Things I wish I knew as a noob

Crew Chief Brad: [00:00:00] Grand touring motorsports started as a social group of car enthusiasts, but we’ve expanded into all sorts of motorsports disciplines. And we want to share our stories with you. Years of racing, wrenching and motorsports experience brings together a top notch collection of knowledge and information through our podcast break fix.

Hey, what’s going on everybody. This is Brad, your host of the grand touring motorsports podcast break fix with me as always is Eric. Uh, we have a special guest tonight. It’s, uh, Mike Crutchfield. You’ve heard him on a couple other, uh, podcasts with us. He’s gonna lend us some expertise. Tonight’s topic is things we wish we knew when we were new first, getting into this, uh, the track day sport, uh, HPDE, which stands for High Performance Driver Education.

Now, I’m sure. Some of you out there have come to track days before. Some of you may not have when we first started out, we all started somewhere. When I know when I first started out, [00:01:00] there were lots of things that I wish that I knew and having a podcast like this, we hope is insightful to the rest of you and hope it gets you off the ledge to come out and dip your toe into the sport and see if you like it or not, we’re going to talk about.

Things you should do before the event. Things you should know and understand. We’re going to dabble a little bit on track insurance, which is something that you should know before the event. We’re going to talk about the pre track inspection. A lot of these events all require an inspection of your vehicle and of you before you come out.

We’re going to talk about things you should bring with you to the track.

Crew Chief Eric: Come on, man. I just want to go fast. I want to go fast.

Crew Chief Brad: Don’t just come out in your jorts and your Crocs and expect to go out there like Ricky Bobby. and be the fastest person on the track. That’s cold trickle. Thank you very much.

Excuse me. I’m on fire. And then we’re also going to talk about things that you are going to do on the day of the event. And that’s where we’re hoping Mike can, you know, give us some insight as he’s been a [00:02:00] classroom instructor for a lot of these a students or beginner students at these events. So Eric, what are some things that people need to know before they come to the event?

So what are some things that you wish that you knew of going into this?

Crew Chief Eric: Before you get out there and let it rip tater chip style, you really need to find an organization that suits your personality, your schedule. And I will say I wish I had known, but I found out through some other people about a resource that we use very often now, which is Motorsport Reg.

Now, not every organization uses Motorsports Reg, and that’s motorsportsreg. com. You can check it out now while we’re talking. And inside of there, it’s basically a large scheduling tool database where you can search based on your geographical area, you know, what track days, what autocross, carding event, et cetera.

Is near your location. So that’s kind of cool within, you know, X amount of miles. I usually search 300 mile radius or so. There are other websites similar to that, like club [00:03:00] registration. net hooked on driving, uses their own chin. Motorsports uses theirs. A lot of them do cross pollinate and advertise on motorsports reg.

So that is kind of the gold standard to go to, to find events. So if you’re really kind of looking to see what’s out there, I would say going to a website like that is, is the first thing. Because otherwise. Unless you have friends that are already in the sport and are kind of driving you towards a location.

You’re really unsure where to look to begin

Crew Chief Brad: with. And do people need to have a dedicated track car to come out and have a good time?

Crew Chief Eric: No. And we talked about this a lot in a previous episode. So if you’re just tuning in for the first time, go back and revisit the first, what should I buy starter cars episode.

And we talk about, you know, if you don’t have. A let’s say track car. That doesn’t necessarily mean you need to run out and buy one. We have some that we recommend because if you’re driving around in a 1980 Chevette, probably not the best option to go to the track with, [00:04:00] but you know, if you’re like a lot of us that have commuter cars, maybe you bought a Ford Fiesta or you have a VW GTI or, you know, a Nissan Sentra or something like that.

Those are actually perfect starter cars to go to an event.

Mike Crutchfield: That for you novices out there, their first time out at the track, you’re probably not going to hit the limits of your vehicle because I’ve had students who had an absolute blast and a just Honda Accord. So it doesn’t have to be anything fancy.

It doesn’t even have to be anything fast because odds are your first event, you’re not going to be driving beyond the capabilities of your car and you’re still going to have a good time.

Crew Chief Eric: I’m sure there’s a lot of you out there listening right now that drive in some maybe more sporty cars or what we call Boulevard Grand Tours or something more luxury or maybe you bought a McLaren.

I don’t know. Either way, what you have is usually good enough and in some cases if you drive a, you know, 570S McLaren, it’s better than what everybody has and there’s really nothing wrong with that. [00:05:00] Don’t let that be a stopping point. Don’t sit back and say, Oh, I have to have a fully caged, you know, 944 cup car to be able to go to the track, or I have to have a Miata, spec Miata race car or something like that.

You really don’t get, you need to get over that. I think another barrier to entry is a lot of people, because of the way the registration systems are built, you don’t get to see the price of the event until you’re further into the registration process. It’s not up front in your face to say, Hey, look at the bargain.

I’m getting for the amount of track time I’m receiving. So if you do the math. And you compare it to other disciplines and I’m and this is not to downplay other disciplines in any respect and they all have their Their purpose and their place and their value If you look at rally cross or you look at autocross where it’s, you know One lap timed and you wait around for a while and then it’s one lap time you wait around some more, you know Bs check your torques, you know that kind of stuff you pay let’s say maybe 50 60 bucks and you get Four runs, six runs, eight runs at maximum.

They’re really not good value [00:06:00] for money. If you think about, okay, it’s a 45 second quote unquote lap for 50 or 60 bucks versus track time. If you add in classroom, which Mike’s going to talk about here in a little bit and you add in. The social aspect of it, you add in the, your actual sessions on track, which can vary anywhere from on the short side, 22 minutes on the long side to 35 minutes at a time.

