'06 WSCB - TRACK DAY Feedback Thread

[jmarsey]

Larry,

Thank you for bringing up some very good points. Over all, I think Track Day went well considering it was the prototype kick off. There are some obvious things were are already discussing, scheduling & charts, paper work, tech inspection, arrival and first hour at the track organizing, track orientation, track configurations, run groups, etc..

Our focus will continue to be geared to the novice driver and getting them comfortable and building their level of confidence. We realized we had in between folks but wanted to give the novice and experienced folks their due time on the track. Because many of you will be returning to the track next year and already have this track day under their belt, we will be able to raise the bar a bit and run a medium speed group with no problems.

I made some comments based on your questions because they spark some good points:

Originally Posted by Larry N Johnson

Thank you very much for the track day event. The track, inspections, ET, the instructors, flagmen, all were top notch.

I had just installed sway bars and this was the first drive. Car was fantasticon that beautiful track!

Which leads me to the first suggestion:
Need to run faster. I felt held back by the lead instructor car all day. If they want us to follow, they have to drive faster than 6/10. Maybe the B group can be 8 or 9/10? The A group can have one color sticker on windshield, B group another, novice a third color.
Yes, I agree. A slow / medium / fast - format should work well. It is a good idea though to keep your driving at 80%, or less, of your ability. The 90% to 100% is for competition only. Be smart and safe out there, please. Remember, the name of the game here is fun.

Second suggestion:
"Safety of drivers: long sleeve shirts, eye protection, up-to-date helmets"
This would be a must for Medium & Fast groups. We will be more strict next year regarding these points.

Third Suggestion
"As far as instruction, if we could group up and ride in mini-vans around the track a few times with the instructor driving and speaking, we could learn just as much, maybe more, than following a leader all day. This is just an alternate way of instructing. The way we did it was ok, but we could not try our cars out at whatever speed we wanted."
ET and I had actually discussed this very idea and had planned to make this available for those who wanted to see the track and some of the complexities. For a more experienced driver, discussing the track line is very helpful. To the novice it means very little until they actually drive it. Most of these folks had never been on a track before and it was important to us to cater to this level of driver. We will however create a faster “medium” run group for next year.

Larry, I don’t know if you stuck around for the sessions after the rain but I can tell you I saw some novice folks ringing it out pretty good. We went to an open track format with 2 basic run groups, novice & experienced. I think everyone who stayed really got their fill. I know Duane was pushing his ERA beyond 6/10ths and didn’t seemed held back from what I could see.


Fourth Suggestion
"What about a "marque run"; say "All SPF's" or all "ERA's", etc. Or "all little blocks", "all big blocks" etc. Just a thought, maybe not enough time in one day to do this."
As you could see, the time we had on the track was like a blur and it seemed like maybe some did not get enough quality driving / instruction time. I would like to focus on instruction, seat time, and making the complete day with all the necessities run better and as smoothly as possible. What about an “All JBLs” run? It would not be fare to all the other folks, now would it? One of the things I really love about the Bash is that we don’t really care what cobra you bring to the event as long as you try to bring one. If we did a Marquee Run, I think it would be for all the folks who have never been on a track before. Let’s watch them go around the track at the end of the day so we can see how well they’ve progressed. I think that would be cool.

Fifth Suggestion
"Having the scales set up was a great idea; that way people could see if their cars needed corner adjustments. Maybe some instruction on the benefits of that service would be helpful. How to adjust, etc."
Larry, I’m glad you brought this up. I wanted to have a technical aspect on Track Day this year but the planning would not allow it. To make it worth having one or two tech guys there has to be an interest. If there is an interest and we can work it into the equation, I can probably get a chassis guru there or someone of the sort. Chassis dynamics is a big subject but we could work something out

Sixth Suggestion
"Pictures: there were people out on the track taking hi-res shots...were those available to purchase? Not advertised, at least that I saw."
I know there will be a ton of pics from the track. Give it time for the photo guys to get their stuff together. Just about every time I came down the straight, and a few of the hair pins, like #12, someone was pointing a camera at me. I’m sure everyone got photographed more than once

Thanks again for your comments and questions,

Talk soon, John