Ferrari Mailing List: Ferrari Track Events

[Charles Perry (charles]

Hi Francis! As I'm sure you're aware, the States cover a huge geographic area, 
so each region has their own management within the Ferrari Club of America 
(FCA). Some regions are definitely more polished than others. The North 
Carolina region, for example, does an annual track event at Virginia 
International Raceway (VIR) that is outstanding - low key, well organized, 
reasonably priced and with a great instructor pool. My favorite event of the 
year. So it varies a lot by region.

Amusingly, it was the FCA that drove me to buy a Corvette for my track events. 
I had been using my F355 spider, but one year they changed the insurance rules 
at VIR with little notice, so during Tech Inspection for the event they told me 
I had to move from the Intermediate group to the Novice group because my car 
was a convertible. Then they declared there would be NO passing for ANYONE in 
the Novice group because my convertible had no roll hoops. Needless to say, I 
was not very popular at that event, and I was frustrated because I could've 
brought a different car if I'd had one day of notice.

So I decided to sell the 355 and buy the Corvette since I want to do a lot more 
track events. The Corvette is WAY cheaper to buy, WAY cheaper to run and WAY 
cheaper to fix than a Ferrari. It has performance on par with a 488, although 
certainly without the finesse and balance of the 488.

Track events are generally a lot more expensive than just the track fee. You 
have the hotels, the pre-event inspection, the more frequent fluid changes, 
more frequent tire and brake changes, specialty track insurance. If you get 
serious, safety equipment, maybe a trailer, extra sets of tires/wheels, truck 
to pull the trailer, etc. So it can get out of hand in a hurry. It sounds like 
maybe you guys have some of the issues of older cars here - the people that can 
afford those cars can often JUST afford the cars (like when I bought my TR), 
and so extras are out of budget when you stretched to get the car in the first 
place. Most of the people I see at Ferrari track events are the people who can 
afford to write off a car (either classic or new) if there's a crash or 
something. For most of us financial mortals, if you really think that might 
happen to you, you'd buy an $8,000 Miata or Boxster, and if you crash it, you 
spent less on the whole car than an F355 quarter panel would cost before paint.

So I'm guessing that's a lot of it. As the prices for everything continue to 
rise, the incremental joy of tracking a Ferrari versus tracking something more 
pedestrian is low, and if you have a pristine car, you'd rather keep it that 
way.


-----Original Message-----
From: francis newman [mailto:francis.newman [at] webshot.co.uk] 
Sent: Sunday, March 03, 2019 2:49 PM
To: Charles Perry
Cc: francis newman; The FerrariList
Subject: Re: [Ferrari] Idiots with money

Hi Charles

I feel for you. Luckily here in the UK the FOC have a team who have been 
working togather at track days for years. I am one of that team and have helped 
at something like 80 track days over the last 20 years. Our team controls 
everything other than the on track marshalling and I like to think we have it 
down to a fine art.

The only proiblem is that owners no longer seem to want to take their cars on 
track. 8 or so years ago the FOC ran 6 trackdays per year including two on the 
full Silverstone Grandprix circuit with 130 cars and a waiting list. This year 
we are down to 2, a shorter Silverstone circuit (cheaper) and Goodwood. We are 
at a loss to understand the lack of demand. The Silverstone day is 400 dollars 
and the Goodwood one is 525 dollars. Goodwood will sell out as there are 
limited numbers but Silverstone won’t.

I have taken my car on track at Silverstone 5 or 6 times. We previously had 
different level sessions but now have an open pitlane. Can occasionally be 
daunting with GT cars going past 40-50 mph faster, but I have never had a real 
problem.

But all the older cars (and by that I mean 355s and earlier) have disappeared. 
Even just 5 years ago there would be a good number of everything from the early 
70s onwards. Now I seem to be alone. No-one seems to know why. Sure, the value 
of the earlier cars went up a bit but is that really the reason?

Would be interested in comments.

