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Post by almighty on Jan 10, 2018 9:33:54 GMT -5
One of our awesome NoVa Lotus members joined in on the last event of the season in 2017. In chit-chatting, I realized that there was a bunch of information that wasn't passed down. Since we are one big happy family, the goal is to enjoy all of our precious track time in these amazing cars. So to bootstrap anyone interested, I wrote up a quick getting started guide on the NoVa Lotus DriveTribe group. I put it there in case any other people were curious as well. There's more to be said so a part two will be forthcoming. Intro To Track Days |
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Post by rdgrcr on Jan 11, 2018 13:18:54 GMT -5
Woot, great article Duane!
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Post by cyow5 on Jan 12, 2018 8:18:51 GMT -5
The only thing I'd change is the assumption you will be given an instructor. I would change that to "absolutely make sure you are going with a club that requires and provides an instructor for everyone who is new". My first track day was with one of the biggest clubs in the midwest (a club that was even mentioned in the latest Grassroots Motorsports magazine), and it was loosely organized without any instructors to speak of. You could ride along with them when they were doing their laps, but they wouldn't ride with you for fear of not having time to warm up their own car and get back out. That doesn't seem to be the case out here, but that is one of those things where I assumed I would be given an instructor and was not prepared for what I found.
We all know how that ended for me...
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Post by rdgrcr on Jan 12, 2018 12:25:13 GMT -5
The only thing I'd change is the assumption you will be given an instructor. I would change that to "absolutely make sure you are going with a club that requires and provides an instructor for everyone who is new". My first track day was with one of the biggest clubs in the midwest (a club that was even mentioned in the latest Grassroots Motorsports magazine), and it was loosely organized without any instructors to speak of. You could ride along with them when they were doing their laps, but they wouldn't ride with you for fear of not having time to warm up their own car and get back out. That doesn't seem to be the case out here, but that is one of those things where I assumed I would be given an instructor and was not prepared for what I found. We all know how that ended for me... His caveat was (Washington DC region SCCA). 100% if you sign up as novice, you will get an instructor, they wont even let you on track. Intermediate gets dicey, as I would not have an instructor one week and the following week I would (or vise versa). The DC region tracks (no pun intended) all of the events you run with them.
For example, I spent the entire season in intermediate group, and was initially provided an instructor. Because we have so many events on the Shenandoah course, they stopped provided me an instructor on that course (*the instructors are required to provide feedback to the head instructor, so you can get cleared for specific circuits). So fast forward to the last event of the season, after I had spent most of the season instructorless, I magically had an instructor again. Initially, because of my ego I was insulted, but also confused and wondered what I did wrong to be "demoted". What actually happened was, we were now driving Jefferson Circuit, and while I have driven it before, it was with a different club. So the SCCA wanted to ensure for everyone's safety that I had a good handle of the course, and was cleared for Solo the next day...and eventually graduated to advanced! Woot!
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Post by rdgrcr on Jan 12, 2018 12:25:29 GMT -5
The only thing I'd change is the assumption you will be given an instructor. I would change that to "absolutely make sure you are going with a club that requires and provides an instructor for everyone who is new". My first track day was with one of the biggest clubs in the midwest (a club that was even mentioned in the latest Grassroots Motorsports magazine), and it was loosely organized without any instructors to speak of. You could ride along with them when they were doing their laps, but they wouldn't ride with you for fear of not having time to warm up their own car and get back out. That doesn't seem to be the case out here, but that is one of those things where I assumed I would be given an instructor and was not prepared for what I found. We all know how that ended for me... Sorry double post
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