Monday 21st February 2005

track-club Open Day

PHers try out the new fleet of track machinery

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track-sense held their first open day at Bruntingthorpe on Saturday. The new company held the event to showcase the cars available as part of their track-club offering. The scheme allows track day fans to pay a yearly subscription gaining them access to track-club's fleet of machinery.

The fleet on Saturday was made up of an E30 M3, Ariel Atom, Caterham, Exige, M3 SMG, Clio V6, Renault Spider and a development version of the Turner LMP.

The day was full of PHers seeking thrills and plenty were dished out. The emphasis was on getting each driver into as many cars as possible during the day with up to 15 mins in each car. Not long enough to master them, but enough to get a feel for the potential (or in my case push the car beyond its potential - oops).

The fleet of cars will be stored and maintained near Bruntingthorpe with track-club members collecting them from there for use on track. Donington Park and of course Bruntingthorpe itself being the most likely destinations. Full details are available from the company's website (see below).

It certainly proved an enjoyable day for the punters and track-sense could probably fill a number of events like this each year. The opportunity to drive such a varied range of track cars in one day comes very rarely.

Link: www.track-sense.com

PetrolTed

[tvr350tim]

Nice pics Ted, sadly I missed your spinning top incident. What was it in?

[sdd]

Thanks to all that attended, I think everyone had a good day out, couple of issues with cars but bearing in mind most were straight out of the box so to speak and did the equivalent of about 3 average track days on each day it was good.

Apologies to those who wanted to drive the LMP, further details on the cause of that soon.

Keith has kindly posted some further pics here;

www.gtphotosport.com/tracksense/bruntingthorpe/index.html

Nice to see quite a few people signing up for the club, just to clarify the cars will be based slightly south of Bruntingthorpe just off J20 of the M1.

We will also be doing some spot hire and arrive and drive this year, details of this will be on the website soon along with further info on how the points system will work.

Stephen

[PetrolTed]

I was in the Spider. Really caught me unawares. Gave the impression of lots of grip and my confidence in it rose too quickly.

The long sweeping left hander caught me out - apparently I tweaked the wheel going through the bend - and the the back end just went light and we were going sideways at great pace.

Confused instructions in the cockpit though. The instructor's gestures for slowing down and changing up a gear (sequential gearbox) were rather similar

[pounana]

Lucky you for saturday...

A bit disappointed on Sunday. No M3, no LMP and, after the first session, no caterham, then no (replacement) M3, then no Peugeot 205 (famous track car) then no Spyder...

I appreciate that cars break under heavy use, but it made the 'specialist preparation for road and track cars' advert on the side of their van a bit suspect.

Also, again, due to the slightly shaky nature of the machinery, we were limited to five laps per car, not the "six to ten" we paid for (although I was offered a hot lap in my, ahem, diesel golf...).

In principle, then, a good day at a good price, and, in fairness, they did give me a refund for the cars I didn't drive on the day (but not for the cars I came to drive but were unavailable, if you get my point).

Didn't leave with a very warm feeling, though, not entirely the fault of the Atom....

(ps, headline news, lotus didn't break)

[stringer_m]

pounana, sorry you were disappointed. It looks like we dropped the ball on communication with you about the alternatives on the Sunday. The offer of a hot lap was actually in one of our cars. The other offer was for a session of instruction in your own car which as you probably saw was taken up by the Gallardo owner - I apologise if we did not make this clear.

It's only fair that I also add that Atlanta Motorsport (whose van you refer to) were in fact providing technical back up for the day and are not actually the outfit responsible for the preparation of the cars. Atlanta did a sterling job of both instructing, keeping the cars topped up and helping with changeovers.

As you said the Lotus didn't break, neither did the Ariel Atom or (remarkably given the amount of times it spent doing 360s) did the Clio.

TAD should be making an annoucement about the cause of the LMP failure in the very near future. From a perspective of our cars we are investigating the problems at the moment so that we can take steps to avoid the problems in the future.

