My own track day? July 5th!

I’ve been doing car stuff for a bit over 10 years now, and I’ve been thinking about what I would consider the Ultimate Track Day. If I rented a race track for a day, how would I run it?

Briefly, it looks like this:

• Open passing – Point-by recommended, but optional.
• Lap-time-based run groups – It’s fun to dice with cars of similar speed.
• Skills and drills – One run group dedicated to drills.
• Competition – All-day time trial leaderboard. No prizes, just for fun.
• Schedule – A schedule that’s easy to remember, and has session times that works for both short time attacks and longer endurance runs.
• Freebies – Food and drink all day, event photos, and some kind of giveaway. All that should be free.
• Cheap – I want all my friends to come, even the cheap-ass ones.

I’ll explain some of this in more detail below, but if this already sounds like something you’re interested in, mark your calendars for Tuesday July 5th at New York Safety Track. I’ll send out a registration form and open up payment sometime in the Spring.

Since writing this blog post, I’ve made a bunch of changes. Specifically, my track day on July 5th won’t have a skills and drills session, nor will it have a time trial. Let’s keep things as simple as possible.

Open passing

I started endurance racing after one HPDE. I’d never heard of a point-by before, and was competing with open passing (or rather, being passed) from the start. After 20-something endurance races in AER, Champcar, Lucky Dog, and Lemons, I’ve found open passing to be quite safe.

On the contrary, I haven’t found point-by passing to be safer. Many students are confused by which way to point, most of them don’t execute the point in a timely manner, and it all takes away concentration from what really matters. The student in the following car then has to make a late pass, offline, and with too much speed. Then there’s a situation where there’s a train of cars because the point-by rules state only one car at a time.

From what I’ve seen, point-by passing is not safer than open passing, it doesn’t teach you track awareness, and isn’t really connected to the real world (racing) in any way. Still, some people who are used to doing point-bys are probably safe doing them, and I’d have one run group for that. But in the other run groups, a point is a courtesy, and it’s fuggin optional.

Time-based run groups

One of the most fun days I’ve ever had was when we had our three track cars together at Thunderhill. Three friends in cars of nearly equal performance, swapping cars back and forth: Toyota MR2 AW11, NA8 Miata, and BMW E30 (320e chipped). I can recall similar times endurance racing where me and another car hooked up for a long stint, dicing through traffic, and it’s those memories that stick with me the most. So that’s why I would split run groups by lap time, not driver ability.

At NYST, I’d have two run groups with open passing, split on a lap time, say 1:45. Faster than 1:45, go in the fast group, 1:45 and slower, go in the slow group. I’m not 100% sure I’d use 1:45, I’d balance the run groups based on who’s attending, but that’s the gist of it.

But wait, open passing, and grouping by lap time, what does that mean for novices?

No novice group

I’m all for educating novices; I’m a Motorsports Safety Foundation Level 2 certified instructor. But if I’m running my own track day, I’m not adding formal education to it. There are many driving schools and HPDEs that make a business out of up-leveling novice drivers, and I would require people to go to those before attending my event. For example, go to the Doghouse Track Days event on June 6th and 7th and learn how to drive at NYST.

Now let me backpedal a little bit, because I might take a novice if they bring their own coach. Say their buddy is also signing up for the event, has done NYST a number of times, and will right-seat the novice. Yeah, I could see OK-ing a novice under those circumstances. Or if the person was especially skilled through autocross or whatever, and had been to NYST before. That level of novice might be OK on a case-by-case basis (and not in the open passing groups). But I’m not taking someone green, who had never been to NYST.

Which is not to say that my event isn’t educational. Everyone has something to learn, and I’ve been meaning to get some friends to right-seat coach me (help me out Josh, Alyssa). There are also skills I’m working on (left-foot braking), that I don’t want to do in the heat of a fast session.

Skills and drills

I’m not going to have any formalized education for my event, it’s just too complicated this time around.

I’ve attended a few driving and riding schools, and what separates them from HPDE is doing drills: At the Keith Code Superbike school, we did full sessions of “4th gear no brakes”; At the Evolve GT school we did almost an entire day on trailbraking; At Skip Barber, we did a wet skid pad and also raced through a timed course trying to keep a tennis ball from sliding off a lunch tray on the hood of the car.

I’ve learned how to play many songs on the guitar by isolating parts of the song, repeating them slowly note by note, and then putting the whole thing together. What’s missing from driver education is the process most people use for learning anything: slow it down and repeat individual parts of it over and over again, then assemble the whole.

But does anyone do this at a HPDE? No. Part of this is because it would cause traffic jams and upset people who are just trying to have fun. But if you want to learn, you need to practice skills by doing drills. In many cases that means slowing down, doing the same thing over and over again.

So, there’s going to be one run group dedicated to skills and drills. You could run in this group all day, but also anyone in any other run group would be able to jump in this group at any time. It might get a bit crowded, but this one is slow, with repetition, one note at a time.

Competition

I’ve decided not to do a time trial at NYST. It’s not really a good venue for pushing cars to the limit, and I’m not in that business anyway.

I wouldn’t host a track day with wheel-to-wheel racing, that’s insane (wait, is it???). But an informal time trial makes sense. Bring your own timing device (Aim Solo, phone app, etc), log your time on the leaderboard, and gloat. No prizes, no sessions dedicated to it, just record a fast lap sometime during the day, on your honor.

I’d do the classing using a modified version of the rules I invented for the Pineview Challenge Cup. The formula is basically lbs / hp / grip, but I’ve factored torque into the power side of the equation, and aero into the grip side. I’m still running simulations to balance the classes at NYST, so more on that another time, but it will be eight classes, for a more granular measurement.

Schedule

How many times have you been to an event where you’re constantly looking at the schedule saying “When do I go out again? Oh yeah 11:27, how could I forget?” I’d make the schedule easier to remember, and also make it fit both short runs (which is good for the informal Time Trial competition), and longer runs to get me in shape for endurance racing.

Typical NYST member days use four 15-minute sessions per hour, and I’d start the day on that same schedule. Admittedly, these are short runs, but it’s easy to remember since you go out at the same time every hour.

I’d also borrow from Chin Track Days and use their “happy hour” at the end of the day, which is an open track for 60 minutes. It sounds insane, but by the end of the day, most people are tired, some cars aren’t running, and the pace has cooled down.

Photos

I’ve paid for event photos maybe a dozen times in my life. One of the photos is huge, printed on aluminum, and cost me $500, but mostly I get a snapshot here or there. But really, event photos should be free. Memories are part of what makes a great event. Peter Levins will be shooting the photos and video, and everyone will get full access.

Food and drink

I’m a big eater, or rather, I’m annoyed when I pay a lot and get a small portion. I also get annoyed when the food sucks. I’ll offer free food and drinks all day. Sandwiches, awesome sides, some deserts and fruit, and that kind of thing. As much as you want.

Cheap-ish

Most track days are $250-350, and I consider that a fair value. But since I rented out NYST on a weekday (it’s a company holiday on my calendar), the rate was low enough that I can charge $175 per car. That includes food, drinks, event photos, raffle, etc. Fuck yeah, I’d hit that.

Thoughts?

Well, that’s how I imagine it going. Do you have ideas of your own to add? Great, rent the track out for yourself! No, I’m kidding, really I’d like to hear some feedback. Would you do something differently? Would you add some other programs or features? What would you have in your Ultimate Track Day?

Resources

I’ll update the following info as it gets closer to the date:

• Event info
• NYST car tech PDF