Track Day

[Claire G]

Right guys and gals,

Serious interest only please - I need your feedback urgently to allow us to see if there's the numbers we need to tie in with the Honda-R Club.

Summer '03, the Honda-R Club are organising a track day at Donington (this will be mid-week).

Three sessions are being proposed:

Lexus Novice session

Honda Novice session

Joint Experienced / fast

We need 20 cars per session.

Are there 20 cars from LOC that would be up for this? Cost is £175 and a deposit to show you are serious, would be needed.

Please could you post here to register your interest. Thanks.

[JOHNNY-BOY]

Does the £175 include track day insurance Claire?

How much track time is expected?

[Chris.S]

Sorry Claire can't make midweek meetings

[Andy.thomas]

Claire, likewise interested but also do with insurance prices and track times. Also I am changing jobs and will be travelling alot more (in fact already have been hence my dissapearance!).

Guess my baby will need to go on hols to TDi now!

[UltraViolet]

Insurance is not included.

However medics, marshalls, etc all are.

We run strict rules to maximise safety - we are all using cars that are our P&J so discourteous driving is not allowed..... rules include no passing without consent, on the straights only..... etc. etc.

It has to be mid-week to keep costs down.

Track time - run in 20 minute sessions, so you get 20 mins in each hour. Note the first and last lap in the 20mins should be warm-up / cool-down laps.

usually 3 sessions in the morning, 3 in the afternoon - sometimes going to open-pit later on.

So at least 2 hours on track. Most road cars and drivers wouldn't want longer.... you will be exhausted - if you try to stay out too long, concentration suffers and this is not a good thing!!!

[Claire G]

Some further info for you guys, from the gent helping to organise the event:

Right, to answer your questions, and to try and let you know the relevant

info.

The £175 will include public liability insurance, ambulance cover and

marshal's etc for the day, but it won't include the cost of insurance for

your car if you have an accident in it, however there is the option of

adding insurance cover on the BookaTrack site, with various levels for

varying amounts of the folding stuff.

Damage is rare at any properly run track day, and the way BookaTrack operate I think makes them the safest company by far, Honda R will not use any other, and we won't even "do it ourselves" now, even though we might be big enough to get away with it at

some of the cheaper venue's. Back to Insurance, some "normal" car policies

do cover you on trackdays, because although they are on a racetrack the

event is non competitive, and timing is not allowed, (if anyone is caught

timing they are sent home there and then as this invalidates everyone's

insurance), however it's best to check with your company, and some companies

it depends on who you speak to, i..e. Tesco.com apparently do cover you for

trackdays, but most of the front line staff don't know about it, if you can

find someone that does, I'd make sure you get it in writing before the

event. The event itself will be a week day, i.e. Monday to Friday rather

than a Saturday or Sunday, and BaT won't have any details from Donington

themselves until the start of January. A lot of people's questions can be

answered by reading the FAQ section of the BookaTrack site, but I'll be

happy to answer any that you have.

Most other people want to know about how much wear and tear you'll put on

your car, and to be honest, if it's a dry day, it will be more than the same

amount of road miles, and somewhere like Donington is hard on brake pads

especially, tyre wear on a proper circuit isn't that bad though. A lot of it

however is down to how the individual drives, be smooth and build up during

the day and get some instruction, and you'll have a huge amount of fun, and

smaller bills, drive like you think you know it all, and you're wearing

clogs, and whilst you might still have fun, it'll cost you more and your car

will not thank you for it! Apart from that make sure the car is "tight" i.e.

nothing is outstanding from the last service, the fluid levels have all been

topped off etc... and most reliable Japanese cars will take a track day in

their stride, (I'm not sure about an LS400 or 430, but if someone wants to

let me have the keys I'll give it a go for them :o).

Can I add my own personal recommendation for the BaT people here, I've done

close on 20 trackdays with various companies and BookaTrack are by far and

away the best for newbies, and a "club" event like this is even better than

their normal events as you are in amongst a bunch of like minded individuals

who value their car as much as you value yours.

[Claire G]

Righto peeps. There doesn't seem to have been much interest in this Track Day so I'll let the Honda-R club know.

Maybe next time....

[Monster-Mat]

dates really.............

[Steve]

that is a shame to hear claire.. when i announced something like this a while back in gold everyone jumped at the chance!

So.. come on peeps.. what is the problem? Is it price, date or what?

We need everyones feed back and if we receive no reponse we will not arrange meeting like this again. Takes alot of effort to try and organise this and these threads just get ignored!

[Monster-Mat]

well,i cannot commit to a week.............i need a day

also,remember you possibly wont get 20 lexus,theres at least 5 on here who wanna do it.

wrong time of the year to be starting to find people to commit.

[Steve]

thats the sort of feedback we need... if people cannot make it for a reason but have some sort of interest then we can try our best to work with everyone.

:hocus-pokus:

[UltraViolet]

This is very disappointing - especially given all the whoo-hahh and people saying they wanted a track day organising...... surprised that the interest was so poor! As for the time of the year etc. - to organise a day at a major track like Donington - you need to give lots of notice.... so to get a date for August - we need to know we have seriously interested people at least 6 or 7 months in advance. This is something that will always be a problem if there are more Talkers than Walkers as you run the risk of placing a hefty deposit and then realising that people were just joining in without any real intention.

Anyway - we will still be going ahead with this, so if any Lexus Club members want to come along and watch...... hopefully you'll see just how much fun these days are and be able to help convince some of the Talkers.......

[lexussport]

As one of those who was interested in going, I am sorry to have to say that I am no longer interested. Why?

The cost of the event is far too high and that's why I shall not be coming. You can book it yourself cheaper than £175, but it's the £380 cost of insurance to cover the car added to the entrance fee that rules me out.

I certainly would not risk the cost of replacing the car should it be damaged without the insurance cover and I cannot justify spending over £600 (with petrol costs) for a couple of hours driving.

Sorry

[UltraViolet]

If you want to do it cheaper - yes you can .... but it is then on a crowded track - personally I wouldn't want to save a few quid and then be part of a less safe day, and not have the space to enjoy it. I have seen 'cheap' days - I wouldn't take my car out on them!

As for the insurance - that is silly money - never known anyone pay more than £80 yet!! (Including some seriously expensive cars).

As for the risk of replacing the car - you would need to have a serious off to write off your car .... and TBH if you were intending to drive that close to the limit - you wouldn't get 2 hours of driving as you would get black flagged very quickly!

TBH - if trackdays are not people's thing - that is fine... I have no issues with that at all. It is only a disappointment as so many people had said they were interested when it was discussed, but then when something is sorted - it all goes quiet - hardly any replies at all..... I would have had more replies if I'd been asking what wiper blades were best!

[norkep]

I'm afraid it's the mid-week that killed it for me :(

W/K are esay but due to unknown meetings etc, mid-week makes it very diffucult for me to say with certain.

Sorry

[lexussport]

I am sorry but TBH its not my driving that would worry me but somebody else hitting the car and writing it off.

To replace the GS is £40k, nobody in their right mind would not cover that risk.

The insurance to cover that cost is £380 (taken from the website)

I don't want cheap £80.00 insurance that goes nowhere near covering replacement costs, should the worst happen.

So in my case it is £600 and thats the reason why I shall not be attending, no other reason!