Track Night!

FormerHangie

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FormerHangie
I'd been having an itch to do some track driving, but hadn't found an opportunity that I liked. While I haven't raced in 20 years, I wasn't exactly a novice, but many of the track day providers wanted me to start with an instructor. Last year, the Sports Car Club of America came up with what they call Track Night in America. You get to the track at 3 PM, put yourself in either the Novice, Intermediate, or Advanced category, and off you go. You get three 20 minute sessions, and you're done by 8 PM. Sounds great, sign me up!

I went to Atlanta Motorsports Park. It's one of those automotive country club sort of places, more designed for driving than for racing. As you can see it's a twisty place:
AMP1.jpg


with lots of elevation changes:

AMP2.jpg


It was designed by the Tilke design bureau, which has done most of the recent Formula 1 tracks. It's a very technical course and would keep you busy learning for many laps.

I drive a plug in hybrid, which I didn't want to take to the track for fear of torching the battery, so I rented this lovely Ecoboost Mustang:

Mustang.jpg


Turns out it was a good choice.

I quit racing in 1997. Since then I've been to two supercar driving experiences, which gave me a total of 12 laps driving and 6 laps riding around this very track over the last three years. While I'm certainly too rusty to put myself in the advanced group, I didn't want to go in the novice group either, so Intermediate it was. I was a little concerned about not knowing the track or the car, but figured I'd pick it up pretty quickly.

The first half of the first session was pretty intimidating, but towards the end I was getting a feel for the track and the car, starting to get my groove back. The second and third sessions were an absolute blast, really fun. I was still a little cautious, both from being rusty and being a little nervous about using a rental car.

Honestly, I was expecting to be kind of meh about this. When I was racing, just lapping wasn't that interesting but at this stage in life, it's just right. There are more events later in the year, and I'm going back towards the end of summer. If you're having a need for speed, there are events all over the country. If you've never track driven before, definitely go into the novice group, they'll get you going, starting with a lead-follow group, then progressing on to open track driving. By the end of the evening, most of the novice group members were gettin' it done pretty well.

If you're interested, all you need is a street legal car, an approved helmet, and about $150.

https://www.tracknightinamerica.com/events
 
LOL. How much rubber did you take off of the tires?

Shhhh. Don’t answer that! :)
 
Where do you find a rental company that doesn't have gps tracking and insurance that might cover this activity? I'd like to give this a shot too.
 
I thought about tracking my CBR954rr but the costs were sufficient to generate a choice between racing and aviation. I chose aviation (I hear you meet a better class of people).
 
Go on over to SEF Sebring Florida and you can do both.
 
Sounds like you had a blast! Neat track...I like crests where the car unweights, and a subtle off-camber turn every once in a while for variety.

I gotta get out to Buttonwillow or Auto Club Speedway soon to scratch the itch. I'm waiting for my buddy to pull the trigger on a "gently used" GT350 so I'll have some company!

I'm thinking I need a little more tire...275s now on the Brembo Package 19x9 wheels (widest recommended section width for that wheel), but maybe 295s on 18x11 alloys when the tax refund comes in.

DSC_1881.jpg
 
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Where do you find a rental company that doesn't have gps tracking and insurance that might cover this activity? I'd like to give this a shot too.

He never said it was “covered” by the rental car company. He wouldn’t be the first to take a rental car to a race track. Don’t wreck it and they’d be none the wiser.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
LOL. How much rubber did you take off of the tires?

Shhhh. Don’t answer that! :)

I did give the tires a good look at the end of each session, and while it looked like I'd opened the pores on them, they didn't seem to be wearing noticeably. Same for the brakes, you could smell them a little, but there weren't any hot spots on the rotors, and not that much dust on the wheels.

Where do you find a rental company that doesn't have gps tracking and insurance that might cover this activity? I'd like to give this a shot too.

I got that one from Budget:p. It's sort of an open secret that people rent cars and take them to track days. As long as you return it in good condition they don't seem to care. I talked to a couple of track day operators and they all suggested renting a car from a mainstream rental agency.

As far as insurance goes, there are a number of companies offering track day insurance. Hagerty and Lockton Motorsports are probably the best known. I think for a car like the Mustang it was around $130 and the deductible is a couple thousand dollars. I didn't buy it. At the event I went to, there was one off track incident where one of the drivers in the novice group spun off into the gravel trap. There were two Camaros that broke their engines, one that was a late model but whose driver was being a goofball, and one that was an older one that started to overheat but the driver kept going. I wound up giving him a ride home.

You really shouldn't have an off course incident during a track day. The passing is done with a point by, and if you start dropping wheels off the edge of the racetrack the organizers will call you in, so you're not likely to see much crash damage at a well run event. If you're driving a late model car it's unlikely to have any mechanical issues, particularly when you're just getting started, you won't be using it that hard.