And part of that is for your safety. And part of that is for the vehicle to, to get a break because unless you’re driving a dedicated track car, there’s a lot of stress there. But with all that in mind, $300, which a lot of clubs vary, let’s say 300 to 400 is, is a good average price for a weekend. You’re averaging anywhere and gentlemen, correct me if I’m wrong, you’ll average anywhere on the low end, four hours of track time to the higher end to closer to maybe six and a half hours of track time in a weekend.

Mike Crutchfield: And one thing Eric forgot to mention, you get the classroom instruction, but in many cases, you’re also getting instruction from [00:07:00] someone who’s watching your driving either in your vehicle or following another vehicle. That can give you feedback on what you’re actually doing on track. It’s not just, well, your lap time was five seconds faster.

This time is well, when you enter turn one, you were in a different position and thus that made it actually the car handle better and those skills translate driving on the road because you start to learn good behaviors while you’re driving on the road. That might actually save you from accidents down the line too.

Crew Chief Brad: And we want to emphasize that we’re specifically talking about HPD or high performance driver education. We’re not talking about club racing or time trials or anything like that. Those are things you can do after you’ve gotten the HPD bug. But the main purpose of HPD other than Getting out there and having a good time is to learn and Mike is exactly right.

Things you learn on the racetrack are going to help you throughout the rest of your driving career on the street or in races or whatever, whatever you decide to do.

Crew Chief Eric: Just for everybody that’s listening, you know, Mike, Brad and [00:08:00] I are also coaches for various organizations, or it also helps you in accident avoidance.

And I don’t want to put a guarantee on that, but what I’m getting at here, and we’ll talk about this more a little bit later is getting your eyes up. Being situationally aware, watching things unfold on the road. I mean, my wife gets on me all the time. She’s like, I don’t know how you spot cars across a divided highway, four lanes away, and you’re going, Hey, look, that’s a 57 Bel Air because I’m constantly scanning and I’m looking way out in the distance and I’m trying to watch, you know, traffic patterns and things like that.

And I learned that by going to the track, you’re not going to get that experience really anywhere else. And I’m sure there’s plenty of people that will disagree. Well, I’ve been driving for 40 years. What do you know? Well, it’s a lot different at, you know, triple digits than being on the highway. We do run very close to each other.

It’s not, we’re not out there doing parade laps, keeping social distance. The cars are up against each other. Now, Rubbin is not racing in HPDE, you know, full disclaimer there.

Mike Crutchfield: Well, and, and to Eric’s point of, [00:09:00] I’ve been driving for 40 years. I had an 85 year old student that I taught new things about driving.

He had been driving all his life. He learned new things from driving on track for the first time.

Crew Chief Brad: So what we’re trying to get across is these events are fun. It’s great to come out and have a good time. You know, get your Ricky Bobby on, but also come out and learn a few things that you can take with you, not just at the track, but back on the street.

Step one is to find an event. As Eric explained, go on motorsportreg. com or Hooked on Driving or Chin Motorsports or some of the other clubs. Find an event that fits your schedule. Don’t worry about which club it’s with. Uh, that doesn’t really matter. They all operate fairly the same, uh, with a couple of little nuances.

Uh, pick a day on your schedule, pick a weekend on your schedule that works, pick a racetrack that’s near you in the DMV. We’ve got a plethora of racetracks that are within five to six hours of us. And we’re very lucky in that respect. If you’re in the DMV and you’ve [00:10:00] got two facilities you can go to within an hour, hour and a half, you can go to Summit Point in West Virginia.

They’ve got three racetracks there. And you can go to Dominion Raceway, which is right down 95 on the way to Richmond. So there’s, there’s tracks that are in the area. Once you pick a day, once you pick your track, you pick your organization, you sign up, you think you’re good to go. You’re not good to go.

There’s plenty of other things to do in preparation for your event. So the next thing we’re going to talk about is track insurance. I don’t know if you all know this, but most insurance companies, if not all insurance companies that handle your, your regular automobile insurance will not cover anything that happens at a racetrack.

Some insurance policies, you got to be very careful and make sure you read your policy and all the disclaimers. They may even cancel you for even going to a racetrack. So you got to be very careful. With your car insurance. There’s a lot of people that play games with hiding their license plates and things like that We’re not here to advocate for that.

You mean rolling the car outside [00:11:00] the gates of the

Crew Chief Eric: track is not a good thing After you’ve broken down

Crew Chief Brad: we are not advocating for that at all. We do not wish for you to do anything That’s illegal. Please make sure you consult your insurance agent and your insurance policy For anything regarding this sport or any type of thing on a track, even drag racing, you should probably check your insurance policy, even if you’re going for a test and autocross to autocross.

Even if you’re doing a road rally, if they find out that you’ve been participating in a road rally, who knows what the insurance companies will do.

Crew Chief Eric: Yeah. And, and to your point, even road rally, because you’re on a public road and by the time this airs, you guys have probably heard another. where I actually speak to a gentleman who is involved in a lot of road rally touring and Gymkhana.

The real asterisk here when it comes to insurance is Competitive events, right? And HPDE because the E in HPDE stands for education. It is not a competitive event. And that’s very important to, to [00:12:00] denote there. Now, what Brad’s saying is very true. You need to check and make sure. That a your insurance company is okay with it and when they say no hang up really quick because they didn’t hear what you just said But but in reality a lot of the other disciplines be it autocross drag racing road rally, etc Where there might be a competitive component to it You have to be very careful with that.

And especially something like road rally, where it is done on public roads.

