CHIN Track Days

Mark Hicks - Chief Operating Officer and Director for CHIN Track Days

We are a leading provider of non-competition track events for sports car enthusiasts. When you acquired a sports car, did you notice that advanced driving skills were not included? We provide advanced driver coaching for you to acquire those skills. With Chin Track Days, enthusiasts can enjoy their cars and receive driver education at some of the legendary road courses in the USA. Venues like Sebring, Road Atlanta, Watkins Glen, Mid-Ohio, VIR, COTA and more.

Contact: Mark Hicks at mark@chintrackdays.com | 855-799-2446 | Visit Online!

       

• Who/When/Where is CHIN?

• How do you learn more, and register for CHIN events?

• What is the CHIN HPDE program like? What expectations should a new student have coming into the classroom for the first time? How many students on track? What’s the student:instructor ratio? 

• Coaching with CHIN, and how to become a coach.
  

• Track-Day Prep and unique policies of a CHIN Track Event

• Does CHIN recommend that a student get Track Insurance before coming to an event?

and much, much more!

Crew Chief Brad: [00:00:00] BreakFix podcast is all about capturing the living history of people from all over the autosphere, from wrench turners and racers to artists, authors, designers, and everything in between. Our goal is to inspire a new generation of petrolheads that wonder. How did they get that job or become that person?

The road to success is paved by all of us because everyone has a story.

Crew Chief Eric: Hey everyone, crew chief, Eric here. And on this episode, we are honored to have Mark Hicks, the chief operating officer and director of chin track days with us on the show in our continuing effort to spread motor sports enthusiasm. We want to explore the chin origin story. A history that goes back 21 years in the making.

Though many GTM members have been fortunate to participate and coach in several Chin events over the last five years, including places like Pit Race, Mid Ohio, Barber, Road Atlanta, Motorsports [00:01:00] Ranch, Indianapolis, and more, many might not know what Chin is all about. But we hope to remedy that in short order.

And with that, let’s welcome Mark to Break Fix.

Mark Hicks: Well, hello there, you guys. It’s definitely a pleasure for me to join you online, and I definitely appreciate the invitation. to, uh, be a part of your program and say hello to your audience. So, thanks for letting

Crew Chief Eric: me join in. Absolutely, Mark. So, let’s get into it.

How about we start off by you telling us about Chin, the who, the when, the where, and explain the brand name.

Mark Hicks: You know, great topic, of course, that has come up before, right? If you’ve been to Chin Track Days uh, events over the years, you’ve seen, uh, me often. And then Maria, who is also my better half, and with me, uh, one of the founders of Chin Track Days.

But, what is the deal with Chin? So, there’s a man named Chin, [00:02:00] and he’s my partner. And he is the original founder, the guy behind the very first ever, then, Chin Motorsports event, which, uh, took place at Sebring. In 1999, Dr. Chen, he was an enthusiast and a sports car owner and he, along with a number of other drivers who were signed up to participate in the same event, all arrived the day of the event, lined up at the gate, and guess what?

The gates never opened. And Dr. Chen went to the front of the line and talked to the track official and was like, hey, what’s up? We’re supposed to have a track event. And he said, yeah, those guys, they never paid their track rental fees. Unfortunately, this little cottage industry of track days has a number of stories like that of operators that had good intentions, perhaps, and intended to carry on a track event.

Well, it didn’t bear fruit. This was one of those days and Dr. Chen turned back to the track official and he said, well, what’s it going [00:03:00] to take to pay those fees and get these gates open? He quickly pulled the others there, and a hat was passed, a kitty was raised, the fee was paid, and the gates opened at Sebring on that day, and the first Chin Motorsports event took place.

Dr. Chin standing there, making these arrangements on the fly. I think if you rewind, uh, in time, if you’ve been a track enthusiast, uh, anybody out there for some time, you might recognize that 20 plus years ago, the setting of doing track events is somewhat different than it might be today. So the track was receptive to getting somebody to pay the track rental and opening the gates and letting them walk right in under those conditions, but of course they needed The name.

They said, okay, great. Entity renting the track. And he went, uh, well, uh, Chin Motorsports. That is the name that we [00:04:00] carried for a very long, long, long time and built. But come along in 2016, we began to have the awareness that kind of across the space that we were in. Chin Motorsports ended up being kind of ambiguous, okay?

That’s a tag that, you know, did we service cars? Are we a racing team? Are we a used car lot? What do we do? So we rebranded from Chin Motorsports to Chin Track Days, which of course gives a quite a bit more specific indication of what we’re doing, but that was the beginning of Chin Motorsports. And there’s one more principal, a man named Vincent Howard.

He is our CFO and the guy who, uh, Pays our bills, pays our staff, and manages all the, uh, financial activity. Vincent is the third principal of Chin Track Days. Our small startup gained momentum and do more [00:05:00] track events and have more drivers participate with us eventually. Reached a scale to where Dr. Chen, who has a large and, uh, successful medical practice in Orlando, it reached the point where he was running out of bandwidth to keep up with all the demands of Chen Motorsports.

And at the time, uh, I was in restaurants. That’s what I did before motorsports, thank goodness. I, uh, was able to leave a 20 year career in food and beverage and hotel and restaurant hospitality, which in Chen Asked me to take over Chen Motorsports and run the operations full time, manage all of our track events.

And that was all the way back in 2004. And I have been the director of and, and kind of at the top of the pyramid of Chen Motorsports ever since then. My wife Maria, pivotal role, a highly accomplished driver and instructor [00:06:00] and began to grow our calendar. Beyond the boundaries that just a team of two could manage to where we had the necessity for additional staff and that, of course, also led us to be able to actually expand our capacity, adding more events and all of that, beginning about 2014 15.

The past five plus years have been really expansive for chin track days. And today, 2020, what an, what an odd year, obviously, like everybody out there who was, uh, running track events or trying to go to track events, or even if you manage a racetrack, we all had a bunch of cancellations. In the spring, March, April, May, so we lost some events then, but the full calendar, uh, we began the year with 60 event dates on the 2020 schedule at 17 different venues, most of which are the greatest hits list of [00:07:00] road course racetracks in the eastern U.

S. We, we reach as far west as Circuit of the Americas in Austin. Anybody out there that’s, uh, paid attention to Chin, you probably Uh, are aware already. We’re not in California. We don’t do anything west of Texas, but in the eastern U. S., we’ve got almost every track that really has, uh, great meaning to enthusiasts.

You will find it on the Chin Track Day schedule. Sixty calendar dates this year, about a hundred and fifteen days on track. And by the time We finished 2020. Well, COVID cancellations included, we’ll see about 7, 500 driver entries in 2020. That’s where we are today. And from the very first event at Sebring, that was about 60 drivers.

And when I took over, Full time operations management in 2004, we [00:08:00] had five track events scheduled at three locations, and we had about 600 total driver entries in 2004, and this year that number will be, it would be about 9, 000. Without COVID cancellation loss, you know, so if you just try and compare apples to apples, that’s, uh, that’s where we’ve come over the last 20 years.

The short story is, there is a man named Chen, and he is my partner, and he’s still around, often seen with us at Sebring, he doesn’t travel as much as he once did. But since he’s Orlando based, he’s certainly very fond of going to our Sebring events, which are very frequent. Uh, we’re the number one provider of track events at Sebring.

