And there we have problem number 2...having never done a track day and only just seeing this thread, I have no knowledge of any track, anywhere. Unless you count Laguna Seca having driving around it far too many times in Forza anyway

Not a problem really.

None of us have done this how fast day and so I don't think any of us have driven this track before.

Just do a little reading on racing lines etc... and when you get there work up to your level, seeing what you can do.

The idea is fun. Not braking records.

The briefing at the start will explain safety and track ettiquette.

Oh, and I've got a couple of spare helmets if people get stuck (Large and Medium) but I am sure MSV hire them out.

Personally i was lent an old motorbike helmet by my uncle for my first day and have never handed it back.

I've never had my helmet checked (oooh eer missus) at a track day more than "is it done up?" so any old motorbike helmet should do the trick.

I also have spare helmet (albeit a female pastel blue one with butterflies on it) which I am more than happy to bring it along if anyone wants to borrow it

Re: track layout unless you've been to one of these events or attended a Bedford trackday before we'll all be in the same boat and have an idea where the circuit goes short of looking at the map.

That's the reason they give you an hour practise to pound round and learn the track.

heres an on board video of the circuit we'll be using courtesy of MSV, youtube and a Pug RCZ

come on gac get your name on the list

Have you memorised that video clip yet Pasty?

Out the pits flat out, hairpin left, brake, understeer, gravel, wall - job done!

I particularly like how their "brake" boards have exclamation marks on them

I don't like the look of that video as there's so many shortcuts... To set a quick time you could just fly over them...

I don't like the look of that video as there's so many shortcuts... To set a quick time you could just fly over them...

I believe on the day they put cones out...

I believe on the day they put cones out...

They put tiny cones out when I did Bedford before and people just went through them lol, I hope it's moderated in some way for this

They put tiny cones out when I did Bedford before and people just went through them lol, I hope it's moderated in some way for this

Hmm.. I need offroading tyres instead of my Toyos then.

I remember hunting down an Atom and he didn't brake for the chicane and purposely went flying over it, I was too busy chasing him to notice and kind of had to take the same route. Pretty annoying really. In a way I prefer circuits like Brands with no run off area as you're forced to stay on the track

Last time I did Bedford was in the rain, we were in a Mk1 Fiesta with an Escort RST lump in it. Great fun in the wet!

http://s5.photobucket.com/albums/y178/chicken_eyebrows/?action=view&current=DSCN0639.mp4

Looks like a nice circuit. I won't really care if people are able to take shortcuts. Much like known shortcuts on gran Turismo which results in faster times but in real life would be impossible without damage, if you take those shortcuts your time doesn't really mean anything anyway. personally I'll just be going out aiming to take the right lines.

I did a track day a few years back around anglesey track with a company called http://bookatrack.com/ in my then 1.8sri corsa (it was 0nly 4 months old at the time) had a blast but make sure to take advice on putting extra air in the tyres especially the front (I didn't). I shredded the two front before dinner and had to drive home on bald tyres (one third of the outer edges was bald/ripped) and you couldn't see any writing and I mean nothing left of the continental 16" blah blah blah on the side wall. I don't know how far off I was from popping them off the rims but I was just throwing it all over the shop with black smoke everywhere on all slower corners. At the end of the straight I was clocking just under 100 mph and a quick stomp on the brakes before turning in, apparently people watching would wait to see me coming and p themselves as they would hear all four tyres screaming all the way around the first long sweeping bend The safety marshalls where crying with laughter. My mate was in a lotus elise and he kept spinning off with the rear wheel drive but loads of run off onto grass we jumped into the passenger seat of each others car to see how we compared I was crying with laughter every time he spun his lotus off. But he only lasted two laps next to me in my corsa wanting to get out, shouting very loudly something about being nuts.

So I've been there done it and its a blast I would deffo recommend it.

I did a track day a few years back around anglesey track with a company called http://bookatrack.com/ in my then 1.8sri corsa (it was 0nly 4 months old at the time) had a blast but make sure to take advice on putting extra air in the tyres especially the front (I didn't). I shredded the two front before dinner and had to drive home on bald tyres (one third of the outer edges was bald/ripped) and you couldn't see any writing and I mean nothing left of the continental 16" blah blah blah on the side wall. I don't know how far off I was from popping them off the rims but I was just throwing it all over the shop with black smoke everywhere on all slower corners. At the end of the straight I was clocking just under 100 mph and a quick stomp on the brakes before turning in, apparently people watching would wait to see me coming and p themselves as they would hear all four tyres screaming all the way around the first long sweeping bend The safety marshalls where crying with laughter. My mate was in a lotus elise and he kept spinning off with the rear wheel drive but loads of run off onto grass we jumped into the passenger seat of each others car to see how we compared I was crying with laughter every time he spun his lotus off. But he only lasted two laps next to me in my corsa wanting to get out, shouting very loudly something about being nuts.

So I've been there done it and its a blast I would deffo recommend it.

so your the stig lol :rofl:

They put tiny cones out when I did Bedford before and people just went through them lol, I hope it's moderated in some way for this

if its not dont worry as you're only fooling yourself at the end of the day (not you personally but the person who cuts corners/cheats). Personally I couldn't give a monkey's uncle if someone does. I'm only interested in having a good time and seeing how fast (or in my case how slow) I am around the track.

so your the stig lol :rofl:

No and I'm not a star either but I do own a reasonably priced car

I was a bit nuts years ago

I used to be more at home on two wheels and raced all over uk but now I have my trusty skoda. Not got the slippers and pipe yet though.

Edited 23 February, 201214 yr by mylot

No and I'm not a star but I do own a reasonably priced car

I was a bit nuts years ago

I used to be more at home on two wheels and raced all over uk but now I have my trusty skoda. Not got the slippers and pipe yet though.

what did you race and what events did you run ?? i know a few boys that have been bike racers past and present !!