Mike Crutchfield: We’re not saying all of these things to scare you away from HPT and track events. We’re, we want to make sure that everyone enters this sport with eyes wide open, because we’ve known people who have had very unpleasant surprises when they’ve thought they’ve been covered, including, uh, one student whose car had an electrical fault and caught fire on track.

I was, was helping with recovery of that vehicle at some point. And he called his insurance company. from the track and goes, I was just driving on the track and my car caught fire because there was an electrical fire under the hood. And they immediately canceled his policy. If you’re wanting to get [00:13:00] things covered for things that happen on track, look into track insurance.

Do not expect your actual insurance company, unless you’ve read that thing cover to cover to, to be there for you. If something happens on track.

Crew Chief Eric: So let’s explain what track insurance is and how it works.

Crew Chief Brad: So track insurance is specific to events. Just on a racetrack. There’s a specialty companies out there.

1 that we’re familiar with because a few of our members have used it. It’s called locked in insurance. It’s a specialty track insurance company. You buy policies either by event, or you can buy a block of events for a season. I believe you go through their process of selecting your events, and then you also get to choose the value of your vehicle and how much that they will pay out.

Now there’s gonna be a deductible. It’s a fairly high deductible, I believe. But all said and done, they will cover you. We’ve had a couple club members that have had accidents with Locked in insurance minimizes the out of pocket expense to get the vehicle back on the road. They [00:14:00] swear by it. We did an article not too long ago that we’ll put a link for describes and kind of gives a review of track insurance and locked in insurance specifically.

Don’t be scared off by, Oh my God, my insurance company’s not going to cover me. We’ve got something for you. We got you. We got something to cover you.

Crew Chief Eric: Yeah, and there’s now some organizations that are including track insurance as part of the registration. I know hooked on driving is doing this. They use open track insurance.

I believe it’s called. It’s a competitor to locked in affinity. And some of those groups that are out there track insurance is really designed to cover you when you’re on campus. Right? And that could be. Another car hits you in the paddock, your car fell off the trailer. You hit a wall while on track, you know, whatever it might be, it’s a completely different policy.

And in the unfortunate event that something does happen, you file your claim through locked in or whoever you’re using instead of your normal car insurance. So then that way. It’s you’re not really hiding it from your insurance company, but it’s being taken [00:15:00] care of by a third party. And in the case of you totaled your car because you have a declared value policy, they write you a check.

No questions asked. It happened at the track. Now, just like the insurance company doesn’t. Cover you when you’re at the track. Track. Insurance doesn’t cover you when you’re on the road. However, there are transport exceptions. You will pay extra for that. So if you have a car carrier or a large trailer, a value, some sort of enclosed trailer you’ve invested in, you can actually get specialty policies to cover you while transporting the vehicle from your, your home or, or wherever the car is kept.

To the facility and storage policies as well

Mike Crutchfield: Because if you do end up later down the road having a dedicated track car, you might want theft protection But you can’t get theft protection through your regular insurance company because it’s not a registered vehicle So you can actually also get the theft prevention policies from locked in as well

Crew Chief Eric: For anybody that’s listening, that’s part of a different discipline.

Track insurance counts at an autocross, say for you have an unforeseen [00:16:00] incident where you slid and hit a telephone pole in the middle of the parking lot, or drag racing, you know, the car’s out of control, hit the jersey wall, you know, whatever the barrier between the lanes, whatever it might be. So again, do your research because it applies to more than just going to circuit racing and to road racing.

Crew Chief Brad: So we’ve picked our track day. We we’ve got our event organizer. We’re signed up. We’re registered with them. You know, we’ve got our track insurance to cover our Audi s4 or our Chevy Corvette that we just went to the dealership and bought and we’re ready to rip and roar with the C8 that we got. What do we do now?

Crew Chief Eric: Well, now you have to do the basics, right? You have to make sure that your maintenance is on par with the guidelines set out by the organization. And in most cases, they’re really looking for you to make sure that your seat belts are in good shape. There’s no rips and tears, things like that. They want to make sure that all your fluids have been changed pretty recently.

They want to make sure that, you know, you got new wiper blades in case it rains or stuff like that’s condition of your tires to really a [00:17:00] safety concern. Right. If you haven’t done any maintenance on your car in the last 10 years, and you think you’re going to go to the track with it, I got some news for you.

The things you really do need to invest in. Don’t worry about tires. If you got fresh tread, deep tread, that’s good enough. You don’t need to go buy racing slicks and things like that. But what you do need to invest in upfront, new brake fluid and new brake pads, because you will destroy what you have left.

But you have an option. If you’re a wrench turner, bring a set of pads and change them. That way you don’t kill your street pads. Maybe buy something a little bit better. If you’re not a wrench turner, get somebody to help you. They can put fresh pads on there.

Mike Crutchfield: Yeah. For those of us, we’re all instructors here.

If you’ve had your student have break fail, say, I. I and a brake failure is most common, especially when the brake fluid looks like Coca Cola rather than seven up. If you are having to get a brake flush and you think you might do this regularly, look into a better quality brake [00:18:00] fluid. that has a higher temperature.

And as Eric mentioned, you might want to look at a better brake pad. There are many pads that are a little bit better for the track than street pads. They have pads that are a compromise between street and track. They won’t be the best at, at track, but they will stand the heat of it better and they’re good for a novice.

As you start to progress, you’ll find you need better brake pads because you’re, you’re being harder on your equipment, you’re running longer and stuff like that. Really? You just want to look for high quality parts for your first event.

Crew Chief Eric: It’s funny. You mentioned that I was working on an X5M today and I went part of the list of things that needed to be done was a brake fluid flush and I showed the owner what came out versus what we put in, which was DOT 4 ATE gold for having anybody actually cared.