We were just at Sebring last weekend. Our next Sebring date is only three weeks away. So it’s, uh, Sebring is kind of home track, the home field for Weishen Chen showing [00:09:00] up at Sebring pretty regularly. A big, uh, bucket full of background, but You know, there is a man named Chin, and I sure am glad, uh, that he had the initiative on, uh, that original day standing at the closed gate at Sebring

Crew Chief Eric: to get this track event done.

You’re a big personality at Chin, not just in the fact that you’re, you’re the director, but you’re at a lot of the events and most people see you, well, they hear you first over the microphone and over the PA, but then you have your signature fedora, right? Which is, it’s also part of your email signature, et cetera.

But I think just to get to know you, Mark, the car enthusiast, a little bit better. We’ve recently done some episodes where we ask people about this mythical garage. mythical island. You know, if they could have any three cars on that island, what would it be? So Mark, what would your three cars be? Oh, wow.

Well,

Mark Hicks: I appreciate that. By the way, Eric, the, uh, my wide brim hat quite [00:10:00] familiar. It’s in the trailer, right? It stays in the trailer prepared to go to the track. I would share it with your audience, but it’s not in my hands right now. I tell you what, I think the Mazda Miata is one of the all time, great sports cars.

It’s on my list. It’s just pound for pound what Mazda did to create accessibility. At the time the Miata got introduced, right? Uh, early 90s. Drive a quote sports car. You needed to have a bunch of money Mazda Pushed down that wall with the introduction of the miata and made owning a sports car Accessible to an everyday enthusiast, but it’s not just the price the balance of that car the proportions of that car How the cockpit works.

I love Miatas. But the other side of that is, uh, it’s actually also a little side note of the chin origin story. All of the chin principles, uh, mentioned Dr. Weishen Chin, [00:11:00] myself and my wife, and my third partner, Vincent Howard. Every one of us owns an NSX. And We have a vintage NSX, each of us, and collectively, we own a brand new NSX, an NC1, the supercar.

You also recall, uh, earlier in our conversation, I mentioned a previous life, I’ll say, in hotel and restaurant hospitality, food and beverage, was successful enough in that career that I bought an NSX, while I was a restaurant owner. That introduced me to Wei Shin Chin, because he was an NSX owner, pretty small community.

We did a track event together. At the time, I still owned restaurants. Today, I have the, the, the gratifying privilege to lead one of the largest track day operators in the U. S. And it’s because I bought an NSX. So an NSX makes my list, not the new one, because The vintage original NSX, [00:12:00] I can strip down, disassemble, and reassemble pretty much like a blindfold, like a well trained Marine with an AR.

That’s how I feel about the vintage original NSX. And then, you know, what did you say? Three? Three. You got two. What’s your third? I have a forever lifetime soft spot. For the special lines of, uh, a late sixties 67 or 68 Ferrari 3 6 5 Daytona spider with the roof down and Barron wire wheels with a three and a half liter V 12 and six Webers a nightmare to keep running.

But for me personally, right, everybody’s got their own subjective scale of what is one of the most beautiful cars ever for me.

Crew Chief Eric: Daytona spider. Is it by chance in black and are you living out of miami vice fantasy? I just want to It would be [00:13:00] red with camel seats, of course

Mark Hicks: Very

Crew Chief Eric: good, very good

Mark Hicks: so And and if I was alone in a desert island, and those are my three cars The ferrari would stay parked and I would drive the ns6 and the miata There you go.

The desert island has

Crew Chief Eric: an unlimited supply of fuel doesn’t it? 100 percent. Absolutely And coconuts apparently So there’s a lot to unpack there, Mark. So let me ask another question, and please don’t take offense. You may have not heard this phrase before with reference to Chin, but you guys are often referred to as the traveling circus.

It has a lot to do with your schedule and has a lot to do with how Chin moves around the country. So can you explain how that works? And what I’m alluding to here is that you guys are not a franchise. So it makes you very unique in the fact that Chin moves from location to location when you talk about 60 different venues in a year.

That’s a lot. So do you want to elaborate on that a little [00:14:00] bit?

Mark Hicks: Uh, you know, great question. I appreciate the perception that you have there to, to see what it is that we do in that way. Uh, we, we certainly We refer almost internally ourselves. We call it a bit of a circus as well. You know, there’s a couple of keys there.

First of all, I got a seriously highly committed, very capable staff, you know, that I can never give enough credit to. They are fantastic. Our event management team are all autonomous. They have the same kind of commitment. To superior track events and a heart in the whole hobby because they are in their core sports car enthusiasts themselves.

They didn’t just sign up to earn a paycheck by working for chin. They signed up because they love doing track events. And it turned out that they thought it was miraculous that they could also get paid to do that. So [00:15:00] the staff is what makes it possible. First thing, and then. I’ll tell you, one of our master keys, here in my glamorous setting, you see exposed to duct work, what have you, I’m in my man cave, the basement, at what we call Global Headquarters, which is eight miles from the driveway of Road Atlanta.

So, Road Atlanta features heavily in our schedule. I call Sebring our home turf, it was the original Chin Track Days event. And Sebring is on the Chin Calendar 14 times a year. That’s how much we love Sebring. But Road Atlanta is second only to Sebring where it wrote Atlanta nine times a year. When we do road Atlanta dates, nobody travels.

It’s hardly far enough away to warm up my twin turbo diesel under the hood of my Ford F 450. That’s how far it is to road Atlanta for me. I can literally, [00:16:00] when I’m here at home, I can hear the wonderful noise. From rhode atlanta. I am not a complaining neighbor. Let me assure you So that’s part of our secret there because a rhode atlanta date, which is when you when you suck it out of our calendar It’s 15 percent of all of our dates occur at Road Atlanta.

I think enthusiasts all know by now, if you go to the track on a regular basis, there’s a, there’s quite a few hard things that we all have to tackle to make a track event a success, whether we’re the provider or you’re the participating enthusiast, there’s a bunch of work that has to get done for you to get.

to and participate successfully in the track event. And one of the hardships that we all face is the travel. We’re all attracted and we find it compelling enough that, hell yes, we’ll drive four or five hundred miles, three, four states away to go to Whatever fantastic racetrack is on the menu for the weekend, but now you’ve [00:17:00] given up friday and monday You know, that’s a time away from work or family and the travel requires that commitment And it’s possible but i’ll deny it if you if any authorities ask me that Untagged track only vehicles have been driven from my shop On the street, that’s hypothetical.

It’s that we’re close enough that that could be done if you had to In the dark at dawn. That’s

Crew Chief Eric: possible. So with that being said, I mean, let’s take away. All right. 30 or 40 percent of the year being, you know, Sebring in Rhode Island. That’s still a lot of events. I mean, when it’s not a covert year, the chin track schedule is pretty much year round from the way I’ve looked at it, which is, which is amazing.

And, and, and to your point about traveling, um, You know, we’ve gone upwards of 850 miles to go to a chin event in the past, you know, traveling to Barber and other locations. So it’s not a hop, skip and a jump for those of us here in the D. C. area. But still, as we talk more about getting more familiar, the [00:18:00] guys that know how to get into a chin event, they know where to go and they know what to do and they know the process.

But explain to the newbie, you know, how do I find a chin event? Am I going to Motorsports Reg? Is my buddy signing up for me? How is that process done and what does it entail to get signed up for a chin event?