You may laugh but I got into racing on an MZ http://www.bmzrc.org.uk/

I wanted to race where it didnt matter how much money you had it was down to ability and this was it.

This was the skoda version of a motorbike from old if you know what i mean.

I did Snetterton, Cadwell,Mallory,Pembry,Three sisters was my fave as it was designed as a race cart track so all the big heavy fast bikes lost out if they couldnt ride for toffy around tight twitsy bends with only one short straight.

Looking at these latest bikes they have allowed a lot more mods to be done to them since I raced. We couldnt have slick tyres or tuned race pipes or change the original drum brakes fors discs or spoked wheels for alloys. But time marches on.

I used to enter open class as well where any thing goes that was fun, some guy on a blinged up cbr 600 getting cut up by a rat bike mz on the bends cos they were scared of laying it down, they would of course blast past on the long staights.

Loads of great memories of getting faster laps till I stuffed it and got back on for more.

My dad booked a track experience day at Three sisters for me in a 4wd subaru impreza and instructor told me to slow down untill I explained I raced here on an mz.

Edited 23 February, 201214 yr by mylot

I seem to remember being asked if I want to hire a helmet when I booked so MSV defo hire them out.

xa0sx: My reply is not to you personaly but in gerneral to your comment on shortcuts.

The only person your chesting by taking a short cut is yourself. If your taking it that serious and you have to post a better time at all costs TBH thats going to put me on edge and spoil my day. So shout up that your coming along with those intentions so the people with no experience or who are just slower can run at the back of the pack and let you go first. Everyones happy then. The problems come when people have somthing to hide or they just dont have any consideration for others.

Now i'm off to watch that video vlip. Thanks Pasty

OMP and Sparco both do Clubman style open-face helmets for about £60, perhaps not worth it if this is the only track day you're ever going to do but if you do one a year or the odd Nurburgring trip they're well worth the investment.

Just had a quick look at that video clip. Looks like ive got a lot of homework to do

Does anyone know whats good for improving your memory

I'm really looking forward to this day and even better if a few of you regulars can throw some pearls of wisdom out to us novice virgins

You have an hour of laps to learn the best lines and fastest way around the circuit.

From the video a lap in the RCZ is 1:30 so assume a beginners Skoda lap is 2 minutes you could still fit in 30 laps!

Start slow and gradually get faster and a faster buy pushing harder and harder.

MSV will have instructors there too who (for a fee of course) can ride along and offer actual race driver expereience advice (rather than Briskoda advice )

All I'm saying is there's such wide run off areas that you can basically straight like the chicane without really going off the track. Everyone was doing it on the track day and to keep up you're forced to do it.

In an ideal world you wouldn't be able to do this but you can on Bedford. You can also run so wide exiting a corner making it much faster etc. It's hard to explain until you're on the track but people will do it without even realise they're cheating. It's so inviting...

I just hope there's marshals watching because I will be annoyed if I drive my car flat out and then someone flower just takes a few short-cuts and sets a quicker time. They won't admit they've cheated so we will never know. I'm gunna be bringing my GoPro HD 2 along though to record my lap so at least people will know I'm fair.

Maybe I'm just not up on "track etiquette", but if there's a way of taking a corner faster by using a different line without leaving the track, then surely that's kind of the point? Cutting chicanes should obviously be frowned upon but I don't really see the problem in taking a particular corner wide if that's the fastest way to do it?

26 seconds: Your entire car can fit on the apex.

29 seconds: You can run so wide and come off the track completely for a much faster corner exit.

39 seconds: You can literally just fo straight through the tiny little cones that are there and gain like 5+ seconds, people were doing this on the track day without marshalls saying anything. Even if you don't go through the run off area you can clip the apex so tight that you go over the green sectioned part (it's perfectly smooth), as you can see by all the tyre marks people do it all the time...

59 seconds: Again you can get your entire car on the apex with your passenger side wheels on the green part making the corner almost a straight...

1 minute: Look where the cones are, after a few cars fly past them close the tiny cones just get blown everywhere, you can park 2-3 cars on the red/white bit (forgot what it's called) and to the right of it there's also a huge smooth area which if used will make the corner so fast...

1 minute, 26 seconds: Same as every chichance entrance.

1 minute, 28 seconds: Same as every chichance exit. There's not even any cones here, you can literally straight line it...

1 minute, 35 seconds: Look at the smooth area to the left, you can tip it in completely off the track and then run so wide for the exit with the nice smooth tarmac... Why even bother using the track?

1 minute, 45 seconds: Another massive run off area that people on the track day were using to their advantage to make it a much quicker corner.

Sorry to do this guys but I'm just trying to show you what I saw on the day doing track days there. I just hope it's run properly otherwise what's the point of a timed event? Hopefully it will be marshalled/moderated better but it's really difficult to draw a line on what's acceptable and what isn't.

Maybe I'm just not up on "track etiquette", but if there's a way of taking a corner faster by using a different line without leaving the track, then surely that's kind of the point? Cutting chicanes should obviously be frowned upon but I don't really see the problem in taking a particular corner wide if that's the fastest way to do it?

Because you can take the corner fastest by coming completely off the track and onto the run off area, you're a good 10 ft. away from the track at some points but by doing this slower cars were pulling away from me on the track day, so I started doing it as well to have the same advantage. It's so easy to be lured into doing it without you even realising when you're chasing someone.

After the 20th lap of the day the chicanes are considered effort and people start clipping the apexes as tight as possible, and then they go tighter and tighter until in the end they're off the track and near enough straight lining in. The circuit is so smooth with so much run off area that it's so easily done. It's difficult to explain without you chasing fast people on the day but I'd say a good 80% of the people were doing it.