TRACKDAY and ACTIVITY WEEKEND! *Rockingham 22nd/23rd Sept*

[anna]

Hello all!

Well, I had a great time, although I was being easy on the SC out on track (it's completely standard, and you can tell!)

I really loved quad biking - first time i've ever done it - my legs are still sore, and I hope the trees I brushed are ok! 4x4 offroading was good too, although not as tiring! I think Dave (Flatpack) should be known as 'dangerous dave' for trying to slide us down the edge of the biggest ramp there! That was a bit interesting being sat in the back!
Clay pidgeons, I admit I was last, but at least I was tied last I blame my weakling arms

The accomodation seemed to be good too - but i'm not sure we'll be welcomed back after dave tried to set fire to one of the cabins! (How did you get on - did Jasper get his shot gun out? - only kidding - i think they were ok - just a bit peed off)

I started off not liking rockingham that much, but it did grow on me. I wasn't confident enough to really chuck the car about, but I was also being nice to the car, so for a first time out at Rockingham, not bad.

Thanks to everyone who came along - Grant - you were unlucky, but lesson learnt - don't let your dad drive your car!

[lower]

Hi all,

It was good to see a few MR2's out on track at one go.

I had a really good day, especially as my new discs held up and didn't crack or warp. The heat paint indicated that they were getting to in excess of 630 degree C though!

I'm surprised that you thought the standard of driving was good Jonb. I thought the day seemed like a bit of a free for all by bookatrack standards and at one point i had to go and report a burgandy clio for trying to outbrake me into a number of corners after i'd passed him. There was a queue of people in front of me reporting various cars for not letting people past and for people overtaking in corners etc. Jonny seemed to think it was because there were a number of race cars there.

I liked watching the tubby's braking into the chicane at the end of the pit straight and seeing the flames coming out the back. I only came up against one mk2 on the track, a white gti-16 badged car which let me by after a couple of corners. I never got the chance to see how the S2000 performed against a tubby.

[jonb-]

Lower, perhaps because I only ran the afternoon and things had died down by then? The race boys are always... how we say... tools.

As an anecdotal s2000 vs tubby story did you see the very trick s2000 with the GT wing and trackday tyres? I managed to catch him again at Rockingham, though he was 2 up at the time (I say again as I was with him at Donington a few months back and faster). There wasn't much in it and I'd swap cars in a heart beat, his is a beautiful machine, looks so aggressive. Too bad he had to take his old exhaust off, it used to sound AMAZING.

[anna]

there was definitely some bad driving/ettiquette going on, but I didn't get too bothered by it, it's easy enough to back off in a mk1 for a few seconds, and find your own bit of track space.

After lunch was a bit chocca, but I think it's a bit 'luck of the draw' as to when they send you out.

[lower]

Ah, you mean Peter. His car is gradually turning into a monster! Its quicker in a staight line than a standard S because he's got some engine mods but more importantly a different ratio diff. He can comfortably outdrag me in a straight line and with the tyres and chassis mods his car is a bit of a monster. Every time i see him he's done something different to his car.

Only problem is that despite all the money he's spent on the car, there was another S there, bog standard but with Yokohama A048R tyres and some uprated pagid pads (owned by another S2ki member). He passed Peter's car a couple of times when Peter was trying. I suspect Peter was pretty pi$$ed off!

[jonb-]

That's the guy. His Yokos were pretty shot, perhaps they'd had one heat cycle too many.

What a car though.

[lower]

18 months worth of trackdays is more likely the cause

He'll be at donington again in a couple of weeks with the S2k club.

[jonb-]

If I've got a set of tyres that aren't from ebay by then I'll probably come up.

I'm sure he won't want a repeat of what happened last time at Donington, nearly a whole lot of car damage!

[Tomiam]

The accomodation seemed to be good too - but i'm not sure we'll be welcomed back after dave tried to set fire to one of the cabins! (How did you get on - did Jasper get his shot gun out? - only kidding - i think they were ok - just a bit peed off)

Once we had removed the burnt out furniture and scraped off the melted carpets, it didnt look too bad tbh. In our cabin we took the general decision, which Im sure you gathered was, "to blame Dave" Blokey was perfectly fine and not at all like his answer phone message. Think he just understood it was a genuine mistake and we didnt mean to burn down his lodge with all our kit in it. Well... not that time anyway.