Mark Hicks: You know, appreciate you asking that, really. Because, uh, I’d love to try and give some clarity that Chin Track Days always, uh, has our own stand alone website.

Um, Motorsports Reg is a great product and a very useful tool for enthusiasts nationwide. And we post calendar listings on Motorsports Reg if you want to see. What is the date of the next, the next chin event? You can certainly find us listed there, but it will say, please visit our website, chin track days.

com for driver registration, sign up, et cetera. But, uh, chin motorsports. com as a website and a registration predated motorsports reg by a, by a solid five [00:19:00] years. And today we maintain our own and update regularly our standalone website, which has. Really, it’s a comprehensive internet destination for track enthusiasts.

Of course, you can find the full chin schedule and driver registration, etc. You know, to get into an upcoming chin event. But you’ll also find a comprehensive description. Uh, driver skill benchmarks, our run group format, uh, tons of pages on just great, uh, tips for any enthusiasts, how to prep your car, what to do to, you know, prepare to spend the weekend away from home to go to the track, uh, a guide for new enthusiasts, comprehensive guides to all the tracks that we visit, et cetera, all of that can be found on ChinTrackDays.

com and that is all original content. Where, uh, we collaborate either in house with our own team or talk to experts who are

Crew Chief Eric: part of the CHIN program. [00:20:00] And one of the things I don’t think people realize, and we joke about this when we’re trying to get people really engaged to come out for the first time, it’s always register early and register often.

And one of the things that is unique about CHIN’s registration process is you guys only open registration, I believe, and you can correct me if I’m wrong, it’s about two weeks before the event. Is actually set to go off and you got to get in line early because those tickets sell out quick. I mean, they are super popular events.

So I can’t reiterate enough register early and register often, but pay attention and set reminders because I’ve been on some of those events were within 20 minutes. It’s almost sold out. That’s fair to say. I will.

Mark Hicks: I will address that. The lead time is is longer, but we do that. Yeah. Very specifically on a predictable scheduled cycle, and that is once a week on Monday evenings 9 p.

m. Eastern, whatever is eight weeks downstream on the calendar will go [00:21:00] online. And so, for example, right now you can visit our website and see dates running through September and into October. It’s all online. You can register for October events, and we always limit Novice driver registration for the entry level drivers.

Of course, we do one on one student and instructor pairings. You want to limit the number of drivers there so you can hopefully ensure a very high quality driver experience, but you also rely on your instructor population, of course, to do the one to one student and instructor pairings. So we have to limit our novice enrollment.

We opened that VIR registration this past Monday night. With 15 available novice driver entries, at 9. 07, we were sold out. And today, now three days into registration, we have over 80 entries on the VIR date, which will have a cap of about [00:22:00] 110 entries. So it’s 65 plus percent already sold three days into registration.

And of course, if we continue on that pace, The October date at VIR, now eight weeks into the future, will be fully sold out by next week, seven weeks in advance. It’s very fortunate that there is that demand out there. I definitely give a hat to to the enthusiast population who were all very frustrated by the COVID closure in the spring months.

And since the tracks reopened and we got into the controlled mitigated space, you can’t say fully safe, you know, COVID. is out there, it’s a problem, but the track operators were able to be persuasive with the public health authorities and their local governments to the extent that they began to recognize, okay, we’re in an outdoor space, you can spread out across a 10 or 15 acre [00:23:00] paddock, we’re not doing group gatherings, and so, The COVID restrictions got lifted on the racetracks.

As long as we weren’t doing large scale spectator events, of course, that’s still not happening. But, you know, you can get 100, 150 sports car enthusiasts into a paddock and spread them out widely. And, you know, we’ve taken certain other steps. Gotta cover your face. Bottom line there is, we got into this set of conditions that enthusiasts felt like the risk was controlled in a reasonable way to the extent that they felt like they could go to the track and enjoy laps without being at risk of becoming ill with COVID.

And the enthusiasts came back strongly from end of May, June, July, our summer schedule. We’ve seen very solid support. And heading into fall, we’re just talking about the strong demand primarily for that VIR day. That’s one of our peak flagship events. But, you know, we’re also at Searing Watkins Glen. Uh, Road Atlanta, Circuit of [00:24:00] the Americas are all on our fall schedule as well, and enthusiasts have really embraced that, and I’m really optimistic and very grateful for the very strong response we continue to see.

But you’re right, for the most popular flagship dates, we will see registration. Demand that creates really rapid sellouts when we start taking entries on Monday nights at 9 p. m But I’d love to say that we can sell out each and every single event that doesn’t happen not by any means, you know We could say like a popular restaurant your flagship dates.

You’re filling up friday saturday nights every table occupied I want to wait to get a table. We’re still doing dinner monday through thursday. So certainly Want enthusiasts to uh, be optimistic That uh, you don’t always have to nail it at 9 p. m Monday night now you do if you’re a novice driver. I will admit if you’re new to the track hobby.[00:25:00]

I cannot overemphasize The necessity to be online night, nine p. m. Right wh to ensure that you can ge limited novice entries, m row seats for the rolling like

Crew Chief Eric: that. And it reminds of, you know, getting tha auction on ebay, like you top of your game or it wa But since we’re talking a

Chin’s HPD program. And I do want to differentiate and I’m not trying to call out any other, you know, competitors or any other people that are in the market space, but Chin is in the column of HPD only unless, you know, you guys have developed a racing program that we didn’t know about, unlike some other organizations that do DE to supplement their racing programs and things like that.

So you’re very fortunate to be very focused. on education, which is important to us here at GTM. So what we want to talk about is what expectations should a new student have [00:26:00] coming into the classroom at Chin for the first time, you’ve already mentioned how many students on track and the instructor ratio and things like that.

But let’s talk a little bit about the education program that you guys have put together and anything that’s unique about that. Thanks, Eric, for asking,

Mark Hicks: man, you have done your homework and I appreciate that. You are absolutely right. No, I don’t have. A super special secret hidden competition program. Uh, there is no club racing at chin and that enables us to say chin track days.

There is no competition. Think about that. But our emphasis for sure is the track day driver. We’ve recognized a long time ago that there are more hobby enthusiasts with high performance street cars. That want to make laps then there are race car drivers now We’ve got a place for race car drivers if you’ve ever been to a chin of it You have seen some fully prepared competition cars doing testing and practice But the the racers like that [00:27:00] because they don’t have to worry About you know serious tech scrutiny or running Untried stuff that may not be in rules compliance with their class that kind of thing.

They can do whatever they want At a chin event as long as their car is safe and the driver is following the chin format So we’ll see plenty of competition cars, but over and over and over Uh, there’s far more high performance street cars, and that’s where we see the heart of our market, for sure. Club racing has great merit, and I have nothing but kudos to those who are committed to competition.

Uh, it’s definitely a different path, uh, than what we’re doing, but we know that there are a lot of enthusiasts out there. Corvettes, Camaros, Mustangs, Porsches, Acuras, Ferraris, you name it, BMWs of course, and any other brand you can think of that can be associated with performance, they all end up showing up at Chin Track Day’s [00:28:00] events.