What came out was. It’s Ecto Cooler from the 1990s and this car only had 55, 000 miles on it and it was a 2013. It didn’t get driven very much, but I was shocked by the color of the brake fluid that came out. And I know that’s not a standard BMW brake fluid color. [00:19:00] It should be gold. It looked like what we would put as power steering fluid in a Volkswagen.

So pretty bad. Again, if you’re not doing regular maintenance, you need to get it done. Now I will say this for the States. Like Virginia, Pennsylvania and others, New Jersey that require annual inspections of their vehicles, especially mechanical inspections of their vehicles. You’re probably at a better position or a more of an advantage than a state like ours were in Maryland, DC and some others where you get it inspected when you bought it.

And after that, they don’t really care. Now I’m not advocating for annual inspections in Maryland. If anybody’s listening, I prefer it the way it is, but I will say for those folks that are out there. They are at an advantage because their maintenance is probably more up to up to speed.

Crew Chief Brad: So we’re talking about the track day tech inspection now Not every club requires it as some clubs do like audi club of north america porsche club Scca requires [00:20:00] one but they allow you to do it yourselves for audi club and porsche club and maybe some others Usually the the marquee brands like bmw as well.

You need to go to a tech I mean you need to go to a certified mechanic Or have a certified mechanic sign off on that so you don’t have to fret. You don’t have to worry about it. You’ll get the form from the club when you register, you take it with you to your mechanic. You schedule the tech inspection.

They’ll go over the car with you. They’ll give you a clean bill of health, or they’ll tell you what needs to be changed before the track event based on the information on that tech sheet. But again, use the guidelines on the tech sheet. And as Eric was saying, break pads, break fluid. You may not have to run out and get brand new brake pads before you go to the track, but yes, make sure you have them with you because you are going to burn through them going 100 miles and going from 100 miles an hour to 40 to enter the turn.

You do that a couple times. You’re gonna run out of brake pads. Another part of the tech inspection. They’re also going to check, like you said. They’re going to make sure you’ve got good safety gear, your seatbelts [00:21:00] work properly. There’s no leaks. You don’t have any, uh, power steering leaks or transmission leaks or any type of fluid leaks at all.

They check to make sure your brake lights and your turn signals are working. Coincidentally enough, some of the clubs actually require Uh, turn signals for passing. Traditionally, if you stick your arm out the window in various, you know, configurations to let somebody know that they can pass, but some of the clubs are using the more European style of using your turn signal, primarily Audi club is one that we’ve run with a couple of times, uh, that requires the turn signal.

So you’ve got to make sure that those things work if you’re bringing a street car. Yeah. My, my

Crew Chief Eric: blinker fluid is always fresh. I change it every year.

Crew Chief Brad: All right. So you’ve signed up. You’ve got your track insurance, you’ve done your due diligence and you’ve got your track day tech inspection done. It’s a week before the event.

You’re starting to think about, well, what do I need to take with me? Do I just show up in my Birkenstocks and my, my, uh, my flannel shirt or what do, what do I need to bring?

Crew Chief Eric: I’d say first and foremost, proper clothing. And what does that [00:22:00] exactly mean? Jeans are a great anywhere. Anything. pants for the track because they’re known for being less flammable than any other material.

You know, they’re cotton based long sleeve shirts for a lot of organizations are mandatory. Some clubs have relaxed that, especially on days where, you know, we’re at Barbara motor sports park and the average temperature is 147. You know, being in long clothing is not always the best thing in the world.

There’s a very high probability you will not be wearing shorts. ever. You also want to wear, uh, you know, socks. You want to wear some thin sold shoes because if you’re starting to learn how to heel toe, some of maybe more of the advanced techniques, you don’t want to be wearing steel toed Doc Martens while you’re out driving the track.

Although I have done that. And I will say pressing the accelerator down is much, much easier that way. Or six

Mike Crutchfield: inch platforms.

Crew Chief Eric: Yeah. I had

Mike Crutchfield: a student do that too.

Crew Chief Eric: I recommend, because a lot of people may have these in their closet, a good driving shoe, you know, you don’t need to run [00:23:00] out and buy OMPs and Sparkos and Pilates and there’s a bunch of brands out there.

I recommend Adidas Sambas, which are the old school, you know, indoor soccer shoes. Or Converse Chucks All Stars, because again, they’re a thin, flat shoe, they’re very comfortable when you’re in the car, they’re very comparable to a proper driving shoe, and they’re cheap alternatives. You can pick up a set of Chucks for like 40 bucks at Target, I mean, why not?

You want to be comfortable. But you will also want to be able to drive the car without any issues. So as Mike said, six inch platforms and pink feather Boas and stuff like that. Just, just leave that at home, bring appropriate clothing for weather changes, because we have been to some events where we will go, let’s say in April to the Glen and it will be beautiful at 72 degrees and.

Very low humidity, and on Saturday morning, it’s raining, and by Saturday afternoon, it’s snowing somehow, and that is not an exaggeration, that actually happened to us one year, and they closed the track on the last [00:24:00] day, it was because of snow and fog, we couldn’t see anything, so again, you need to be prepared and bring appropriate clothing, but be comfortable, be safe, no artificial fabrics, that’s a big one, because if something were to happen, in the case of a fire, God forbid, artificial fabrics, Are more flammable than, than cotton and remember instructors, if you’re listening, the volunteer fire department is you

Crew Chief Brad: on top of that list after clothing, after the appropriate clothing, you need a helmet.

Now, if you do not have a helmet already, don’t worry about it. So a lot of the clubs will let you rent a helmet. If you’re in the DMV region, uh, some of the safety companies like OG racing, it’s a great resource. They will let you rent helmets organizations like hooked driving. And I think Audi club may have a couple.

