Post by alf on Sept 24, 2021 8:43:42 GMT
I joined a big Facebook group for trackday attendees as part of getting to know the scene again, in case I decided to track the Boxster. When I had the Caterham I was a big (top 10 UK customer annually in some cases) user of Bookatrack and Easytrack, but they are not about any more.
OMG - have times changed. Are we surprised? Everyone seems to want to video track time and share it (fair enough) but the driving standards are abysmal. Basic rules like overtaking on a certain side, and on straights only, are routinely ignored but when footage of it is shared, the comments are "well it looked alright to me", "plenty of space", "you were holding him up" and so on. The rules themselves seem a total aside, which seems a mirror of modern life to be honest. Rules are there for others, but me? I know better........
There is also a total focus on laptimes, and people modding cars - especially using sticky tyres almost by default - to get there. Many cars (including the Boxster!) are borderline for oil starvation on long corners, adding track tyres makes that a lot worse - and overloads the braking, suspension, and transmission. Whats the point of being faster, but being further from the limit and learning less about driving? It's also a total no-no in insurance terms to time on a trackday, if one person times then the whole event insurance is potentially invalid, so people discussing times openly online is a massive potential risk to everyone at the day.
Add to that numerous incidents of actual violence where people are challenged by the organisers, blatant racing and blocking on track, and so on - if I do risk the (according the specialist it's currently at, immaculate and never been tracked or used in the winter) boxster on track, it's going to be at Porsche club days and the like...
OMG - have times changed. Are we surprised? Everyone seems to want to video track time and share it (fair enough) but the driving standards are abysmal. Basic rules like overtaking on a certain side, and on straights only, are routinely ignored but when footage of it is shared, the comments are "well it looked alright to me", "plenty of space", "you were holding him up" and so on. The rules themselves seem a total aside, which seems a mirror of modern life to be honest. Rules are there for others, but me? I know better........
There is also a total focus on laptimes, and people modding cars - especially using sticky tyres almost by default - to get there. Many cars (including the Boxster!) are borderline for oil starvation on long corners, adding track tyres makes that a lot worse - and overloads the braking, suspension, and transmission. Whats the point of being faster, but being further from the limit and learning less about driving? It's also a total no-no in insurance terms to time on a trackday, if one person times then the whole event insurance is potentially invalid, so people discussing times openly online is a massive potential risk to everyone at the day.
Add to that numerous incidents of actual violence where people are challenged by the organisers, blatant racing and blocking on track, and so on - if I do risk the (according the specialist it's currently at, immaculate and never been tracked or used in the winter) boxster on track, it's going to be at Porsche club days and the like...