And there are more cars in this category in the hands of enthusiasts than there are race cars out there. It has very fortunately been validated by our own business model over all these many years that in fact the people who own these cars are interested in coming out and making laps and getting advanced driver coaching and we certainly have been putting an emphasis on the DE.

In, uh, HPDE for a very long time, we’ve got a staff of veteran instructors. It’s often said that an instructor will get qualified with Chin Track Days last. There are new instructors with Chin Track Days. That is, they’re new to Chin Track Days, but they are not new instructors. Instructors to be eligible to get on the Chin Track Days instructor team You must already have preexisting instructor [00:29:00] experience, so you won’t see any new brand new instructors in our program.

Crew Chief Eric: For all the aspiring coaches out there or the coaches that, you know, have put your time in the trenches and you’re looking forward to coaching with Chin after hearing this whole conversation, please note it is a little bit skull and bones where you’re expecting that secret invitation to be slid under your door because I don’t think you just walk up to Mark and say, Hey, I want to coach with Chin.

You have to be invited in. To the kind of inner coven there. And again, it’s on a track by track basis. And I’m not trying to poke fun, but that’s the experience that I went through where it was like, knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, knock. Hey, we need you for NJMP. And then once you were in, you were in, and then you had to qualify for tracks independently, et cetera.

And again, it’s been a rewarding experience. So I just want to highlight that before you get a bum rush of people going, Hey, when can I coach for chin?

Mark Hicks: You know, that You know, that is awesome, Eric, but I’ll certainly add that we welcome instructor [00:30:00] applications from well seasoned instructors all the time and in fact On the home page of our website, you know, the the things that are prominent is the track schedule upcoming events, etc But scroll down the page drivers, you will see instructor criteria and instructor eligibility fortune track days and if you are A seasoned instructor and you have completed a known instructor school.

One of the, there’s a number of really well established structured instructor training programs. If you’ve been through one of those, um, a NASA, a PCA, a BMW club, but then of course, kind of the master key. Motorsports Safety Foundation MSF level 2 status. That is almost going to be automatic entry into Chin Track Day’s instructor status track specific.

You are correct, Eric, that we want a driver [00:31:00] to have Known experience on a lap before they show up to coach that lap, but we do recognize existing established instructor qualifications from other well known track day providers that have structured instructor training. But yes, it is also true that once you are accepted to instructor eligibility, which in track days, that driver is then eligible to instruct at any track where they have prior existing experience.

And so we welcome that. That’s right. I’m ready to instructed Barbara next time. We’re good. That is fantastic. Out of our entire, um, kind of the population of enthusiasts that follow Chin Track Days, and today if you join as a new member today in, uh, August of 2020, You’ll have a member number in the range of like 24, 000 and something.

So over the years, we’ve given instructor eligibility to over 2, [00:32:00] 400 different, highly experienced drivers across the country that, uh, support chin track days and always hats off. To the instructors who are at the heart of the track day hobby. Thank you very much. Whether you instruct for chin or not, if you are a qualified instructor and you regularly give your time to the track hobby to show up and share your experience with a less experienced driver, I thank you personally.

Crew Chief Eric: Well, thank you, Mark, for saying that. I appreciate that. Uh, having, having instructed now for, okay, I’ve lost track of the years, but, but thank you. And I’ll say that on behalf of everybody that’s listening as well. And all the folks in GTM that have coached for Chin and coach for other organizations. But let’s step back to the training for a second.

I think there’s a couple of things that are very unique to Chin that I want to, I want you to kind of unpack for the listeners. That being the way you guys do your orientation laps. I think the way you split up your novice and your solo novice, and in addition to that I think the flag test would be something interesting to [00:33:00] talk about.

I think our listeners would also be interested to hear about your tech process because that’s really important to a lot of the newbies as well.

Mark Hicks: Sure thing, thanks Eric. So, so basically if you are the novice driver, you’re an entry level driver, you love your high performance street car, and you want to learn how to drive it well because of course making laps is not a natural skill.

Many folks who own high performance cars aren’t fully acquainted with that, but there’s a great difference between being qualified to buy an expensive high performance car and being qualified to make laps in it. Everybody out there who’s an enthusiast has heard stories about brand new owners of brand new sports cars who left the dealer and never made it home, crashed the car.

Because they’re intoxicated with, you know, 0 to 60, 3 second times, and 160 mile an hour top speeds. And you just, you know, you want to get sideways every [00:34:00] time you turn right. And you end up all in big trouble. Instead, we want you to come to the track, get acquainted with one of our veteran instructors, and get some very intensive, committed coaching on high performance driving techniques, vehicle preparation, vehicle dynamics, car control, track safety, and generally the conditioning of the fantastic hand eye foot coordination that an accomplished driver must acquire.

And we’ve got the staff, we’ve put the emphasis on that for a driver. who is participating with Chintrac Days, if they’re new to the hobby, they’re not going to have an option to sign up as a solo driver. We require an entry level driver to work with an instructor. You don’t get the opportunity to just go start randomly making laps and let’s see how it goes.

That doesn’t work out. We look at it like [00:35:00] any kind of advanced skill set. that you’ve got to get qualified for. Maybe you want to go scuba diving. You’ve got to take classes. You work with an instructor diver and eventually you become a certified scuba diver. You get a C card. Diving is one of those hobbies.

Aviation. You can’t just go down and rent an aircraft at the local airport and go take off and land and do some sightseeing tours. You have to get lessons. And now while we’re all qualified to drive a car, Right? You’re carrying a driver’s license? Well, there you go. That says, I’m qualified to drive a car.

That doesn’t make a driver qualified to make laps. And that’s part of our education philosophy, to help folks understand that you don’t yet know what you don’t know about what it takes to make laps safely. And we want to introduce you to that, to where you get a breakthrough and you go, Oh, now I see what’s happening.

And now I want to work [00:36:00] with my instructor for longer and more because then you end up You spend less time having to learn the lap and more time going faster. The instructor is kind of a fast forward cheat to becoming a great driver. If y’all have been to the track on many occasions, you perhaps have heard someone say, you know, I really need to be solo.

I can get, if I get the instructor, you know, 200 plus pounds out of my right seat, I’m going to go faster. That is not A correct

Crew Chief Eric: assumption. It only applies on a Miata because they’re weight sensitive, but otherwise

Mark Hicks: that may be fair to say, but you certainly better know what to do with your Miata to get that right, to corner that car at 101 percent and use it from track edge to track edge and not leaving any unused pavement.

That’s how you run a Miata. I’m a big Miata fan. The chin track days. fleet includes [00:37:00] two

Crew Chief Eric: Miatas.

Mark Hicks: So

Crew Chief Eric: one of the great sports cars of all time, without a doubt. So going back to going back to something you said and from personal experience, I want to kind of shore up what you said there. So, I mean, I’ve had the pleasure of coaching for Chin at several different locations and I thought the process was really interesting and I I struggled with it kind of internally for a while because it is so disciplined in a way, but I came to appreciate it the more time I spent with Chin and the fact that there’s still a trust but verify within Chin that I found refreshing and important because no, we’re not just going to let you on track.

in the highest run group because you said so and you showed up with a car with a bunch of stickers on it. But the same was true of coaching. Had you not been to that track before, you couldn’t coach at that track until you got signed off. So there was still a vetting process even there, which I thought was really cool.

And again, I’ve been very fortunate to coach with Chin in the past, so it’s been a very rewarding experience overall.

