Track Day Video: Bedford Autodrome GT (Sat 29th Feb)

Highlights video from a fun day (with very changeable weather) at Bedford: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NuKpo8znbuE

Saw quite a few other MX-5s there. Anyone from here?

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Nice vid, but a bit of steering wheel hand shuffling going on!!!

Great to see a 30AE on track really want to give mine a blast but concerned as never done a track day and do not want to end up damaging my car

I’d recommend Bedford Autodrome GT. It’s wide, with loads and loads of run off. Quite a few cars spun onto the grass on my day, but there are no close barriers to hit, so they just drove back onto the circuit and carried on.

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Thanks I will have a look

Bedford looks perfect for me, having done 1 track day at Brands (in the wet), can’t say I particularly enjoyed it as was too nervous of spinning in to armco.
Thanks for posting the vid.

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I’ve done a few days at Brands on bikes. There isn’t much run off (like most circuits, I guess) and Paddock Hill bend can be very intimidating… because if you get it wrong there you’re in a world of pain! The disadvantage of Bedford is that it lacks “character”. It’s very flat and very featureless - the opposite of Brands Hatch. The advantage is the safe margin for error which that affords you.

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Sorry, can you explain please?

Do you mean re the hand shuffling comment?

Pretty much all of us who take to the track will start out carrying over bad habits from normal road driving and moving our hands about on the steering wheel is probably the most common.

Any half decent instructor will tell you that wherever possible you should set your hands in at around the “quarter to three”, or slightly towards “ten to two”, position and leave them exactly there for the entire session (other of course than if you have a stick shift or need to make other control adjustments).

I’m not an instructor, nor an experienced track driver, but the theory is that by fixing your hands in one place you are better able to control the car both through corners and in situations where you might encounter sudden oversteer/understeer etc and need to make instant corrections.