You will need a helmet. The SCCA is pretty liberal about what helmets are allowed, but some of the tracks are not. The one I went to requires an auto racing helmet, one that is rated by the Snell Foundation at SA 2010 or SA 2015. I got one from Racequip, it was $220. It's fine for track days in a street car.

I thought about tracking my CBR954rr but the costs were sufficient to generate a choice between racing and aviation. I chose aviation (I hear you meet a better class of people).

i love me some motorcycles, but I ride like an old lady. No way I'm tracking a bike. You are braver than I am.

Now if Talladega had a track night......

There is one on the roval at Charlotte, you drive almost the entire oval. Charlotte is much tighter than Talladega and requires driving much more than does a bigger oval like Daytona or Talladega. I've raced on the roval at both Charlotte and Daytona. At Charlotte, you get much past 100 mph, you have to work up to speed, while at Daytona you barely have to turn the wheel. The fastest car I drove at Daytona would get to 140 at the end of the backstretch (that was before the chicane was installed) and it took very little steering input.

Sounds like you had a blast! Neat track...I like crests where the car unweights, and a subtle off-camber turn every once in a while for variety.

I gotta get out to Buttonwillow or Auto Club Speedway soon to scratch the itch. I'm waiting for my buddy to pull the trigger on a "gently used" GT350 so I'll have some company!

I'm thinking I need a little more tire...275s now on the Brembo Package 19x9 wheels (widest recommended section width for that wheel), but maybe 295s on 18x11 alloys when the tax refund comes in.

View attachment 61906

I did one of those supercar driving experiences and the chief instructor said that AMP was the most technical of all the tracks they visit. About the only thing it doesn't have is a long straight.

295s? Jeez, that's a lot of tire!
 
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295s? Jeez, that's a lot of tire!

Yeah, some decent negative camber needed to fit them up front. Mustangs eat tires for lunch and brake pads for dessert. Back when I had my Miata and MR2 Spyder, the 205s and 225s were a lot cheaper!!

nasaproracing.com is an excellent organization for doing these track days. They call them HPDEs (High Performance Driving Experience) and they have a four-tiered run group system to accommodate everything from rookies to experienced racers, with or without an instructor. You can rent a transponder and see your times posted after every run group, or view them on an app called Race Hero.
 
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I'd like to do that. There's one next Tuesday at Memphis International Raceway that I'd do in a heartbeat if I didn't have school.

I'd like to do a decent drop on coilovers and run 305s all the way around and go down to 19s instead of 20s. Currently at 430whp, so it should be decently fast.
40749772124_c48e7184bd_b.jpg
 
I'd like to do that. There's one next Tuesday at Memphis International Raceway that I'd do in a heartbeat if I didn't have school.

I'd like to do a decent drop on coilovers and run 305s all the way around and go down to 19s instead of 20s. Currently at 430whp, so it should be decently fast.
40749772124_c48e7184bd_b.jpg


That's a bit of an understatement!
 
In the 1960s, Hertz used to rent Shelby GT350s. Those ended up going to more tracks than Hertz ever envisioned, and oddly enough, cars would be returned with engines other than they were rented out with! (I.e. People would sawp out the HiPo 289 with the production 289 they had in their cars.). This started the “rent a racer” movement! :p

I haven’t been to the track in a long time. My Mustang is under a cover in the garage where my son is dying for me to finish reassembling the motor and installing the Maximum Motorsports suspension.

Many car clubs (Shelby American for example) will allow you to drive on the track with someone riding along on the first outing to make sure you know the track and are safe. Then they let your run alone for the rest of the events that day and going forward. At least, they did when I last participated in their events.
 
Mmm, Barber. The Indycar race is next Sunday, I'll be there.

Cool! I may go, undecided right now. Have you been before? It's a fun track, I usually sit on the back stretch, under the pine trees. Gets crowded now that everyone has discovered it.
 
Cool! I may go, undecided right now. Have you been before? It's a fun track, I usually sit on the back stretch, under the pine trees. Gets crowded now that everyone has discovered it.

I've been many times. I usually sit on the other side, over by turns 2 and 3. I'm trying to figure out if I want to get up early on Sunday and catch the Porsche GT3 race. I'll definitely be there for the Indycar race.
 
Oh, and if you like motorcycles at all, the museum is not to be missed.

It also has a fine collection of early Lotus racing cars.
 
Oh, and if you like motorcycles at all, the museum is not to be missed.

It also has a fine collection of early Lotus racing cars.

They say best in the world, thanks to Mr Barber. One of his mechanics told just about everything in there (cars & bikes) runs and taken out on the track occasionally. He's done a lot for the Birmingham area.
 
If you Alabama boys havent been, at the end of Oct WERA (Motorcycle racing org, based in Canton, GA) has their year end championships at Barber. 3-4 days of solid motorcycle racing, everything from Vintage to Modern Superbikes. Its pretty cool as its all regular guys just racing for fun. WERA National races are like AAA baseball, and you can see some very fast guys and chat in the pits, look at the bikes, etc.
 
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