Tomiam - LOL @ your spin, as i waved at you facing the wrong way. we've all been there. just goes to show you weren't pussying around like a granny tho
At least now you know where the limit is. Besides - get some good rubber on the road and you will be fine

Heheh, yea. Tyres might as well be shreaded tbh. Im sooooo sad to see the end of those.... *cough* They came with the car when I bought it.
Ive gone from loads of rubber down to just about legal. My wife is kind enough to understand that a set of Toyo's is the way forward though
Which spin btw? The first or the second Later there was nearly a third as I pushed it a bit harder. Was a "xxxx!! this is gonna be close" super fast corner entry and exit

I thought I was going to be scared, turns out the faster I go the more I want to do it. Think I'll have to keep an eye on that. I can see what people mean now about not timing yourself. Accident waiting to happen for sure.

Standards of driving... Hmm I have nothing to compare it against to be honest. I tried to keep out of the way when the "race" cars came up and just let them past. Same for the caterwesthamfields. Only had a couple of people not let me past. Wasnt too much of a biggie, I just found some space (backed off) which was easy enough on that circuit and then went for it again.

Good memory for me...
Anna: "Who was that going for a drive early this morning?"
Me: "That was me".
Anna: "Our cabin shook as you drove past".
Me: "Wicked!"

Nurburg on the 19th - 23rd Oct now


EDIT: Im very tired... room spinning (trip home was 4hrs) but.. being the hero I am I will make the trip to parents home to get the video moved onto DVD. As soon as possible I will upload photos of quads , video of the 4x4 off road and some of the track day bullet cam stuff. We all look like we're moving at 2mph in the photos lol
Not quite sure how Im gonna get it all hosted yet, might have to do a few BIG files and fileshare it or something.

[Flat Pack]

Excellent time Quad bikes were ace and sorry to everyone that nearly died in my Landy

Shame I discovered CV grease all over my rear upright after the sighting laps and so had to give up on the trackday itself, made it back here without any drama though. Wanted to see if I could fix it today, but was shutting the boot on the Supra and one of the rear light clusters practically fell out so I've had to fix that instead... Naily pieces of crap the pair of them, not that I'd have it any other way

Sorry I shot off so early but the weather was supposed to be getting worse and I couldn't see much point in waiting around to get rained on! Wasn't too bad as it happened, just a couple of showers on the way home.

Thanks again to Anna for such a great job organising everything, roll on Anglesey in November

[System-G]

I'm quite shocked so many poeple seemed to have "issues" with other drivers. Especially on a BaT event.

Personally, I didn't encounter anything too bad except for the silver 944 who was reluctant to let others past, but he was a newbie so I didn't think anymore of it.

There were also one or two that tore past us on straights and then we got held up by them through the twisties, But we've come to expect this and acknowlege it as normal so back off for a little while to get some space back.

Lower, you should have come to introduce yourself, we don't bite

I met peter at Donny a couple of months ago and got a passenger ride with him. Pretty fast car and build to a high standard. I guess I'll see him again at Donny next Monday as I'll be working for BaT again.

[Icsunonove]

Good to see everyone and thanks to all those who gave me passenger laps. And special thanks to Terry (ziggy) for letting me out for a session in his car

Didn't really get to grips with the track (especially the turn off the banking - simply couldn't see it at all, turning in was a complete guess) but I may have one more go at it next year in my car.

[lower]

I'm quite shocked so many poeple seemed to have "issues" with other drivers. Especially on a BaT event.

Personally, I didn't encounter anything too bad except for the silver 944 who was reluctant to let others past, but he was a newbie so I didn't think anymore of it.

There were also one or two that tore past us on straights and then we got held up by them through the twisties, But we've come to expect this and acknowlege it as normal so back off for a little while to get some space back.

Lower, you should have come to introduce yourself, we don't bite

I met peter at Donny a couple of months ago and got a passenger ride with him. Pretty fast car and build to a high standard. I guess I'll see him again at Donny next Monday as I'll be working for BaT again.

I would have come over and say hello but i was there with quite a few other trackday friends so just didn't get the chance. Next time....

I have to say it was the worst day for driving standards at a bookatrack event i've been to. The real clincher for me as the burgandy clio. He'd been holding a few cars up and not responding to flashes. I'd dropped back, caught hiim up again etc and on one corner he made a mistake and ran wide. He moved right over to the right hand side of the track and slowed dramatically so i thought he was letting me past and overtook him. He obviously decided that i shouldn't have overtaken him so proceeded to try and outbrake me up the inside of the two corners and then say right on my ar$e in the braking zone for the one after. It was blatent, and dangerous to be frank. I then left him behind.

The race cars and a couple of the caterhails were pretty agressive and there were a few very slow to get out of the way cars, the 968 turbo being the prime example. Slow in the corners but quick on the straights.

