I increasingly subscribe to EU TD operators. Their event management is far more professional, they do proper rider briefings without all the piss taking, they provide live timing on your phone app, change groups every day, they have no hesitation to discipline riders, only allow proper instructors and even organise chrono races. As a result, rider conduct is far better and issues are addressed quickly and succinctly. There are crashes, red flags and hospital visits, but I feel confident any issues will be resolved satisfactorily.
It's not the threat of legal action for me, we got to 2 euro trackdays a year because its better value, usually better weather. And normally less d%ckheads on £200 scrappers pretending they can ride.
Hmmmm, I'm sorry if I'm going to sound like an old man here... but perhaps another factor as to why the trackday sector is developing a 'claim culture' is the rise in cost of the motorcycles used on trackdays. I'm old enough to remember when you went down to your local track, most of the bikes used were pre-crashed japanese sportsbikes only worth a couple grand. Now loads of guys on trackdays are using VERY expensive, exotic machinery which costs HUGE money to put right if its crashed, regardless to who is at fault. With such big sums involved, some will seek compensation. Another factor, is that some modern sportsbikes are putting out 200+ bhp... which is damn serious! I've had conversations with medics saying injuries from trackdays are becoming more serious... I did some racing years ago, and I'm absolutely mad keen to do some trackdays again, but when I go out on track I appreciate that shit can happen, and I won’t be riding a £40,000 superbike. I'll be on something that if its crashed, that I can afford to repair it.
Aging population and not the young feeding in may also be a thing. You rarely see the hordes of wasps on 125’s these days that there were when I was in late teens/early 20’s.
I did a road bike trackday on Monday at Donington and it was the safest trackday I’ve ever done from a passing/respect perspective and number of crashes. Many years ago I raced and track days after that have typically been full of Valentino wanna be’s chasing lap times, which is ridiculous on a trackday, go racing if you want to test yourself. DUK trackday were some of the worst with the racers running riot on the one make series bikes. I was surprised by the lack of Marshall’s and staff around the track though but i suppose riding is monitored by the circuit cameras?
A bit of a miserable assessment. I’ve done heaps of track days over the years. Yes, you get the odd dick head but by and large they’re few and far between. I always find the camaraderie in the paddock cheerful and friendly. I’ve done road bike only track days too. Didn’t find the riding any different apart from warming the tyres over 2-3 laps. Which was fine…
Interesting read for me. Last track riding I've done was still on the soil of Czechia, where I come from. Got to be 12 or so years ago by now. Few of them were on "Sosnova" track, which is very slow and technical. The way we went about this, it was a group of bikers from a forum, who rented the whole track for themselves for 2 hours. Most people were genuine kind people who were there to learn and have fun. Very respectful events. We rotated 15 minute sessions, and after an hour, we swapped the race direction, to make it somewhat fresh. I have a loads of fond memories, and it improved my riding immensly. One was in "Most" which would be closer to your typical track to race on. That was part of Ducati day event. Here my little moster S2R 800 was lacking quite a bit in the speed department. The smaller track was sure much better for the bike. Now, living in UK, keen to get on the track once again, I'm unsure how to do about it. Outside of getting the leathers (which I didn't need in Czechia somehow...), I don't know which track would be a "good one" where my V4 Multi wouldn't be too slow, where there wouldn't be a ton of trafic to worry about, now the whole insurance job as well - I haven't seen anywhere any question of "are you going on a track" when buying insurance, so unsure if I am covered. If not - is it something you can buy for a weekend? Just in case I send it to the gravel (even at my own fault) I would get money back to fix my bike? I love my Multi, and it was a stretch to obtain one. Certainly can't just got for my pocket change and use that on repairs - not that wealthy I'm afraid. So any info for the UK noob track rider I am, would be welcomed.
Try one local to you. Less travel. Less hassle. There are things you must have related to riding kit. Most companies web sites give you a list. I’d go MSV tbh as they tend to be less racer focussed. Or as suggested above do a road bike only track day
Cau! Don't make the mistake I did... I did one trackday at Donnington in 2005 then moved... to Czech Rep... for 13 years. In that time I never rode a bike, despite living only 5km from Brno's magnificent circuit. When I finally came back to England, I got another bike and started doing trackdays. I regret all that time I could have spent riding around the Brno and Most tracks. Now if I want to do that it's going to cost many $$$. Sure you can take the Multi on track, but I personally would rather buy a cheap bike that you could sell later if you decide you don't like it. There is a glut of used bikes around at the moment, at good prices. (@cookster has a gsxr 600 trackbike for sale that's not much money, for example).
Wow! So you lived 5,000 metres from Brno circuit and never used it? Unbelievable! It’s probably my favourite track…
Are trackdays in decline? Last year, NL had a bad early season and even went to the extent of asking people on Facebook why. The replies were interesting - mainly financial (esp tyres) and poor riding. An ask for more weekend days was also common. A lot of the soft demand was caused by crap UK weather - don't expect to fill a TD in the UK in February!. I think it picked up later in the year, but has not come back to the post-Covid levels that we saw. I was at Donington noisy day 2 weeks ago and it was full - as you would expect at the end of June. The briefing did have piss taking, but I felt it was ok and put people at their ease and covered all the key points. The standard of riding was not great, with lots of needless crashes. Also it seemed as though some fast group level riders ended up in the novice group - probably because they couldn't book onto the fast group as it was full. Generally a lot of testosterone as it was still early in the season (relatively because of the UK weather). So yes, a Euro day will typically group riders based on ability (after the first day) and that's much harder to achieve on a single day event. On Silverstone days (remember them?) at least you had to answer some questions about your riding experience and then they allocated the groups accordingly: I only experienced bad riding on a couple of days at Silverstone (out of 12 or so). Re the bike scrutineering, I think it should be done at the beginning of the day and after lunch as a minimum. It will add to the cost and admin, but it might influence people's attitude towards taking responsibility for their actions and their bike preparation. Sending someone home because their bike has a weeping forks seal (for example) is going to be a tough conversation however. Litigation-wise - it's bound to increase and as it becomes embedded, we will need to have liability insurance that will massively increase costs and further reduce numbers. My number one objective on any 2 wheeled activity is not to crash (although I did recently, completely my fault and thankfully, nobody else was involved), but reading some of the online posts, there are many that accept it as part of a trackday experience and appear to do it regularly: I would like to avoid riding with these people, although I'm sure that many of them are brilliant riders. So the TDOs could do more towards questioning riders when they book about their ability (of course, people can lie) as it might make people think a bit more. They could also scrutineer - either formally or informally - and do more to monitor and deal with irresponsible riding. It's never going to be totally safe - one of the reasons why we do it, after all, but there are definitely improvements that could be made and reduce the need for litigation and the increase of the blame culture.
Local racing clubs, like North Gloucester (NG), have trained, technical marshals who carry out scrutineering, as does the Racesafe Marshal’s Association. Pretty sure all are volunteers, living through out the UK and if approached, I’m sure (for expenses ) many would make themselves available to TDO’s to carry out basic scrutineering. It could be carried out before/after mandatory noise testing, like they used to do at Brands Hatch back in the day. Andy
