I can provide a beginner's perspective to this discussion since I just went to my first track day a couple of weeks ago.

This was at Calabogie, just west of Ottawa. 5km track with 20 turns including elevation changes.

Based on the information in this and other threads, here is what I did to prep my car:
- OFT tune (would have done this anyway)
- Upgraded brake fluid and pads (stopping is more important than going fast)
- Front camber adjusted to max on OEM camber bolts (-1.2*) and alignment done
- Stock tires.

My lapping day was a full day, alternating 30 min on track sessions with an instructor and classroom sessions. First session was instructor driving, the next 7 were me driving.

After my first set of laps my instructor suggested just keeping it in 4th gear and focusing on getting the lines right in the turns. I figured out most of the turns pretty quickly but there was one hairpin that was giving me trouble because I was turning in too early and getting on the gas too early. I finally figured that one out on session 5.

Personally I found that running with the stock tires was a good experience. In the later sessions as my speeds increased, I had a couple of instances where the tires started to lose grip. A couple of those were due to bad inputs (steering/gas) but a couple were purely speed related, i.e. I was on a good line, just too fast for the tires.

I only actually timed one set of laps, session 5, just to get an idea of where I was. Based on other videos from that track, I am about 25-30 seconds slower than the really fast guys in an FRS.

I know that even on the stock tires I can shave off time because I was definitely slower around the "low speed" corners staying in fourth. There's lots of time to gain there. On the high speed corners better tires will eventually help, but those aren't what's slowing me down now.

Next time out I figure I'll do a few laps in fourth again to refresh my memory of the turn-in points and line, and then try to work on getting through the corners faster.

I will say that I had a very good experience with my instructor. He figured out exactly how to give me the information I needed and I was noticed a big improvement in the way I got around the track from the start of the day to the end.

One of the interesting things that happens which is pretty hard to observe is that in the exact same car the faster people (ie. instructors) will actually be faster in the fast sections of the track too. They actually will modify their lines for the car and in general have more grip (and hence speed) on the same line as a beginner. As an example there is a video that I believe @orthojoe posted of himself in his stock BRZ (except for alignment and Michelin PSS instead of Primacy) at T-Hill: [ame="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eI08YWtfX3w"]2:15 lap time at Thunderhill in a Subaru BRZ - YouTube[/ame]
2:15 is crazy fast for a stock car; I have better tires on my car and last time I was there I was getting 2:21 on a pretty decent line. He just gets more grip pretty much everywhere.

You should learn them so you know how to recover an unintentional rotation... just my $0.02

Yeah...on track last weekend I did a snap left 90 to a snap right 120 (caught the spin, but over-corrected) on Dunlop Sport MAXX RT's. They aren't crazy sticky, but I'm a noob and wish I dealt with more departures from controlled flight (so to say) before that one. Meaning, even with ~15 track days, I have way too much still to learn from tires with lower limits.

I assume I'm not the only one.

Nope you're not the only one.

The issue is that the race track is not the place to learn these skills. Lots of cars are bent or destroyed each year as another group of drivers discovers this.

Yeah, I've been trying to supplement my track time with a little autocross (hard to get the timing right though) and go-kating (all indoor so far because the good outdoor places are hard to get to when they have open sessions). Even with how little I've managed to get in of either I can tell immediately during the events just how much I am filling in skill gaps.

Its like a mental thunk as pieces fall together. The best part is that I get so much out of it now than when I tried it before because I have more basis due to on-track time. They really are complimentary motor sport activities.

These ancillary activities all help to develop a driver who will automatically do the right things at the right times on a race track. They will not only make you faster, they will make you much safer. Autocross and karting are great because they're generally pretty accessible. I like indoor karting because the straights are almost non-existent - I just need Arnold Schwarzenegger's forearms. lol

Other training options are activites like rally school (e.g., http://www.teamoneil.com/, the Skip Barber of rally schools (no affiliation)), winter car control events, ice racing - really, anything that has you controlling a car that is or wants to be out of shape.

One that I would really like to try is a wet skid pad. Summer weather with cool water all over the place and handling like ice. Whats not to like? :-D

Yeah the track I normally go to offers wet skidpad. It's a lot of fun and much harder than it looks, at least for me, to maintain a desired slip angle. It's odd - I can catch oversteer decently on the track and one of the instructors I had thought I'd be drifting everywhere on the wet skidpad, but nope, I royally suck at drifting. I either recover or spin, but nothing in between. :(

If you live somewhere cold in the winter and want to learn car control. I can't think of a better way then this.

There is a guy in Upstate NY who races his BRZ in the unstudded class as well. From what I hear he does pretty well

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hnhjw6itqzk"]Mark Piatkowski- Driver's Eye View- AMEC Ice Racing 2/3/13 - YouTube[/ame]

I may be going out on a limb here, but I'm pretty sure that's not a BRZ.

Talk about "Keep your eyes UP!" lol

While I wholeheartedly agree with this line of thought, I'm curious, has ANYONE actually stuck with the OEM tires long enough to wear out the tread? They seem to be made of stone and don't physically wear away, although they heat cycle out way beforehand.

I had 4 track days on my OEM tires before I blew a tire on a curb. Other than the outer edges being shredded, there was plenty of tread left. Then I mounted 2 of the tires back onto the rear of the car for a day on the skid pad. Even after a few hours spinning out and doing figure 8s on the skid pad, the tires STILL looked they had tons of life left.

Has anyone managed to cord the OEM tires??

[ame="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6PxFUqr9u3Y"]Skid pad practice at Thunderhill - YouTube[/ame]

longer video... but i suppose more appropriate for this forum

[ame="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6lhxDXxjzFY"]AMEC Ice race 2-3-13 Race #3 Street Legal class - YouTube[/ame]