Spares. If not, you can borrow a helmet from a friend. Now be mindful, you cannot use a motorcycle helmet. You can’t use a dirt bike helmet or motocross or anything like that. A car helmet is very [00:25:00] specific for this sport because it’s got fire retardant materials inside and they’re designed differently to handle different types of stresses than those other helmets.

So you want to have one of those.

Mike Crutchfield: Read very carefully the requirements for the event. Because in addition to different clubs having different rules, sometimes different states have different rules. For instance, New Jersey, if you do not have a factory airbag, they require a closed face helmet. Since New Jersey tracks are actually policed by the New Jersey State Police, they are very strict about that because they might get randomly audited by the State Police to make sure that everyone’s following the regulations.

So it’s not just club regulations, it is also Facility and state regulations as well.

Crew Chief Eric: Just so you know, if you do go full bore and decide, Hey, I’m going to buy a helmet And it ends up being a centerpiece on your coffee table or on the shelf in your office. That’s fine, too. Bear in mind Your helmet is good for 11 years from the date [00:26:00] stamped inside of its production.

So as an example, right now, the 2020 helmets probably have not released yet. Most of us are running 2015 helmets, which are going to be good until 2026. So you get 11 years because there’s a there’s a crossover year there, where a 2020 dated helmet, as an example, really doesn’t become available almost until the fall going into the next year.

So let’s say those 2020s will be readily available for everybody to, to purchase closer to 2021. So they give you that extra year, that grace period, their helmets. You don’t have to go crazy. You don’t have to have the IMSA. Microphone ports and the water jack and the cooling thing and the air condition port.

I mean, helmets are crazy. They range from like 120 bucks on Amazon to like five grand. I mean, and that’s on the low end of the high end, because I mean, you could have a fully painted and airbrushed and God knows you could probably buy Ayrton Senna’s helmet if you wanted to. But you don’t [00:27:00] need to be that extreme.

Just get something that’s comfortable, go to somewhere like OG racing and get fitted for one. Because just because you think, you know, your head size doesn’t mean a helmet will be comfortable. And in an XL in a bell is not the same as an XL Cause everything Italian is cut smaller for God knows what reason, but it’s a true fact, just like the Ferraris.

Moving on.

Crew Chief Brad: Amen to that.

Crew Chief Eric: There are convertible helmets I’ve seen. I know that those are usually verboten at most places where it can become an open face helmet and a closed face helmet. I

Crew Chief Brad: think those are usually motorcycle helmets. I’ve got one sitting on my mantel right now that does that. Helmets are a

Crew Chief Eric: good thing if you can’t get a loaner.

Buy a cheap one first. It’s going to last you a long time It might not be the fanciest thing in the world put some stickers on it We’ll send you some

Mike Crutchfield: and consider getting a head sock to put on before you put on the helmet So the helmet doesn’t smell like the louisiana swamp after two weekends.

Crew Chief Eric: Yeah, I will say helmet maintenance We could probably do a whole episode on that [00:28:00] Put it in a dry place when you’re done, leave it open to air out.

I actually use a little portable fan so that mine doesn’t, doesn’t smell like a gym bag after a while. I leave it in the, in the truck when I’m driving home to air out. I don’t, I don’t ever put it back in my bag after a long weekend, but yeah, a head sock is really good. I would avoid a balaclava until you’re doing something a little bit more club racing related where you’re going to be in the car for longer stint at a time.

Balaclava tends to get in your face and make you really, really hot versus the head sock just covers your hair and keeps you from really sweating into the material. Let’s talk about gloves. They are not a requirement, but they are extremely useful and they’re really not that expensive. If you are going to get a helmet driving gloves, you can pick up a set of sparkos for, or whatever brand you like.

If you like, uh, Alpine star or OMP or whatever it might be, you’re looking. 50 bucks on the low end, 40 bucks. And you probably find something cheap on Amazon. You can use G force, the carding gloves. If you want, you can use cutoffs. Basically the idea of the glove [00:29:00] is if your hands perspire and they probably will, especially if you’re nervous, the idea is to keep your hands dry because the last thing you want is the steering wheel to get slippery when you’re out there, especially if you’re on, let’s say a more complex track, like Shenandoah.

Where your hands are never really at rest. You’re constantly moving or even something like an autocross. I mean, the gloves are just helpful in general and they’re not a status thing. Like in the 1920s, you know, it’s not Catherine Hepburn putting on her long white gloves. This is really about your safety and your driving experience.

Crew Chief Brad: That’s how I do it. What are you talking about?

Mike Crutchfield: Well, and they help in one other thing when you’re at that April event, it keeps your hand from freezing when you put it out the window for point buys,

Crew Chief Eric: especially if you drive a Miata. And realistically, the glove is also protection because if you are doing point buys, which is very common in a beginner run group, there’s a very good chance maybe some tire slag could come up and hit you or maybe a rock or something like that.

Or in the case of if you’re chasing a certain red Miata and it. A portion of his body flies off the car and hits you as you’re trying to fit in. You know, you could [00:30:00] bruise your hand. Luckily, the glove saved me from losing a digit. So we were, we were all good there, but you know, true story, no experience.

Crew Chief Brad: And one thing we recommend with the gloves, I don’t know if Eric said this or not, is we recommend something bright colored. Black is nice and everything. And if you want to have a black glove, go ahead and have a black glove. But if you’re driving a Miata and you’re going to stick your hand out the window, the car behind you wants to get that point by they’re five, six, 700 feet away from you.

They can’t really see this little teeny thing going out the window, get something bright blue or red or whatever. It makes it easily identifiable that, Hey, this guy just gave me a point by I saw his glove.

