Sounds good Kiwi. I'd probably go the van (shared cost option) to get up to Pembrey/Llandow or further afield. I did have a look at Pembrey... Fully booked it looks like through July & Aug. I bet the track day organizers will make up for lost Covid time.
I've done loads of track days (and even a race there a long time ago) at CC. It's the residents of nearby Yatton Keynell (not even Castle Combe!) that you need to go and thank. The gig is that you buy a house next to a race track so that you can spend your life complaining about noise from a distant race track whilst, I guess that, you cite stupidity for buying a house near a race track and being surprised that they have any noisy activity there. You can roll up at any track day to get there for about 9am, when everyone has to do a static noise test. You can say that you are just their to get the noise test, or say nothing, I guess, and just get tested. If you don't get the ticket to show that you passed the static test then you can't sign on, but you will know that you could if you wanted to. I believe - but don't know - they will wander around the track during the day doing drive by sound checks. This may only be because they've had a complaint Or it could be that they always get complaints and so are always testing! CC are as p1ssed off about it as anyone would be. Lots of locals want the place closed. Presumably, so that they can fight a planning application to build 2000 houses there instead? That is one battle they they would lose, definitely. I dunno why the chicken local MP doesn't explain to them the facts of life, and put them back in their box. Oh, hang-on, I do really. They are chicken!
The super, super irony is that if they are successful and get CC shut. The thousands of houses built there would raise traffic through Yatton Keynell dramatically. You are close to Chippenham (where the nearest train station is) and Bristol, as well as Swindon. AND, irony of irony, Dyson! Presumably that could of got locals complaining about electric cars if he hadn't abandoned the project!
This is why I (used to) go to Spain, Portugal, Italy & France for track days. No noise issues, normally good weather, cheaper than UK tracks, cheap living and feel like a MotoGP hero.
Not that I intend to do any more track days, but I've long been confused as to the popularity of Spain, and other European countries for track days. So, apart from the better weather, food, and tracks, it is the lack of noise testing that is a big draw? Unlike CC, where you can rock up with a completely standard exhaust an still fail the sound test (as a mate on a Buell once did), you know that you are not going to get any of this crap - even with an aftermarket job?
Same as Paul, I really can't be arsed with UK days now. I used to go to Silverstone quite a lot (local) until they stopped offering them to 3rd party TDOs and started charging £250 a day! I still do a 2 dayer once per year at various locations with a group old friends, but that's usually it. Euros are much better, less have a go hero day trippers, more relaxed, no noise test, bloody great laugh with the right crew, better weather, food, drink, coke, hookers....Has it all... I was doing 4-5 pa pre- C19. Go to one of the bigger GP circuits and pin your bike up the straight with the sound booming off the grandstands either side....Righteous! Was finally getting to Mugello this year, but not to be, all being well, will be there next year!
I did get noise tested @ Mugello last year. It went like this: Man in high-viz waiving at me in pit lane re-entry. I stopped. "Revs?" I do 7 grand. Other man stands behind me with db meter. He waives at his mate. "ok". Test done. The reality is, the local economy benefits from car and bike track days. Even the local hospital (yep, been in there) doesn't mind a few visitors in leathers.
Apart from the local hospitals AFAIK, the local economy benefits from CC and would do more -especially, hotels, pubs, and shops - but the locals are too stupid to understand this. They seem to wish for the much better old days when people would travel by horse & cart - as long as it applies to everybody else but not them, so that they can still go everywhere in their car, being really green by commuting 60 miles a day! I am never sure of the spelling of Yatton Keynell but I can spell Hypocrisy City!