[tvr350tim]

To be fair they were unlucky with a couple of failures and I've done this stuff before where organisers just shrug and try and fob you off. the communication was excellent and they tried to make sure everyone was happy.

I think you have to bear in mind the overall value for money as well which was fantastic even with a couple of cars out of the equation.

[clubsport]

On a fleet of trackday cars, failures were to be expected, especially considering the different levels of driver ability on the day.
With this in mind it was a no brainer to book the Saturday over Sunday session

[happy snapper]

It was a great day the 205 was tops incredible little car!

A big well done to all the team, a few hiccups but it was a good day. No snow till we left and sunny all day!

Once again a well done to all the team.

[coramlmp]

A comprehensive account of the LMP engine failure is now available at: www.turner-auto-design.com/news.htm

Basically the engine failure was attributable to oil starvation on No. 3 big end shell.

So far, we have a couple of theories about why this happened, but the engine strip-down should confirm the root cause of the failure. It was NOT attributable to the client or an oil-surge problem (the engine is dry-sumped).

Suffice to say that our disappointment probably pales in comparison to that of Track-sense and its clients.

The effort put in by Stephen, Max and their colleagues on each day was superb. They are to be congratulated on bringing this concept within the grasp of the ordinary track-day punter. Given that this was their first ever event and that they surpassed the organisation abilities of more established track-day companies, there can be only better things to come. I wish them every success.

[ginettag27]

Excellent day out (Saturday). Cheers to Stephen, all his staff, instructors and Steve Turner... A real shame that his car decided to throw most of it's engine away Was really looking forward to getting a go in it.

The Exige exceeded my expectations, but I did want to like it. The Renault Spyder was my find of the day, I've seen them around quite a bit, at Le Mans over the years, but have been a bit "anti" them - the styling and so on, but it was brilliant, well worth the day - it was the proverbial icing on the cake ) The M3 E30 also exceeded prior expectations. Definitely worth Pistonheaders going to the club's future days - an excellent taster to cars.

It sounds like the Sunday was very unfortunate for those who went along - give them another go, they definitely try their hardest to please their customers.

Phil

[iguana]

Some great pics in sdd's link, anymore on line anywhere from the Sat?

Particually after any of me in the Atom- I had on a Blue Shoei lid with Evoactive visor sunstrip.

Cheers.

>> Edited by iguana on Tuesday 22 February 13:21

[coramlmp]

Iguana - it would be hard to tell the difference between you in the blue helmet and anyone else that was in the Atom - because of the cold everyone ended up turning blue!

Steve.
www.turner-auto-design.com

[Piglet]

iguana said:

Some great pics in sdd's link, anymore on line anywhere from the Sat? Particually after any of me in the Atom- I had on a Blue Shoei lid with Evoactive visor sunstrip. Cheers. >> Edited by iguana on Tuesday 22 February 13:21

Iguana, did you follow the second link on Happy Snapper's web site in sdd's like above? Follow the link to "more images" at the top of the Bruntingthorpe Gallery and that shows all of the pic's that he, I and Muttley took on the day. Hopefully there might be one of you somewhere!

Edited to include the link...
www.gtphotosport.com/tracksense/bruntingthorpe2/index.html

>> Edited by Piglet on Tuesday 22 February 19:40

[iguana]

Cheers piglet- id not seen that link, couldnt spot any of me in the Atom tho - obviusly however I was going too fast to be caught on camera


Coram- you are not wrong, it was defo a tad chilly!

[Piglet]

Thinking about it I think Mutley took one of the digi cards with him so there might be some more pics around, I'll give him a nudge to post them somewhere. Did you drive it late in day or early on?

[iguana]

Cheers piglet, it was later on (Sat) I do remember their being a photograper on the corner near the pits who seemd to be snapping away so hopefuly there is a pic some where.

[Piglet]

Iguana, there are some more pictures, they should be with us in a couple of days so we'll post them up then, i'm not sure how many there are but it is the latter half of Saturday so you might have a starring role! I'll post the link in a few days.