Francis

> On 3 Mar 2019, at 18:14, Charles Perry <charles [at] carolinasound.com> wrote:
> 
> Mine is the black C7 Z06 Corvette in the first picture with the IMSA car.
>  
> I hesitate to criticize events since I know how hard it is to get people to 
> help and execute in the way you (as an organizer) want, but I was surprised 
> that this wasn’t better given how big the Florida chapter of the FCA must be. 
> I’m guessing aside from CA they probably have the highest owner density of 
> any state. Part of the fault lay with the FCA. They had 110+ cars signed up 
> but only had two lanes open for tech inspection and 45 minutes total 
> allotted. No way that was going to happen. So eventually they just said 
> “Everyone leave your car where it sits and come to the driver’s meeting and 
> we’ll keep inspecting while you meet.” I think they assigned instructors to 
> the beginners, but there was no information on who instructors were or where 
> to find them if you wanted one for intermediate or advanced. There was no 
> central location to find an organizer, so with two massive garages and the 
> driver’s meeting area the people who were in charge were immediately 
> invisible after the driver’s meeting. They didn’t use the PA for the morning 
> to announce run groups, so it was a little chaotic with when people showed up 
> at pit out since they started late/off-schedule from the driver’s meeting.
>  
> At one point an intermediate car stopped on track with mechanical issues, so 
> they black flagged the session. Apparently about 20% of drivers missed the 
> flags for up to 3 more laps, so then they called everyone into the driver’s 
> meeting room again to address that. After that meeting they decided to 
> combine the beginner’s group and the intermediate group. Their intent was 
> good (trying to give back some of the track time that was lost to the black 
> flagged session and subsequent meeting), but in practice all it did was badly 
> exacerbate the problem of the whole session becoming a slow train through the 
> road course (like I was literally coasting off throttle for the majority of 
> the infield). That was when I asked to move to Advanced, which thankfully the 
> Chief Instructor accommodated. After that it was a lot more fun. Part of this 
> fault was also with the Daytona track crew. They were waving cars from 
> pit-out onto the track as quickly as they could, rather than spacing the 
> release to spread out the field. That was a big track, so there was ample 
> room to space people instead of bunching them from the first turn on.
>  
> So a lot of room for improvement, but I enjoyed the afternoon with the faster 
> group. It had rained the whole night before and the track was pretty wet in 
> the morning, so I was running street tires. It dried in the afternoon and got 
> warmer, so I could’ve switched to my Cup tires and gone a little faster, but 
> since it was my first time at that track I was just happy to concentrate on 
> my line. The Forza 6/Xbox simulator that I had practiced on in the days 
> leading up to it was remarkably accurate, but some of the landmarks I used to 
> learn turn-in or braking points in the simulator (the Ferris Wheel and some 
> signs on the banking) weren’t there or were in different places in real life, 
> so I had to unlearn what was in my head from the game to mark new spots on 
> the track.
>  
> It was expensive for a one-day event ($700, I think?), but as I said before, 
> FCA will be expensive, and it included a nice lunch. Plus I’m sure Daytona is 
> a far more expensive track to rent than most I’ve been on.
>  
> I’d like to do it again next year, but I’d definitely sign up for advanced 
> from what I learned this year and where I hope to be next year.
>  
>  
> <image001.jpg> 
>  
> From: Lashdeep Singh <lashdeep [at] yahoo.com> 
> Sent: Sunday, March 3, 2019 5:11 AM
> To: Charles Perry <charles [at] carolinasound.com>
> Cc: The FerrariList <ferrari [at] ferrarilist.com>
> Subject: Re: [Ferrari] Idiots with money
>  
> CG, you forgot to mention what you were driving while on track.
>  
> What was your impression of how that event was run and the costs?
> 
> On Mar 3, 2019, at 04:11, Charles Perry <charles [at] carolinasound.com> 
> wrote:
> 
> lol. I don’t do much with the FCA since the vast majority of their events are 
> heinously expensive. However, a few weeks ago I did their track event at 
> Daytona International Speedway since I wanted to try that track. There was a 
> scattering of interesting cars from a variety of marques, but the vast 
> majority of attendees were 458/488 chassis. I signed up for the intermediate 
> group since I am realistically low- to mid-intermediate with most groups I 
> run with.
>  
> This lot was hilarious though. There were probably 40-50 cars in the 
> intermediate group, and of those, maybe 6 had any concept of the racing line. 
> It was quite clear that most of them were just slogging through the infield 
> road course section as a necessary evil to be able to hammer it on the banked 
> oval sections. It was literally a 30mph poser parade through anything with a 
> turn included.
>  
> After lunch I found the Chief Instructor and asked if I could run with the 
> advanced group for a session or two. At most events, those guys would 
> consider me a chicane, but this time I was only passed by three cars – a 
> seriously quick Corvette C7 Grand Sport, an F12 and an IMSA prototype. Pretty 
> sure after the event, all of the intermediate guys drove to the local hot 
> spot and assumed two parking spots each.  J
>  
>  
>  
> From: Ferrari [mailto:ferrari-bounces+charles=carolinasound.com [at] 
> ferrarilist.com] On Behalf Of Rick Moseley
> Sent: Saturday, March 02, 2019 6:19 PM
> To: Charles Perry
> Cc: The FerrariList
> Subject: Re: [Ferrari] Idiots with money
>  
> Bingo!!  The last sentence says it all for me.
> There are those who buy cars for the way the cars make them feel when they 
> are alone behind the wheel.  Many of those people are my friends (plenty here)
>  
> Then
>  
> There are those who buy cars for the way they think the cars make them look 
> in public.  I tend not to gravitate their way.
>  
> I'd rather spend a whole Saturday in Rob Garven's garage than 2 minutes with 
> the dork that just bought a 488, showed up at the local hot spot and took two 
> parking spots by the front door.
>  
>  
> On Saturday, March 2, 2019, 3:03:34 PM PST, Clarence Romero Jr. 
> <clyderomerof4 [at] gmail.com> wrote:
>  
> Not like the dolts who buy the cars for the wrong reason 
>  
> <IMG_0207.jpg>
> <IMG_0208.jpg>
> <IMG_0215.jpg>
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