Requirements for driving at a race track?

[Mr.ac]

You can check out Speed Ventures.com I ran with that group for years. Good people and they have spots every month at all California tracks. Prices are great.

[exE36M3]

Originally Posted by Mr.ac

Not really true. Every open track days have experience levels as well. And instructors too. It's not a free for all open wheel full race mad max event. The only accidents I seen are are single cars. Usually someone over cooking their brakes and hitting a wall.

Well, you are assuming there aren't track days that are open free-for alls.
There are. I've been to a few of them. And I've seen cars get tangled up. A cheap track day is perfect if you are an auto-x or track guy with some serious seat time and could use some practice, but it's cheap because the organizer may skimp on a tow truck, corner workers, instructors, etc.

Yes, even the most organized schools can have crashes, but they are far fewer than those without. And for the gentleman who started this thread, he doesn't want to be the guy who ends up in a wall - none of us do.

Plus here's another caveat. Insurance. Ask the school/organizer and your insurance company about this before you put your car on the track. Because if you crash a car at an uninsured event, you are SOL.

The track day program which I also believe is the best program on the west coast is one run by the BMW Car Club of America, Golden Gate Chapter. And I am biased - 15 year BMW CCA member here. You don't have to be a member to drive one. The organizers run programs from clinics, test-and-tunes, high-performance driving schools, and even high-performance instructor training.

I suggest their Car Control Clinics first. It's pretty cheap, usually less than $100, organized like an auto-cross but with INSTRUCTION. And if you get sideways, you run into cones. Not track walls, tires, or hay bales. They do ABS braking, skidpad, and panic stopping exercises to boot.

Once you spend a solid day on a cone course, a track event is a lot less intimidating and you know the limits of your car better.

http://ggcbmwcca.org/driving-events/

And A LOT of us BMW owners also own BRZs.

[darkonion]

Just throwing out some options for you.

This Saturday, there is the SCCA Starting Line School at Crows Landing. Sunday is SFR SCCA Solo Round 2 also at Crows Landing.

https://www.scca.com/pages/starting-line

[Ec1990]

Originally Posted by exE36M3

Well, you are assuming there aren't track days that are open free-for alls.
There are. I've been to a few of them. And I've seen cars get tangled up. A cheap track day is perfect if you are an auto-x or track guy with some serious seat time and could use some practice, but it's cheap because the organizer may skimp on a tow truck, corner workers, instructors, etc.

Yes, even the most organized schools can have crashes, but they are far fewer than those without. And for the gentleman who started this thread, he doesn't want to be the guy who ends up in a wall - none of us do.

Plus here's another caveat. Insurance. Ask the school/organizer and your insurance company about this before you put your car on the track. Because if you crash a car at an uninsured event, you are SOL.

The track day program which I also believe is the best program on the west coast is one run by the BMW Car Club of America, Golden Gate Chapter. And I am biased - 15 year BMW CCA member here. You don't have to be a member to drive one. The organizers run programs from clinics, test-and-tunes, high-performance driving schools, and even high-performance instructor training.

I suggest their Car Control Clinics first. It's pretty cheap, usually less than $100, organized like an auto-cross but with INSTRUCTION. And if you get sideways, you run into cones. Not track walls, tires, or hay bales. They do ABS braking, skidpad, and panic stopping exercises to boot.

Once you spend a solid day on a cone course, a track event is a lot less intimidating and you know the limits of your car better.

http://ggcbmwcca.org/driving-events/

And A LOT of us BMW owners also own BRZs.

I've heard stories of insurance companies mysteriously cancelling policies after asking about this.

You can look into specific track day insurance from like Lockton, it usually runs 100-150 a day if I remember correctly.