Mark Hicks: Eric, that’s awesome. I, uh, [00:38:00] I so appreciate you, uh, taking a moment to make that comment there. And what, what that all goes back to is, if I can add to that, is our kind of safety culture. We have this really high commitment to mitigate risk.

Okay, your driver, whoever you are out there, novice up to 20 year veteran, you’ve made a choice to motorsports event. This is inherently risky. However, if you’ve got eyes wide open, And you’re paying careful attention to your environment. You can identify the risk. You can recognize them out here in front of you, and you can take deliberate steps to recognize and then mitigate.

The risk and that kind of goes hand in hand with this, uh, the trust, but verify as you point out, and if we can eliminate the variables of those potential risks that perhaps are subject to [00:39:00] our influence, whether it’s the chin staff or other well seasoned instructors who are part Of the event where we can recognize and mitigate risk.

We want to do all that we can to take those variables out of the equation so that the driver one is going to increase their focus so they don’t have to give attention. To these other things that might be occurring that create, shall we say, background noise. We want to reduce that from the driver load.

But then also, if you can identify and take steps to control the things that you actually can control, then you leave space in what’s happening. For the unexpected to occur and this of course Is something that it goes hand in hand with motorsports That you can’t control all the variables and that random and unexpected things will occur And so what we’re our deliberate intention now is [00:40:00] to try and create surplus bandwidth for the driver or instructor or advanced driver, especially whoever you are out there where you’re making laps and you think things are going right and you are well within the capability of your car and yourself as a driver, but something now random occurs.

A car ahead blows a tire, drops fluid, a squirrel runs out from the edge. You never know. And now, you’re equipped to address or respond to these unexpected conditions and hopefully end up with a safe outcome or at least no injury, right? Incidents do happen. We’ve all heard before, perhaps if you’ve been in the hobby for a while, that you’re probably at greater risk driving to the racetrack on the streets than you are actually making laps, you know, so that’s what we’re trying to [00:41:00] do with this disciplined, very conditioned and structured approach to how our run groups are organized, how our instructors provide coaching for entry level drivers, and what are the, uh, shall we say ladder steps For a driver to move from solo status to intermediate solo to advanced solo to instructor.

You know, that whole ladder where one skill set layers on the other to create this whole well rounded background for a seasoned, uh, experienced enthusiast who’s been in the track hobby for a while. That you reach a place. where making laps at nine tenths becomes kind of a conditioned muscle memory and you may have a moment.

You know, to, to pause and consider, you know, what’s that noise or what have you while you’re on the limit and you [00:42:00] recognize other things that are happening that are outside of your driver envelope because you’ve gotten very well conditioned. And that’s part of the risk management that we want to condition for drivers that participate with us because the driver that is comfortable and shall we say relaxed in their, in their driving environment.

is going to perform better than a driver who is under stress and uptight and has too much happening around them, but they can’t keep up with it all. That driver ends up making mistakes. And of course, mistakes at the track can lead to, you know, unexpected, unfortunate consequences. Absolutely. We’re going to unpack a little bit more of that here in a minute.

You’ve hit one of my favorite highlights, the warmup session. Every single Chin Track Days Doesn’t matter the location or the time, we will begin with a half hour period of standing yellow flag full course caution. And it has a [00:43:00] whole wide influence over many things at the track event. A warm up in general sounds like a good idea, right?

If you’re a very experienced driver, maybe you don’t need the track orientation, but you do need to shake down your car. Maybe you’ve recently serviced it. Maybe you need to get the brakes hot. Maybe you need to scrub the stickers off your tires. But if you are a brand new entry level driver, you get out on the track with your instructor in the right seat under yellow flag.

Now you don’t have to worry about managing traffic. There is no passing. And so the instructor can give their attention to the driver about track orientation, turn in apex, track out, here’s the break point, here’s the blind spot, look at that tree on the horizon, without the novice driver having to worry about what’s in their mirror or managed traffic at all.

It brings down the stress level. If you’re an experienced enthusiast, everybody who’s been to track events, you know [00:44:00] that when you arrive Saturday morning. And dawn, semi darkness, and there’s always a rush. Yeah, you gotta unload or prep the car, or get your gear, or see the event management to get checked in, go to the driver’s meeting.

All of this is, happens on deadlines. You’re actually under stress in the opening hour before you’ve ever gotten in your car to make laps. We want this opening warm up session to be a calming period where the driver can get out of that stressful environment of rushing around in the paddock under deadlines, and now they got nothing but their car, the windshield, and the track in front of them.

Don’t forget yellow flag, no passing, notice the corner stations. So the warm up session has a lot of benefit in calming the field in giving a new driver orientation to the lap and allowing an experienced driver to

Crew Chief Eric: shake their car down. And that’s done at full [00:45:00] speed with full gear and basically I’ve always heard it’s as fast as the car in front of you can go.

So if you’re stuck behind a Miata Yeah,

Mark Hicks: but hey, it could be a 10 year veteran in a Miata stuck behind a new guy in a 992 Porsche, right? But indeed, there’s not a speed limit. You can go as fast as the car in front of you, and if the If the guy in front of you is a very seasoned driver and he doesn’t have anybody holding him up, he might be going a hundred plus miles an hour in the warmup session.

And you know what? That’s okay. Can’t overtake anybody, but it is true that you do start full gear. I want to point out that there are some programs that run a warmup period to begin their track event. And they’ll say, Oh, off pace, low speed, no helmet required. Let’s rewind a moment. And I was talking about risk mitigation, identifying risk factors.

If a [00:46:00] novice driver is getting in the car for the first time to make laps, and they’re going to do a warm up period and they don’t have their helmet on, now I can understand there’s some potential benefit in what the instructor has to say and, and what have you, but that then means that the first time that driver makes laps while wearing a helmet, Which can be a little disorienting if you’re, if it’s not a familiar thing to you, the first time that driver may make laps while wearing a helmet will be under full speed conditions.

We want that driver to already have a comfort level with what are these conditions with my belt? So the harness or, you know, the helmet, or maybe I’ve got a head and neck restraint or Hans device or hybrid or other backpack, they need to get oriented and comfortable with. The whole cockpit environment under less than [00:47:00] full speed conditions so that they’re ready for it.

When they get to full speed status. And so yes, indeed, that is why the helmet is required in the warm up session, not to mention the obvious safety benefit. If I were to tell you, yes, we have seen incidents in the warm up session. Would you be surprised?

Crew Chief Eric: No, not

Mark Hicks: at all.

Crew Chief Eric: Probably

Mark Hicks: not. It’s a racetrack. And yes, uh, the reality is we have seen off track incidents occur in the warmup period.

So of course your helmet is going to be required. So let’s go back

Crew Chief Eric: to progression because you talked about that a little bit in terms of, you know, the expectations of the classroom and things like that. And one of the pieces that I found is unique to CHIM is the flag test and it’s part of your progression model.

So you want to talk about that. Well, great. I sure will.

Mark Hicks: And by the way, anybody who watches the Break It Fix It podcast, you want to cheat? 17turns. com It’s the Chin Track Days flag test. [00:48:00] That’s the number one seven turns dot com. And for those of you who aren’t completely in the know that’s how many turns there are at Sebring.