Mike Crutchfield: And it also works especially well if you’re giving any, Hey, I see you back there, signal inside the car.

Because outside the car, your hand can be fairly visible. And your hand inside the car saying, I see you behind me. That bright colored glove, especially, you know, nice safety orange or safety yellow will really stand out, make it easier to see.

Crew Chief Eric: I mean, I wear black, so you can’t see me flipping you off, Mike.

I mean, just letting you know, full [00:31:00] disclosure. Yeah, but everything you do is in black. That’s very true. I mean, there’s only one color in my wardrobe. It’s black, 100%.

Crew Chief Brad: Next, obviously, you want to be able to feed and satisfy your thirst at the track. You want to make sure you’ve got food and drink with you.

So bring a cooler, make sure you’ve got plenty of water. Most tracks have water fountains and water there. But if you’ve got something specific that you want to drink, I know Mike. He has a problem with drinking regular water. So he’s got a special, the, uh, Propel Gatorade water that he’s always bringing with him.

You guys are laughing, but it’s true. He doesn’t drink regular water.

Mike Crutchfield: It makes me feel sick. I know.

Crew Chief Brad: Yeah. See, and he’s not the only one I’ve talked to other people where regular water, they, for some reason, they just can’t stomach it. It’s, it’s just, it’s a thing. Trust me, read about it. But anyway, make sure you’ve got plenty of water, sports drinks, sports drinks are good because they’ve got electrolytes so they help replenish your, your body and give you a little bit of energy and the carbohydrates.

And then you also want to make sure that you’ve got plenty of food, you want to have some energy bars with you. [00:32:00] Surprisingly, going around a racetrack takes a lot out of you. This uses a lot of energy, just steering the wheel and all the, the mental things that you are doing while you’re out there to make sure that you bring plenty of food.

Some clubs will provide lunch like HOD. It’s one of their things about them is they provide lunch and dinner. SCCA provides dinner after the first day. It’s usually like a barbecue. It’s a nice little party to say thank you. Some of the tracks have food. I know that Summit Point has food facilities at both their Shenandoah circuit and their main circuit.

But you don’t want to rely on that. So you want to make sure that you can eat and drink throughout the day, because you are going to need to.

Mike Crutchfield: You want to be mindful of what you’re bringing. And there is an article on GTM’s website about track nutrition, because you want to make sure that you don’t suffer that carb crash later in the day, because you’re going to need to be able to be focused now, granted, if you stop by GCM village at any track day, it’s covered in doughnuts and candy.

But that’s beside the point. Be mindful of what you’re eating [00:33:00] because you can lose focus easily if you get a little out of whack with, uh, especially with sugar, but with other things too. So, be very careful about that.

Crew Chief Eric: A slight correction there, Mike. The GTM diet is White Monster, Haribo Gummy Bears, and Fig Newtons.

That is a staple.

Crew Chief Brad: And these are all provided by the biggest health nuts in the club.

Crew Chief Eric: It never makes any sense to me whatsoever. Great. So we’re going to have Andrew and Sam on. a follow on episode to talk about nutrition, to talk about the track, hangover, hydration, all that. And I will say this. I have a big issue, especially in the summertime.

I mentioned this on a previous episode. I don’t like eating when it’s super hot. It actually makes me nauseous. It makes me nauseous in the car. It’s something that goes back to my carting days where all of a sudden the G’s starts to just react with my stomach and I get kind of herpy for lack of a better term.

but also stay away from carbonated things because that will give you the same effect and it will tend on a, especially on a track like Shenandoah where it’s super busy and you don’t get a break and the car is always kind of shifting [00:34:00] from side to side. It tends to shift your stomach as well. So be mindful of what you’re eating.

And also to Mike’s point, you don’t want to have that car crash and also save the Jaeger. For after the event, right?

Crew Chief Brad: And we’re giving you some tips and things that we live by, but you can always consult with your doctor, or if you’ve got a nutritionist or some, uh, someone that you know, that is very knowledgeable about these things, because everybody’s got different kinds of health conditions to make sure you talk to a professional.

Actually, we recommend it’s not on our list here that we’re going to talk about. But if you’re just getting into the sport, you might want to get a physical from your doctor before you come to the track, just to make sure that you’re okay. All right, so we’ve got food, we’re ready to eat. We’re always ready to eat.

I’m going to defer the next section to Eric and Mike. Eric is my mechanic, he’s fantastic. So tools, what type of tools should a novice person bring to the track? Uh, a complete snap on set,

Crew Chief Eric: you know, rollback on your trailer. That’s really what you need. I thought it was gear wrench [00:35:00] now. Oh yeah. A hundred percent gear.

Shout out to

Crew Chief Brad: one of our sponsors.

Crew Chief Eric: So you don’t need that. You don’t even need really the starter set from Sears where the Sears doesn’t exist anymore. You know, the 900 piece craftsman set is too much. You really just need some basic stuff. You, I recommend bringing a low profile jack. A couple of jack stands, a torque wrench, basic set of sockets.

If your car’s domestic, obviously SAE sockets. If your car’s a European metric, if you have a Honda, you only need an 11 and a 13 and a 17 throw the rest away. Just stuff you need to take your wheels off. Check your brakes, change your pad, change some rotors, tire gauge, you know, stuff like that. The basics.

If you’re in deep trouble, you break an axle like Brad does on the regular. The rest of us are going to have the tools that you need. You’re going to be able to go around the paddock and find that, you know, your trunk space is probably going to be limited and you don’t want to be carrying 500 pounds of tools around.

There’s going to be a lot of seasoned and veteran track [00:36:00] rats there that are going to be able to help you out.

