Ferrari Mailing List: Re: Ferrari Track Events

[Charles Perry (charles]

Interesting. Sadly, a tremendous amount of what happens here is based on 
liability issues since we have the most litigious society ever. Currently a 
case is winding through our courts in California where a motorcycle rider at a 
track day overdrove his ability, went off track, hit a sand bag that was there 
to keep drainage water from washing silt/debris onto the track, and busted 
himself up in the resulting crash. The lawyers, claiming that no warning about 
the bag off-track constituted gross negligence (to negate the waivers the 
"victim" signed), initially filed against the event organizer, the track 
management, the track owner, and against Mazda Motors because they had 
purchased naming rights to the track (but had zero other involvement - just 
potentially deep pockets). The personal injury attorneys seem to drive 90% of 
what happens here now, including the warning stickers telling you that your 
toaster oven is unsuitable for bathtub use. I believe the case against Mazda 
was thrown out, but the other facets of that case may have far reaching 
consequences for our hobby.

Here that also drives a lot of things for instructors. Many groups don't allow 
them to drive student cars. Most groups require equal safety equipment for 
instructor and driver (meaning you can't have a race seat and 6-point harnesses 
for the driver and a stock seat with 3-point belt for the passenger). Insurance 
on your car is optional, but since our street policies typically won't even 
cover "driving education" while on track, it's a good idea if you can't afford 
to write off your car. For my Corvette, it adds about $400 / event, which 
usually equals or exceeds the event cost. Sometimes passengers can have rides, 
sometimes not. It's all over the map based on the various insurances in place 
by the track and the event organizer.

I enjoy it a lot, but it is an expensive hobby and is poised to here to get 
more expensive over time.



-----Original Message-----
From: francis newman [mailto:francis.newman [at] webshot.co.uk] 
Sent: Tuesday, March 05, 2019 12:55 PM
To: Charles Perry
Cc: francis newman; The FerrariList
Subject: Re: Ferrari Track Events

Hi again Charles

Here in the UK we don’t require a vehicle check, other than for noise (which 
the circuit do). We used to check they had the right fire extinguishers (that 
was my job) but no longer. Only thing left we check is that they have a tow 
hook attached. There is no requir ment for insurance, in fact I have always 
taken mine on track uninsured mainly becuase my inusrer didnlt offer that 
although my new insurer offers cover at 80 dollars per event.

Until last year our track days were Ferrari only though last year we 
experimented with allowing other cars (FOC owners) to try and increase 
attendance which sort of worked but with not a particuarly big uptaake though 
we did have a Lola race car which was impressive.

You are right about the added costs, though distances here in UK are much less. 
The tracks I have been on are all within a 2 hour drive. That is not teh same 
for all though. But even for an old car like mine there is still a tyre cost. 

The other problem is that we always had really good instructors, all of them 
club members, all qualified instructors and most of them long term racers,  who 
were volunteers and they came free. I had some really good instruction. But new 
insurance regulations from national Motor Sports Association mean they aren't 
allowed to drive the cars, which was the big motivation for them to get behind 
the wheel of the latest car for a couple of laps. So they lost interest and 
that came to an end.

So - I have one month to decide whether or not to take my car on track again at 
Silverstone, with no instructor to help keep an eye on what is coming up behind 
at a rate of knots (though I am pretty good at that myself). Sadly I suspect 
that I won't take part, but then…..maybe?.

Best

Francis

> On 5 Mar 2019, at 04:21, Charles Perry <charles [at] carolinasound.com> wrote:
> 
> 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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