This is part of the whole platform of driver conditioning that we do in terms of education and it literally ties back to the warm up session that we were just talking about because of course at that time every corner station is displaying a yellow flag stationary full course caution. Which gives every driver the opportunity to identify notice the location of the corner stations if you’re visiting An unfamiliar lap for the first time you need to know where those corner stations are We put a lot of emphasis on the corner stations and the flags And in the chin format as a driver gains experience And confidence raises and they build pace.

They’re going faster. Maybe they’re now ready to qualify into a next higher run group. We will give you the flag [00:49:00] test and you can practice that at 17turns. com. And yes, they’re all there and this is something that we think should be second nature to every driver. It is universal in motorsport and we have seen.

Some fairly fast drivers, drivers that appear to have that natural gift of speed that they were very good at managing the geometry of the track, using the whole track, working their vehicle, they’re going fast, they want to get to a higher run group, we give them the flag test, and we have a handout for that, a hard copy paper, you can look at that, read this, and then we ask you to take the flag test, and they fail miserably!

They haven’t had any flag conditioning or training previously. They’ve just used their natural skill to make good laps. But that will tell us if they failed the flag test. They’re probably not noticing the corner station doesn’t just mean [00:50:00] you don’t need know the difference between the blue or black or, or red or yellow, but it also can indicate that that driver is not giving appropriate ample attention to the corner station eyes up eyes out of the car, not off the end of your hood.

Looking down track to the next corner station, drivers, a general tip, not just a chin track day standard, but for everybody out there, every lap you make, if you get your eyes up and down the track and see the next corner station, your laps are going to improve. Rather or not, the corner station is showing a flag.

There may be no hazard whatsoever, but if you got your eyes that far down the track, your lapping will get better. Get your eyes up, look at the corner stations, know your flags, and we’ll give you the flag test at the next Gen Track Day event you attend to qualify you into the next higher run group. And then [00:51:00] for our most advanced category, for a very experienced driver who wants to get to kind of the tip of the track day pyramid, the Gen Track Day’s red group, you’ll take the flag test and we will further give you A corner worker test, and that is the blank track map for the track that we’re visiting at that time.

And we’ll give you the track map and ask you to take a pen and please mark the location all the way around the lap of every corner station that is in use. And that is a test of track awareness and of course, flag management and corner stations. And it’s a, it’s a safety step. And that is part of the Chin culture and part of our run group ladder.

If you will, that keeps some pretty clean run groups and it keeps the drivers honest. You can show up in, uh, a new $300,000 exotic and tell us you [00:52:00] should be in the fastest run group. Y’all know the video, right?

Crew Chief Eric: And there’s plenty of ’em. And,

Mark Hicks: and we’ll go, um, you know, show me your track history. You got a nice car there, but tell me about all the laps that you’ve made.

’cause we don’t qualify cars, we qualify drivers. And, uh, so, uh, you can have a day one driver in a brand new Ferrari and a day one driver in a ten year old Miata. In Chin Track days, they will both be in the same run group because each driver has the same skill level. We’re not measuring wallet thickness.

Crew Chief Eric: So with that being said, I know one of the things that’s a dreaded part of the whole process. It’s for veterans and newbies alike getting through tech. And so I, we try to offset some nerves by explaining the process to people because I think people get overly anxious about what’s involved. So and every group does tech differently.

Some require like [00:53:00] mark organizations require you to go to specialists and there’s other groups that don’t tech at all. And there’s every gamut in between. So can you elaborate a little bit on what Chin’s tech is like? Sure.

Mark Hicks: Yeah, thanks Eric. So you’re absolutely right about that in terms of this is one of the stress steps That enthusiasts must face as they get started in their track event one of the things you must do really in the arrival hour as soon as you get to the track is Pass tech and for drivers that may be new to the hobby indeed they might find that to be a fairly burdensome and on its surface appear to be Quite a complex task and you know, Oh, will I fail tech for this chip in my windshield at chin track days?

Honestly, one of the risk mitigation steps that we take is to put the burden of having a safe car and completing tech on [00:54:00] the driver. And what we mean by that is chin track days doesn’t want The responsibility to put a lug wrench on your wheels and torque your lugs or raise your hood and check your battery cables or check any of your fluid levels.

You know what? That’s really not a good practice for someone else. To tamper, so to speak, you’re not tampering deliberately, but to do things with someone else’s car, in many cases, if you’re a track enthusiast, that track car is your prized possession. We’re not gonna tamper with that. We’re gonna give you a comprehensive list and say, here are the requirements, follow these guidelines, check these boxes.

If you are an enthusiast who can change your own brakes, Jack your car up, take the wheels off, remove the calipers, swap the pads, put it all back together, have no leftover pieces, and bleed. You are qualified to tech your own car. That is fully legit. In fact, [00:55:00] many enthusiasts may say this is a fundamental thing that a track enthusiast ought to have mastered.

Go through the list, check all the boxes, sign off on, at the bottom, it very deliberately says, I take full responsibility for the mechanical condition of my car, and even if you have gone to the high end professional shop with multi levels of ASE certifications that are very familiar with doing track inspection and all of that, and a mechanic has completed the tech and signed off on it, guess what?

You still have to take responsibility for it. And there is a line on our tech sheet at the bottom that says I am the owner, operator, driver, et cetera. And I take full responsibility for this, the condition of this car. And on the one hand, it might appear that Chen is just trying to shrug the responsibility of doing a safe, [00:56:00] clean tech.

That is absolutely not the case. We are emphasizing to the owner, operator, driver, the importance of taking care of that. It’s okay if you’re not a person who can change your own brakes and you do send it out for service, and you get someone else to inspect the car. That’s great as long as that is your comfort level and you have high confidence that that mechanical inspection has been thoroughly and appropriately addressed, you still are going to have to sign off on that.

And so we’re putting That burden and this responsibility on the driver to make sure that this has been done in advance Now that driver will face one of the chin tech leaders who will take the complete Tech inspection form validate that everything has been correctly completed signed off on meaning you accept full responsibility We’ll check the number.

We certainly are going to look at your seat belts, etc. We want to make sure [00:57:00] You know vintage car, you know with the good old fashioned 60 seat back and a lap belt Okay, that’s going to get a red flag right up front early on. Fortunately, we don’t see that often One of the chin tech leaders is certainly going to eyeball the car And review that page and then we’re going to give you that tech sticker and tell you to move along We want to make the tech process user friendly and very accessible for a prepared driver Whose car is in excellent condition a passing tech at chin track days takes about 90 seconds to two minutes and that’s it So we want to make that user friendly, but at the same time give emphasis That this is a very important step And i’ll tell you the number one thing and the 1a thing That we do have to correct drivers on at tech one is they got a kind of a collector car spends most of its time in the garage or man cave And they’re [00:58:00] showing up on tires that have plenty of tread life Because it’s they haven’t been used in six seven eight years.

They’re holding air just fine Nope, we’re gonna fail you if your tires are that old and the second thing 1a Is your helmet being out of date? Drivers don’t realize this, or, you know, often said, uh, you know, the motorsport manufacturers are just trying to make money by having that helmet standard, but you know what?

