Many of you have been hearing about "Track Days" or also frequently called DE or HPDE (High-Performance Driving Experience) or PDX (Performance Driving Experience). So you ask what the heck is this? Only the most fun you can have with your car and friends! :-)
If you love cars and driving and have always been curious to push your car and develop skills in a way that you can't do safely or legally on the street, you can drive your car on a racetrack, as fast and hard as you feel comfortable. How cool would that be?
Here's the deal, there are organizations, hosts if you will, who offer these track days at tracks all over the USA and Canada. Locate a track near you, visit their website and look for who the DE/HPDE/PDX hosts are. Email or give them a call and tell them you want to join the fun and they will explain the process.
This is not door to door racing, it is not timed, it is not competitive. "Classes" are based and ascended (or not...lol) purely upon your skill level and respect for your fellow drivers on the track. It is 100% pure fun and camaraderie with new friends who share your passion for driving. If later down the line you wish to go racing- either Time Trials or door-to-door, you can certainly explore what is involved with those both from a financial and equipment perspective.
"Tracking" is as much a social thing as it is a driving thing.
My friend David Ray runs Hooked On Driving and made a series of videos a few years ago which can be found here:
https://www.youtube.com/user/Hookedo...?feature=watch. It just so happens these are filmed at two of my favorite tracks which are Thunderhill Raceway in Willows CA and my home track Reno-Fernley Raceway (best track in the US! lol). Scroll through the "Recent Uploads" and view all of them if you can to really get the flavor of what "Tracking" is all about.
Here's a great intro video:
I am a credentialed driving instructor with SCCA locally for the TT/CT/PDX events we have and over the years have also run my own cars in the Club Trails/Time Trials. It is tremendously fun and rewarding to help others gain tracking skills and see the exhausted smiles at the end of the day.
You can run pretty much any car in a DE event as long as it passes a Safety/Tech Inspection. Once you build up your skills and speed, you will discover why the Z/28 has many of the features that it has, enabling it to run hour after hour without brake fade or overheating. You will also discover first hand why it's not cams and headers that make you fast, it is brakes and suspension :-)
There are a handful of posters here who participate in DE and I hope you guys will chime in with your experiences and comments. If anyone would like to ask questions about track days, have at it and I'll be glad to answer if I can.
See you on track in 2014!