Crew Chief Brad: And on multiple occasions. We will hear over the paddock loudspeakers. Does anybody have a 10 millimeter socket? If you need something, you can go to the event organizer and they’ll make an announcement and you’ll have a hundred different people.

Come into your aid because they’re all very friendly and they all want to help. By the way, if you

Crew Chief Eric: found my 10 millimeter socket, please call 202 630 1770 I am in desperate need of that socket.

Mike Crutchfield: I would say number one thing to have in your bag is an air pressure gauge. Because for a novice, you’re only going to set your tire pressures to factory recommended, unless your instructor suggests something else.

You want to actually make sure that you’re at that pressure, because those four pieces of rubber are the only things keeping you in contact with the track. So that is number one. And then number two is just go to Harbor Freight, buy a cheap torque wrench and the socket that fits your wheels. Because loose wheel Has happened to [00:37:00] me and happened to many other people and is scary and loud and could be very expensive.

I thought the

Crew Chief Brad: loose nut was the one behind the wheel.

Mike Crutchfield: Well, yeah. Well, at that time I was still using lug bolts. So the loose nut was behind the wheel. The loose bolt was in the wheel. There you go. So tire pressure gauge, torque wrench and socket are really for your first event. I’d recommend those because that will solve most of your problems that you’re going to have as a novice.

Crew Chief Eric: So extra parts, we talked about this on the starter car episode, which is episode three of the podcast, extra parts is not necessarily a bad thing as Brad mentioned in that episode, call around, if you’ve never searched for parts, if you know what you’re doing, by all means, you know, bring the brake pads, you know, where to get it, you know, if you got to order them from Bimmer world or ECS tuning, or, you know, let’s say you’re in the European market, or maybe you’re just getting them from rock auto, that’s fine.

But if you’re a newbie and you’re just bringing your Nissan Sentra out, make sure that the local advanced auto or AutoZone or Pep Boys or Napa or whoever’s in the area [00:38:00] has some stuff in stock. And the reason I say that is you don’t want to be in the middle of nowhere, which is where most tracks are.

Most people think, Oh, the track is near. It’s in the middle of nothing. Usually farmland side of a mountain top of a mountain. We’ve. We’ve seen them. I mean, they’re just, they’re not in places that are, are close to civilization. Usually civilization is, you know, a 10, 20 minute drive away. So having that stuff there with people that are willing to help you right away, if you have the parts is essential.

So picking up an extra set of brake pads, a lot of cars, you’re talking 40 bucks, you know, in some cars, a rotor is like 7. I mean, You’ve spent more on a case of beer than the extra parts that you need to bring with you to the track. In addition to that, a quart of the oil that’s specific to your engine.

Maybe you run the new Oh, w 20, which a lot of us don’t, you know, we have all sorts of different motors. I always have extra oil on hand. A little bit of engine coolant isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but in a pinch, you can always use a bottle of water that you have in your cooler that you brought with you as part of your food and drink list, so that’s fine.[00:39:00]

And somebody else may have coolant there if you need it or you happen to have a problem. Again, you don’t need to bring a lot of stuff. We’re harping on the same things. Tires and brakes are really the most important once you get past that safety inspection. So any miscellaneous things, Brad, that people may not have thought of that they want to bring?

Crew Chief Brad: Many of you may not know, but to go around the racetrack at these events, you need to have numbers on your car so that the flaggers can identify you as you’re going around the racetrack. A lot of times. Some clubs like HOD and I think Chin, uh, will provide numbers for you if you tell them ahead of time the number that you want.

Uh, if not, don’t fret. I mean, you get a a a a spool or a roll of the blue painter’s tape. It’s, it stays on the car during the event. It’s very easy to come off. It doesn’t harm your paint. It’s a good, good in a pinch, uh, for things like that also, and your instructor will talk to you about this. You want to mark your tires.

With either chalk or shoe polish or a liquid paint pen, and that’s so you can kind of tell [00:40:00] where the tires are wearing when you’re going out on track, and that’ll help you identify if you’re at the right tire pressure. If you need to increase it or decrease it or whatever, that’s something good to have with you.

Not a necessity, but if you have it around the house, if you’ve got some white shoe polish, you might as well use it. What about gasoline? You know, we’re burning it at a very fast rate. So most racetracks have fuel and if they don’t, uh, it’s a minion. For example, the, there’s a gas station literally right across the street from the main entrance.

A lot of the tracks that we go to in the northeast here, they’re, they hold major events. Uh, like EMSA or even NASCAR or whatever. So they all have fuel stations there at the track. If you want to, or if you’re money conscious, you might want to get a couple cans to bring with you. A couple, we’ve got a couple five gallon jugs that we bring with us.

We also have pickup trucks and tow vehicles and stuff to haul that thing. But gas is usually. What 30 to 40 percent more expensive at the [00:41:00] racetrack. They

Mike Crutchfield: usually have the lowest grade they usually have is 93. And you can guarantee that you can almost guarantee it’s a dollar more per gallon than off track.

It’s almost always exactly a dollar more per gallon than off track.

Crew Chief Eric: The other thing to bear in mind, uh, listeners is do not transport. Full fuel containers from let’s say your house or something like that. Try to get gas closer to the track. Uh, you don’t want to have containers that may potentially spill in the car.

You know, you don’t want to get fumes and breathe that in. And in a lot of States, you can’t transport fuel like that because it’s considered hazmat. So you have to be very careful. A lot of States like New Jersey also becomes extremely difficult because they don’t allow you to pump your own fuel.

Mike Crutchfield: So New Jersey’s law is really confusing.