Depsite that it was still a really good fun day and if i'm honest, i quite enjoyed the clio trying it on and then getting left in my dust

[Icsunonove]

I have to say it was the worst day for driving standards at a bookatrack event i've been to. The real clincher for me as the burgandy clio. He'd been holding a few cars up and not responding to flashes. I'd dropped back, caught hiim up again etc and on one corner he made a mistake and ran wide. He moved right over to the right hand side of the track and slowed dramatically so i thought he was letting me past and overtook him. He obviously decided that i shouldn't have overtaken him so proceeded to try and outbrake me up the inside of the two corners and then say right on my ar$e in the braking zone for the one after. It was blatent, and dangerous to be frank. I then left him behind.

The race cars and a couple of the caterhails were pretty agressive and there were a few very slow to get out of the way cars, the 968 turbo being the prime example. Slow in the corners but quick on the straights.

Depsite that it was still a really good fun day and if i'm honest, i quite enjoyed the clio trying it on and then getting left in my dust

All it would have taken is a quick word to Jonny and the problems would have been sorted. It's one of the main reasons I book with BookaTrack. He really doesn't p1$$ about if people are driving badly, he takes action.

[Turbo-G]

Haha, nah it hasn't put us off doing trackdays... the valuable lesson of not getting caught up in the moment will have hit home no doubt

Ive got to wait about 4 weeks for my car to get in the bodyshop, but the place is awesome and they are outsourced by toyota so should look as it was when it comes back out ...more to the point im not paying for it

As for my wheel, well got the tyres off today and the rear doesn't look too promising, gona try get it over to the refurb place tomorow for a verdict, main thing im gutted about is the wheels tbh

If anyone has or see's a set of my wheels up for sale let me know please as it might be easier to just go for a new set..

Will definately make an effort to get to the next local ish trackday, thanks to Anna and all for organising the event. I was generally quite impressed with the organisation of the day.

[lower]

All it would have taken is a quick word to Jonny and the problems would have been sorted. It's one of the main reasons I book with BookaTrack. He really doesn't p1$$ about if people are driving badly, he takes action.

at one point i had to go and report a burgandy clio for trying to outbrake me into a number of corners after i'd passed him. There was a queue of people in front of me reporting various cars for not letting people past and for people overtaking in corners etc. Jonny seemed to think it was because there were a number of race cars there.

as you can see, i did

I agree about bookatrack. I've organised the last 4 S2Ki days through bookatrack (we normally get in excess of 20 s2k's there) and that is exactly why we choose to use them.

[Speedy]

I have to say, I thought the driving standards were ok generally. The same blue elise went past at the last moment under braking, or tried to slip through without consent, and the guy driving the silver Ferrari didn't see the red flags, and went to overtake me into the hairpin once, but apart from that, was pretty good.

One of the downsides of the day though was the number of Red Flags thrown, I guess there must have been 8 or more? (although the Marshalls and recovery trucks did pull people out of the way nice and quickly).

Anybody who's been to Rockingham before (Lower?) have any idea if thats normal, or exceptional?

[System-G]

Did that Clio have a passenger in it? (I don't remember even seeing a burgundy Clio there A silver one I let past and then kept up with through the twisties, but no burgundy one...)

One thing I have noticed is when instructors are in the car with a driver the first lap is very slow to show the driver the "correct" line and then gradually they will build up speed until the 20 minutes on track is up.
Also as the instructor is so busy erm... instructing and the driver is trying to concentrate on what the instructor is say whilst trying to follow a line, they often ignor traffic building up behind them. Pretty much the same when getting caught behind a learner driver on public roads...

I will have a chat to Howie and Jonny at Anglesey on Friday and find out what the normal proceedure is for cars under instruction on track. Perhaps I could encourage them to put a magnetic "L" plate on the cars under tuition

[lower]

One of the downsides of the day though was the number of Red Flags thrown, I guess there must have been 8 or more? (although the Marshalls and recovery trucks did pull people out of the way nice and quickly).

Anybody who's been to Rockingham before (Lower?) have any idea if thats normal, or exceptional?

Last time i was there we had less red flags. Only one car in the gravel, no dropped oil (that's the first time i've ever seen that on a track day and it happened twice) and no cars in the wall or armco.

They were pretty quick at recovering people though.

Having said that, there were very few waved yellow flags. Swings and roundabouts i suppose.

[jonb-]

It's more common for a lot of reds at places like Donny where people end up stuck in the gravel, just seems like we had a lot of blowups that day!

Personally I prefer it when marshalls use blue flags, it's a shame it's becoming less and less frequent on trackdays.