anyone have any helpful advice or tips.
cause i only know how to drag not circuit.
so can anyone give me a kind of "circuiting for dummies" kinda thing..
thanks

 

I can only imagine you mean you want to go to an open track day of some sort. If that is the case, I would invest in lessions. Here it was only $145, and I got 4 hours of in-class instruction, and (4) 20-minute track sessions the next day with an SCCA or ICSCC certified race car driver (you supply the car). Since you live in Trinidad, I have no idea how the car clubs are. All I can say is, read read read and take it slow if you are going to go it alone without an instructor.

Good luck

 

how much would you guys say it would cost to run on a track for the day??? not including the track fees... do you more or less need to expect to buy new tires and brake pads?? anything else??? thanks!

 

before you ever go out on the track invest some serious time on a skidpad. Learn in a forgiving environment how you cause and fix slides, do it over and over until it is completely subconscious. Then go to the track, you will be amazed how quickly you can progress when you already have car-control skills (it will also make you safe as well). BTW not many people have the patience for this but trust me it will make you fast (and envied )

 

Attending a few autocross events and autocross driving schools will also help bring car control skills up to speed (pun intended) with some guidance.

 

I can only guesstimate, but I would say one full track day (~= 100 minutes of on-track time) would be about 1,000-2,000 miles worth of normal wear & tear on your tires, and about 5,000-10,000 miles worth of normal wear & tear on your brakes (brakes are harder to judge, you could easily toast a brand new set of pads & warp rotors in one session, but I'm assuming you would be at least TRYING to conserve your brakes). Some people think all you do is wait till the last minute & stomp on the brakes before every turn, & get pissed/confused if they warp rotors...

The key is to monitor your tires and pads/rotors all the time, especially between sessions. It's best if you can swap some track pads for track days, then swap in your street pads afterward. If you can't, a good compromise is Ferodo DS2500.

RBF 600 (expensive) or Ate Super Blue (cheaper, almost as good) brake fluid is pretty much a must, and isn't that big of an investment to avoid having a long brake pedal and not a lot of stopping if/when the stock stuff starts to boil.

So, to answer your question:
Before you track your car, get some spare parts so you don't have down time:
pads & tires, & possibly rotors if you can afford it.
pads ~= $200-$500/set, tires ~= $500-$1000/set, rotors ~= $400-$1000/set

 

assuming your just going on what we call a "track day" or driving on a race track for a day...

Just be smooth, brake early, have fun. If they have instructors ask for one. they will show your the course and how to drive the proper line.

enjoy!

 

Moved to the driving techniques forum.

 

Doing this seems like a smart safe way to go but...We should title the above very common (club level) style of driver instruction, "How to gain a False Sense of Security and One Day Wreck Your Precious EVO". By gently increasing speed you create a driver that ends up driving close to the limit. Inevitably he/she goes over the limit (and on a race track it could be well over 100mph) and guess what? They have no idea how to catch it and they naturally panic and crash. Sad but true. Has happened thousands of times. They all say "there was nothing I could have done" and the cause is put done as inexperience and bad luck. There is no such thing as bad luck, only drivers going faster than they should be for their car control skill level. Autocrossing is a lousy way to gain car control skills! Why, you ask? Three or four runs 60 second runs a weekend! How long will it take, years and years to gain true car control skills. I'll say it again SKIDPAD for hours. Understeer/ oversteer over and over and over till fixing it and causing it are automatic. Trust me on this guys, this stuff is my day job!

If you can't honestly say "I'm confident catching slides at any speed" you should not be driving at/near the limit even if you are on a race track. Skills first speed second...end of . I've just seen too many totaled cars with novice drivers to not say this. Yes have fun, but be smart about it

 

I second that. I would say that about 90% of the track skills I use came from autocross. On top of that, it's much safer to learn some of the car's limits below 60 mph in an open parking lot instead of above 100 mph next to other cars (who might even be new like you, and maybe even crazier).

As for costs, I'll support that comment about wear and tear (I have no idea how to guess that), but instant costs mainly just include the track time and a few tanks of gas. Bring some glass cleaner because you want good visibility out of your windshield, bring at least one full size spare tire, and most of all drive with an instructor if at all possible!

 

I agree with everything that cronohunter and urbanknight said, but I wonder what kind of motorsports events are available in Trinidad...

evosevengsr, do you have autocross/gimanka events where you live?

 

I generally dislike auto-crossing as a way to learn roadracing techniques. Auto-x will teach you to be comfortable with your car, and maybe perhaps some low speed skid control.

But if you get too into the habits that auto-x develop for you, it will be very difficult for you to transition into roadracing.

Low speed cornering isn't the same as high speed cornering. A lot of seasoned auto-crossers find themselves stuck with some techniques that work well for auto-x, but not so well for roadracing. To be fast on the roadcourse, you have to be smooth.

So all I'm saying is pick your poison.

 

I would have to disagree with that. You have to be smooth in autocross too. The runs that feel the slowest to me are usually the ones I get a trophy in. It took me 2 years of whippy turns and heavy braking and wrist shots to learn that even the sharp corners of autocross require fluid smooth movements. After 5 years of autocross, I went on a road course and drove circles around GTIs, M Coupes, Porsche 911s, Mustang GTs, and plenty of other cars that should be faster than me. It all came down to choosing the correct lines and being fluid, both are skills that I learned from autocross. The fear factor comes in with the higher speed, and things like downshifting and heel toe needed to be learned, but posting a 2:25 second lap time on Buttonwillow configuration 13 in a 100 whp FWD car turned a lot of heads.

 

I'm not saying that you can't transition. You'll do better than most folks who have no experience. Don't compare yourself to people with expensive cars. I drive a 80 wbhp car around most folks. They're by no means a benchmark.

What I'm saying is exactly what you touched on.

You don't learn these too much in auto-cross, and sometimes people get into bad habits that are hard to break.

That's all I'm saying. I think it's like saying a good auto-crosser has to work hard at being good on the roadcourse, whereas a good roadracer can do reasonably well in auto-crossing since the roadracer has a larger skill set of techniques.

 

That's what my argument was about though. It has been well documented that road racers do terrible at autocross, while autocrossers do reasonably well on the road course. It does sound ironic, but many a road racer has tried autocross just to find out that they tend to make too sharp movements because the sharp corners freak them out. I don't know why it is, but if you like, I'll hunt down some autocross results that will blow your mind with well known SCCA road racers that lost to amateurs on the autocross course.

Quoted by a famous Pro road racer: Autocrossers make good road racers, but road racers don't make good autocrossers.

Not to say an autocrosser will win by any means, but they have an easier time transitioning than the other way around. My biggest difficulty in road racing, however, is passing. I will need a few classes on passing maneuvers before I feel comfortable early apexing anyone except at the local go-kart kiddy place