Are we confusing trackdays for road registered vehicles with and MOT tax and insurance with drivers wearing helmets and gloves and no timing allowed with Test days for primarily racing cars, saloon, GT, sports or open wheel with fully fire proofed togged up drivers where timing is permitted per chance ?
Open track days can have both. There are novice track days but i think you can only go out for 20 minutes spells at specific times.
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Okay not seen that before, but I have not been to many trackdays, must have all been novice events that I have seen.
We’re doing that track day on standard tyres and brakes, not insuring the car.
It’ll be my daughter’s 1st trackday so I’ve invested in 20mins tuition for her which will Improve your day far more than a set of brake pads.
Go for it and don’t worry. Drive to your ability (which will probably be far lower than even a standard MX-5s ability on a first track day) and see how you get on.
You can always do the upgrades for the next one when you’ve caught the bug…
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I do fairly regular (2 or 3 times a year) track days. (Oulton Park / Donnington / Anglesey / Cadwell) in my tuned 2013 Fiesta ST. I LOVE them but they are quite addictive. Since starting them I have stuck with “Open Pit” ones as you get more track time and have not gone on so called novice ones as by their very nature they are full of novices. My car is worth circa 10K and I insure it for the track day as well as taking out specific track day recovery should the worst happen. I also have a set of spare (OEM) discs which I use along with PBS “race pads” which truly are awesome. I also use Motul 660 brake fluid which had meant my brakes have never faded. Any other hints/tips you want sent me a message if what I write is useful. P.S. having tuition is a good idea.
I wouldn’t recommend open pit lane lane days to begin with . You can spend a lot of time looking in your mirror, and feeling intimidated by experienced track day drivers, some of whom can think they are God’s gift . Start with a well organised session , with novice , intermediate and experienced groups. As a novice the last thing you need is too much track time - if it is unlimited , the chance of getting it wrong can increase as the driver gets tired and/or over confident . Even a fairly gentle 20 minute three or four sessions can be very tiring if you are not used to it . BTW -apart from all the obvious car prep stuff, take a big bottle of water as it can be thirsty work. Best not keep it in the car though …
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Yes trackdays work out to be expensive. You get sucked in with the price being under £200, but that’s just the start of it. I did a trackday at Bedford last year and even without insurance it worked out to be about £500-600. Fuel to get there, at least a tank of fuel when there. Tyre wear is massive, so cost that in. Brake pads, good ones are at least £130 a pair. If you push the car then things can break, I had tuition (made a massive difference) and he told me to be much more aggressive with the curbs, get home and my steering rack needed replacing.
So yes it all adds up, cars are not cheap, trackdays will push your car beyond anything you do on the road.
I have chosen not to do any this year, I have swapped a couple of days on track for organising a 7 days MX5 European tour for the same money.
Yes, they are.
Yet I sometimes get people telling me that using my car for a third of a trackday for only £299 is too expensive!
True that.
I did my first 100 track days without a full sized spare wheel. I’ve done well over 250 now and still never had a puncture. The only time a full sized spare was needed was when I had a friend with me who was going to enter an MX5 race series and wanted to learn threshold braking with the ABS disabled. Inevitably he flat-spotted a tyre when he locked up the inside front when he over-braked coming up to Shell at Oulton Park. We discovered very quickly afterwards that once a tyre is flat-spotted it will always want to lock up at the same spot again, and now at a lower amount of brake pressure, resulting in a LOT of wear.
1.5 tanks is about right once you start going at a reasonable pace with two people on board and get used to driving for a large proportion of the day. My near-standard 2005 1.8VVT does 12-14mpg depending on the track. Newcomers are more likely to drive a lesser proportion of the day and to get better mpg.
Instruction is essential when you’re new. The first £200 you INVEST in instruction over several days will give you much more than you’d get from £1,000 of go-faster parts. Don’t ask me how I learned this.
Crashing can happen. It has cost me an average of £8 per track day over the last 18 years.
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And if anyone is looking for a good tutor for a first track day in an MX5, I can very heartily recommend Dave Moore @BARMY1 My son and I had a cracking day out with Dave (in his MX5) at Oulton Park earlier this year, and he really helped us learn what to do, and to feel safe.
We took our own MX5 for another vroom round Oulton Park on our own a few weeks later, but we’ve booked Dave Moore again to introduce us to the Anglesey track a bit later this spring, in his car. (See https://trackdaycoaching.co.uk/)
Nick
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