The Snell thing is all about the, the, the helmet ages sitting on your shelf. Drivers, the shell oxidizes, it becomes brittle, it loses its impact resilience. So the Snell certification is a real thing. And if you show up with an out of date helmet. We will rent you one of our current and up to spec helmets that are available at every Chin Track Days event, you know, so that’s our approach to tech, which is Fundamentally, [00:59:00] it’s to put the responsibility on the driver to have a well

Crew Chief Eric: prepared car.

All very good points, Mark. And we covered helmet aging and things like that on a previous episode titled Things I Wish I Knew as a Noob. And we talk about, you know, the 11 year run and why helmets Come out when they do and what the ratings mean and what, you know, SA versus them and all that kind of stuff.

So if anybody’s interested in diving into that a little bit more, check out that earlier episode where Brad and I covered that in more detail. But one thing I do want to mention in something you mentioned at the top of that part of the conversation is I always cringed at those events where somebody would walk up to the car with a torque wrench, which you didn’t know what it was set at.

And let’s just say. You know you own a Lotus Elise or you own a Subaru or a Honda where your torque spec is 75 pounds at best and I’m in a Volkswagen Audi Porsche where my torque spec is 100. Who’s got the over tightened lug and who has the under tightened one in this case, [01:00:00] right? So it never sat right with me.

Mark Hicks: Has that torque wrench even been calibrated? You know is it the 10 Harbor Freight Special or is it the 180 Snap

Crew Chief Eric: on? Right? Exactly. So again, I, I cringe at that and I’m like, yeah, you know, so I like the way you guys do it. It’s a little clinical, but that’s a good way to approach it and the whole sign off and the double check.

But you’re right. It’s not something to be worried about at the end of the day. If you’ve made preparations well in advance, not the morning of trying to get your way through tech, we’ve seen that happen too. There shouldn’t be any anxiety there. And once you’ve gone through it once. That usually subsides relatively quickly, but it does still factor into that whole conversation about risk mitigation and risk acceptance.

And I think there’s one more piece that we’ve talked about with multiple people on this show, and we want to get your opinion about it from your personal opinion and maybe from Chin’s Perspective is the topic of track insurance. Uh huh. How do you feel about track insurance? And [01:01:00] is chin one of the organizations that is starting to company registration with the ability for a driver to purchase track insurance as they register?

So if you want to unpack that or

Mark Hicks: Yeah, great topic, Eric, uh, which is Very multifaceted, honestly, there are layers of complexity and every driver out there has a little bit different scale for Kind of risk reward and What their level of comfort is with exposure track insurance? Has definitely been on the rise recently.

No question about it. Probably the last five six years It’s become more and more prevalent for drivers To opt in to buy track day coverage and drivers that may typically come with a fee in the range of 3, 4, 5 percent of your declared value. If you’re in a Miata from [01:02:00] the 90s in a car, That has a real street value of five six seven thousand bucks.

You may not need track day insurance It’s you know, probably irrelevant and then you look at the absolute abundance of high performance cars available today Honestly, I would look around and say we may be in the greatest automotive era Of our generation. I was born in the 60s. And of course we all look back fondly At muscle cars from the 60s and 70s and there’s a lot of conversation that goes back and forth about What’s the greatest era of cars?

Well, I’ll tell you what Never ever have was there a time before now where you could walk in? To a Chevy dealer with 65, 000 bucks, come away with a Camaro Z011LE, drive into Road Atlanta, and if you’re a competent driver, do a minute [01:03:00] 35 after doing nothing but filling the tank for 65, 000 bucks. Honest to God, wow!

In the 90s, you would have had to have a 200, 000 car to go a minute 35 in Road Atlanta. So now, this performance has become really accessible, and not 65, 000, well that’s not chump change. But compared to the performance that 65, 000 would get you 10 years ago, It’s an extraordinary leap that we have now taken.

So now, cars in this category, Mustang GT350, the new Camaros, the new Corvettes, are more expensive, but still, bang for the buck, is enormous. And now, you may be thinking, if I did, uh, you know, have an off, have an incident that resulted in collision damage, I tell you what, the Expense [01:04:00] to repair these cars now has escalated in lockstep with the available performance So performance is skyrocketed.

But now they’ve got all you know lane keeping assist And uh anti collision braking systems with radar in the bumpers this kind of thing You know what you tag the tire wall with what appears to be just cosmetic skim And you’ve damaged the bumper, but hey the car’s still drivable and you’ve driven you drive away into the pits A car generation ago, 10 plus years back, that would have been a 1, 000 or 2, 000 fix.

Now it’s a 9, 000 fix. Why? Because the bumper is radar equipped, and it’s got all these other G sensors, etc. So the cost to repair the vehicles now, for even what appears to be minor things, has escalated significantly. That might mean that getting track insurance is a good idea. The track hobby is Even at the entry level, it’s an [01:05:00] expensive undertaking.

Honestly, motorsport in general, it just, there’s not a cheap way to do it. But if you have that commitment and you’re paying five or six hundred dollars in track fees and you’ve, you’re bringing your 65 to 80 plus thousand dollar car, if it’s a late model, you know, plenty of us drive, you know, recycled cars that we have made track prepared for 20, 000 bucks, et cetera, but still you’ve taken time off work, you’ve committed expense to travel, you’re going to spend on, on hotels and dining and all the other consumables, tire, et cetera.

Gas, grapes, etc. You know what? You got a couple thousand bucks into the weekend, just like that is what it takes. Is it worthwhile now to spend another 350 to 450 bucks? To cover your car for on track damage. This is what enthusiasts have to consider Honestly, it wouldn’t be my place to tell enthusiasts Hey, [01:06:00] you should ignore track insurance forget it or hey, you must have track insurance go out there and get it You know with a high recommendation, but I certainly what I do want to do is educate enthusiasts on the pros and cons of having or not having Track insurance the con right out up front, of course is the expense It’s going to add three to four to five hundred dollars depending on the expense of your car It’s going to add that to your track weekend the pro Well, if you have the unfortunate occurrence to find yourself off the track Up against the wall in a cloud of dust Going now you’re going to be really glad you have track insurance.

Now, of course The statistical probability of this occurrence is low. If you found yourself in those conditions and you didn’t have insurance, you will say, man, I wish I got the track insurance. And if you have it, you’ll say, [01:07:00] boy, I’m glad I got the track insurance. That’s what will happen. But it is readily available and there are several great providers out there.

Chin Track Days definitely has a relationship with Locton. Motorsports, one of the leaders in providing track day insurance. There is a referral link on our website to Lockton Motorsports for track day insurance. It’s not part of our direct online registration because, well, just for insurance regulatory reasons, unless Chin Track Days is a licensed insurance seller, we can’t sell insurance directly.

I can just let you know that we have a relationship with Lockton Motorsports. And they give favorable rates for Chim Track Days events, by the way. Per event premium for some Chim Track Days events is lower from Lockton than perhaps if you were participating with a different club. So that’s not a guarantee, uh, and it [01:08:00] depends on what event venue you’re going to.

Some venues are higher risk than others. Road Atlanta, Watkins Glen, et cetera, have inherently higher risk than a place like, say, Koda, where it’s hard to, uh, hurt your car in some ways. But every enthusiast ought to give consideration to what is their exposure to risk, with the value of their car, one of the things that you can easily find on the internet.

Advice from other enthusiasts about track day insurance. They’ll say if you can’t afford to get out and walk away from your car Then you should insure it But that is something for every enthusiast to make a personal decision about it is not a requirement But do know If you are an enthusiast and you choose to track your high performance streetcar, your streetcar policy very likely does not provide coverage for damage that might occur in a track related incident.

