blue said:

+1 jelly babies

Decent attitude and generally pretty strict ................if u dont believe this try having a pop at Melindi !

Lifes never perfect but u tend to get what u ve paid for .............

Yeah, not always. See this thread, comments from 11th Aug onwards:
http://pistonheads.com/gassing/topic.asp?h=0&t...

The thread was originally about a guy moaning about having 7 red flags. Myself and Maxx were on a Goldtrack day on 11th August and there were 10 (yes ten) red flags that day. There were a lot of radicals and race teams there who were pushing hard and KEPT coming off the track.

To say I was unimpressed is an understatement, having paid a premium for decent track time. I spoke to Melindi about it on the day and followed up with an email expressing my concerns, but have recieved no reply and no offer of any money back or a discount off a future event.

I wouldn't use them again unless it was the only company operating on the track/dates I wanted.

You get this with every TDO, I would certainly pay a premuim for road legal car only TDs sessioned by experience, thou I don't mind being on track with the TVR racing crowd on TVRCCTDs because it's great fun and they show far more respect to other track users, far to many race teams use track days as cheap test days.

[mrmr96]

TVRMARKUB said:

mrmr96 said:

Baby Blue said:

+1 jelly babies

Decent attitude and generally pretty strict ................if u dont believe this try having a pop at Melindi !

Lifes never perfect but u tend to get what u ve paid for .............

Yeah, not always. See this thread, comments from 11th Aug onwards:
http://pistonheads.com/gassing/topic.asp?h=0&t...

The thread was originally about a guy moaning about having 7 red flags. Myself and Maxx were on a Goldtrack day on 11th August and there were 10 (yes ten) red flags that day. There were a lot of radicals and race teams there who were pushing hard and KEPT coming off the track.

To say I was unimpressed is an understatement, having paid a premium for decent track time. I spoke to Melindi about it on the day and followed up with an email expressing my concerns, but have recieved no reply and no offer of any money back or a discount off a future event.

I wouldn't use them again unless it was the only company operating on the track/dates I wanted.

You get this with every TDO, I would certainly pay a premuim for road legal car only TDs sessioned by experience, thou I don't mind being on track with the TVR racing crowd on TVRCCTDs because it's great fun and they show far more respect to other track users, far to many race teams use track days as cheap test days.

In my experience (maybe 15 trackdays in the last 4 years) you don't get this with every TDO. There were more race teams at the Gold Track event than any other I've been on with any of the other TDO's I've used in the past.

In my experience there has been a correlation between the price of an event and the type of cars and drivers which will turn up; with Goldtrack being at the permium price/fast car end of the scale. I suspect this makes them a more popular choice with race teams than other TDO's.

Don't get me wrong, it's great not to be held up, but I did have to move off line fairly frequently to let the faster guys through - would prefer not to do this, but it's part of trackdaying. It was also really cool prowling round the pits checking out some of the cool cars, and awesome seeing and hearing them blat past from up close. However there were times when I felt that behaviour 'crossed a line' for a trackday, most notably the 'warming of tyres' by pulling a massive burnout in the pitlane(!) and of course all the 'offs'.

I think in the future I'm going to attend more events with my car club, where the owners vehicles are more closely matched which makes speed differentials lower and hence less 'getting stuck behind' things, and also less 'being caught so having to move over'. There's also been more friendly people at the club events as there's a community and comaraderie (in a way) rather than a plain commercial day where no one knows each other at the start of the day. Not that attendees are nasty, just less friendly than when you're all in similar cars because you're from the same club.

So there's good and bad things about Gold Track, and I must have just experienced a 'bad day' but clearly I can only comment on my own experience - which wasn't good value IMO.

[TVRMARKUB]

mrmr96 said:

TVRMARKUB said:

mrmr96 said:

Baby Blue said:

+1 jelly babies

Decent attitude and generally pretty strict ................if u dont believe this try having a pop at Melindi !

Lifes never perfect but u tend to get what u ve paid for .............

Yeah, not always. See this thread, comments from 11th Aug onwards:
http://pistonheads.com/gassing/topic.asp?h=0&t...

The thread was originally about a guy moaning about having 7 red flags. Myself and Maxx were on a Goldtrack day on 11th August and there were 10 (yes ten) red flags that day. There were a lot of radicals and race teams there who were pushing hard and KEPT coming off the track.

To say I was unimpressed is an understatement, having paid a premium for decent track time. I spoke to Melindi about it on the day and followed up with an email expressing my concerns, but have recieved no reply and no offer of any money back or a discount off a future event.

I wouldn't use them again unless it was the only company operating on the track/dates I wanted.

You get this with every TDO, I would certainly pay a premuim for road legal car only TDs sessioned by experience, thou I don't mind being on track with the TVR racing crowd on TVRCCTDs because it's great fun and they show far more respect to other track users, far to many race teams use track days as cheap test days.

In my experience (maybe 15 trackdays in the last 4 years) you don't get this with every TDO. There were more race teams at the Gold Track event than any other I've been on with any of the other TDO's I've used in the past.

In my experience there has been a correlation between the price of an event and the type of cars and drivers which will turn up; with Goldtrack being at the permium price/fast car end of the scale. I suspect this makes them a more popular choice with race teams than other TDO's.

Don't get me wrong, it's great not to be held up, but I did have to move off line fairly frequently to let the faster guys through - would prefer not to do this, but it's part of trackdaying. It was also really cool prowling round the pits checking out some of the cool cars, and awesome seeing and hearing them blat past from up close. However there were times when I felt that behaviour 'crossed a line' for a trackday, most notably the 'warming of tyres' by pulling a massive burnout in the pitlane(!) and of course all the 'offs'.

I think in the future I'm going to attend more events with my car club, where the owners vehicles are more closely matched which makes speed differentials lower and hence less 'getting stuck behind' things, and also less 'being caught so having to move over'. There's also been more friendly people at the club events as there's a community and comaraderie (in a way) rather than a plain commercial day where no one knows each other at the start of the day. Not that attendees are nasty, just less friendly than when you're all in similar cars because you're from the same club.

So there's good and bad things about Gold Track, and I must have just experienced a 'bad day' but clearly I can only comment on my own experience - which wasn't good value IMO.

I agree with what you are saying above but think it's a little unfair to single out Goldtrack, I 've done a lot more than 15 TDs in the last 4 years and it happens with every TDO, one time I was at Oulton and it was like I had entered the funcup 24hour race, not good.

I agree about car club days, they are by far the best days with the best driving.