Read your policy, drivers, [01:09:00] is the best advice you could get. It will say. We exclude racetracks where it won’t say that. And by the way, if it doesn’t It doesn’t have to say we insure you in a racetrack incident. It doesn’t have to say that. It only has to be silent about that. Fundamentally, we are non competition, right?

And that is a key thing because every insurance provider out there will certainly say, we exclude using your car if you go racing. You know, does the same thing apply if you’re doing autocross, for example? Because that’s a controlled environment. It’s not at a racetrack. They’re all gray areas, and I’ll be honest to you, internet viewers.

insurers very widely. Um, there is not a uniform model out there. And if you are committed to be in the hobby long term, using a car that is street tagged and that you drive on the street, you ought to spend some time giving attention to the language of your insurance

Crew Chief Eric: policy. One of one of our members says if I can’t put a boot in the door [01:10:00] of your car Then you’ve chosen the wrong car meaning

Mark Hicks: Well, I will say hey, we’re all enthusiasts I won’t go around putting my boot in anybody’s

Crew Chief Eric: car A couple things to wrap up here If there’s anything in particular you want to let people know about the remainder of the season by all means And if you want a shout out to any of this any of chin sponsors Because I know you guys have them.

Please do that as well. And i’ll have my closing comments before, you know, we wrap up.

Mark Hicks: Well, that’s just, that’s fantastic. Uh, thank you for opening the window to that. I definitely will thank our forever long time partner in driver safety and motor sports accessories is discovery parts discounts.

Discounts to Chin Drivers. Our brake partner is G Lock. Discounts to Chin Drivers. Uh, they offer brake pad and friction compounds in every range for almost any style of vehicle. [01:11:00] Uhlen’s Advanced Suspension Technology. Is our title branding partner for all of our road Atlanta and Watkins Glen dates Oolans also gives discounts to chin drivers.

Oolans became famous for providing Suspension for formula one cars that you know was like 20 000 bucks a corner But now you can get ulens that very same. Um level of engineering. It’s not the same stuff But the same thought and care goes into their products for track cars If you’re thinking about a suspension upgrade We would recommend ulens if you’re in florida and you own a porsche You should be considering track support from zotts racing zotts racing is the Home of Porsche Podiums in Florida.

They’re Orlando based, but they serve Porsche owners across the entire state with top tier service and in their facility at Zots Racing in Orlando. If you are near VIR, [01:12:00] Shin Track Days recommends trackside service and support from Quantum Speedworks. Quantum. is, uh, in the RacePlex right next to V. I. R.

and they provide service for track enthusiasts across the Southern Virginia and Northern North Carolina tier. They are awesome. We visit COTA in Texas often, and you’re from other parts of the country and you want to enjoy laps at COTA. Many drivers ask us where can they get a track prepared rental. We go to W2W, and that is Will to Win Racing, and they are based in Budda, which is just south of Austin, but they provide fully supported track car rentals, really for any Texas track event, but especially accessible for all.

CODA dates and also in Texas, our partners at Thin Speed Racing Wheels do custom billet forged aluminum wheels. If you want your wheels cut from a single billet block, they are quite [01:13:00] incredible. Many IMSA teams have adopted these because of zero failure. When they start banging wheels in competition. The other guys are breaking wheels and the fin speeds are finishing the pass.

Just a snapshot of some of the, uh, the big backers and supporters of Chin Track Days. I, honestly, we have more. I, I don’t want to keep tying y’all up there. But, uh, looking down the calendar, you know, we’re finishing our summer season. We call it the, uh, The weight loss series because we continue to do track events through the heart of the summer this weekend We are at michelin raceway road atlanta next weekend.

That’s the third week of august We’ll be at barber motorsports park and then in the last weekend of august summit point raceway And that is followed by watkins glenn On the first week of September and Labor Day, and then tumbling down the calendar, we’ll return to Barber and Road Atlanta again in September, followed by [01:14:00] Sebring.

Coda, VIR, and then many of these tracks cycle and pop up on our calendar month after month after month. So you can find Road Atlantic and Sebring Dates pretty much in every month from now until December and we’ll be out in Texas also at Eagles Canyon Raceway. Man, I don’t know what your audience is on that side Eric and Brad, but Eagles Canyon is one of our new favorite venues.

This place is spectacular. 2. 75 mile, 17 turn lap on the rolling hill country of the Texas ranch lands north of Dallas and Fort Worth. Uh, what a spectacular venue. Gotta recommend it. Uh, and we’ll be back at Eagles Canyon. In October, and those are just some highlights. There is a ton more from now till year end.

We have about 26 more track events on the calendar [01:15:00] over the next three months and of course, you know where to find it ChinTrackDays. com.

Crew Chief Eric: Unbelievable, Mark. It’s an incredible, incredible production that you guys put on and I can’t thank you enough for what you guys do and all the effort that gets put into it.

It’s a top notch service and again, we’ve had the pleasure of running with Chin for many, many years now and it’s been a rewarding experience every time. Now, with that being said, I can’t thank you enough for coming on the show. Educating our listeners, giving them an inside scoop into what Chin is like, what you’re all about, the values, the ideology, the education, everything that goes into making, you know, your events as successful as they are for all the listeners out there that have tuned into this episode.

If you want more details about Chin, you can visit Chin track days at www. chintrackdays. com or follow them on Instagram at Chin track days or call. 1 855 799 CHIN. You’ll probably get Mark on the phone, so be [01:16:00] prepared. And on that note, Mark, it’s, it’s been an absolute pleasure, and we look forward to seeing you again in another event soon.

You know, obviously our calendar has been all sorts of in turmoil, but, uh, you know, we’re going to see where things line up and see what the rest of the year looks like. Right. So, you know, maybe we’ll see you soon. If not, we’ll definitely see in 21 as we partner up with Chin yet again.

Mark Hicks: You guys are awesome, Eric.

I so appreciate what Grand Touring Motorsports has done for your, your small and growing community. Your commitment to the hobby as it is because indeed it is enthusiasts like you and the others in Grand Touring Motorsports and many, many tens of thousands magnified throughout the enthusiast community across the country who make our hobby what it is and it makes it possible for me to tell this story today.

I am very grateful to you and I thank you for the privilege to share that with you. [01:17:00]

Crew Chief Eric: All right. Well, thank you, Mark.

Crew Chief Brad: If you like what you heard and want to learn more about GTM, be sure to check us out at www. gtmotorsports. org. You can also find us on Instagram at grandtouringmotorsports. Also, if you want to get involved or have suggestions for future shows, you can call or text us at 202 630 1770 or send us an email at crewchief at gtmotorsports.

org. We’d love to hear from you.

Crew Chief Eric: Hey, listeners, crew, chief Eric here. Do you like what you’ve seen, heard and read from GTM? Great. So do we, and we have a lot of fun doing it, but please remember, we’re fueled by volunteers and remain a no annual fee organization, but we still need help to keep them momentum going.

So that we can continue to record, write, edit, and broadcast all of your favorite content. So be sure to visit www. patreon. com forward slash gtmotorsports or visit our website and click in the top right corner on the support and donate to learn how [01:18:00] you can help.

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