They are required to pump gasoline if it’s going into a car. They are not required to pump diesel or gasoline into gas tanks. So I had a hilarious [00:42:00] experience where he had to put the nozzle in my car, but then I was also filling up gas tanks. So he goes, okay, you got this and walked away. So nozzle in my car for me to then fill up my tanks.

Crew Chief Eric: Luckily, this is only a problem in New Jersey and in Oregon. Otherwise, the rest of the normal people out there, Pump their own fuel,

Mike Crutchfield: but fill up right before you go to the track so that hopefully you can make it at least two on track sessions before you need to refill and watch that fuel gauge like a hawk.

Crew Chief Eric: And if you have a Miata, you will fill up after your third track weekend. So don’t worry about it. You’re okay.

Crew Chief Brad: Now you may be sitting there thinking, fuel, why do I need to fill up? My car gets 30, 35 miles to the gallon. Not on a racetrack, you’re getting closer to 10. To 10? 10? I’d be lucky if I get 3. These are A, these are A students we’re talking about here.

Oh,

Crew Chief Eric: okay, never mind. Yeah, when you’re really burning that gas off your [00:43:00] chest, yeah, you’re in the single digits. If you, there’s a Top Gear episode where they do the one gallon challenge. If anybody’s hasn’t seen it, I recommend it. Go search for it on YouTube and they show how quickly a gallon of gas is burned in a supercar at wide open throttle.

It’s incredible.

Mike Crutchfield: What is, what is that? A Bugatti burn at top speed? How many gallons per minute? It’s, it’s insane.

Crew Chief Eric: The gas, the gas gauge is a flow meter at that point.

Crew Chief Brad: But anyway, you don’t have to really worry about fuel. Most of the racetracks, I think all the racetracks we’ve been to have fuel on site. So if you get there and you’re, you’re a little low or you come off track and you need to fill up, they’ve got you.

Now you may want to consider bringing an air compressor or befriending somebody who has one that’s coming to the track because not all the tracks that we’ve been to have air, or at least they don’t have it readily available. So if you’re going to be filling up your tires after a track session, you got to be able to, and.

If the track doesn’t have air, you need to have it with you.

Crew Chief Eric: Yeah. And I want to make a recommendation there too. [00:44:00] And if you search the website and look at the GTM holiday shopping guide, I think it was 2018. We first featured the Ryobi cordless 18 volt air compressor, which is actually smaller than a drill.

Cause in the old days, we were all caught carrying around these large air tanks, which, you know, they’re a little sketch when you think about it, you’re like, man, or something. And it’s not, I mean, they’re very thick walled metal and all that, but something portable, something small, something battery powered.

I don’t really recommend cigarette light powered ones anymore because they have a tendency to pop fuses, especially when you run them too long. And it’s just as easy, you know, if you’re a Milwaukee fan or if you’re a, you know, a Bosch or a Ryobi, somebody is going to have cordless power tools. Cause that’s kind of the new standard.

Ryobi was pretty much the first one to market with their cordless air compressor. It’s really, really nice. So if you already have a bunch of yellow power tools in your garage, just get the air compressor on Amazon or look on our website for the link. And it’s like kind of less than 30 bucks and it’ll [00:45:00] save you even at home or on the road or on a long trip.

You just pack it in the car and go. So what’s

Crew Chief Brad: next? What should people bring with them?

Mike Crutchfield: You’re bringing all this stuff with you, even if the weather forecast doesn’t say it, with some of these areas, you need to account for it anyway. So have something you can put all of your things that are sensitive to getting wet in a Rubbermaid container, or at least have a tarp.

Although a tarp is not always the best option when you happen to accidentally park exactly where the river forms in the paddock at some point.

Crew Chief Eric: It makes a really good slip and slide though, so I would definitely bring one.

Crew Chief Brad: That’s one thing we didn’t actually really mention. When you go to the track, you’ve got to empty out your car.

You’ve got to take everything out of your car. So Mike’s suggestion is perfect. You need a Rubbermaid container or something to protect your things from rain. Even if you’ve got a canopy or something like that. Don’t want a container that you can keep your, your things water free.

Mike Crutchfield: If you have a canopy, make sure you have something to attach that canopy down to.

Because we’ve [00:46:00] also had cars get damaged from canopies flying across the paddock.

Crew Chief Eric: It’s like, it looked like a scene from the Wizard of Oz. But, uh, the next thing you really need to bring to the track is a great attitude. You’ve got to check your ego at the door. Let’s be honest. Most of us that get into this sport.

We didn’t start out as a kid cart racing on a private race track in our backyard or whatever it might be. Those folks are already professionals, right? So let’s be a little humble. No one Schumacher or Lewis Hamilton on the first day. And just because you played Forza doesn’t mean you know how to drive at the track.

I’m sorry. It’s probably offensive, but it’s the honest to God truth. And we’ve seen between Mike and I, especially, I mean, we’ve. Seen a lot of different scenarios and a lot of different people. And, and our job as coaches is to make sure a, you’re safe B, you have a good time. And thirdly, that you learn something at the end of the day.

And I guarantee you will learn something, something that you didn’t know before. And coaches still learn. So, Oh yeah, we learned from each other. I mean, it goes, it goes [00:47:00] without saying so come with a happy and positive attitude, a desire to learn a desire to be taught. You know, we’re trained to. To ease you into the criticism.

And I know that, and I’m, I’m, I’m being very careful here because we don’t want to offend anybody, right? And it’s not our job to put anybody down. If you’ve got a coach that is just, just being mean to you, then talk to somebody higher up in the food chain and say, Hey, I need. Somebody different. But our job is to make sure that, like I said, you’re having a good time, but you’re learning something and you will make mistakes in order to learn.

But again, we’re here to catch you. You’re not out there by yourself. You have somebody talking in your ear. And there’s a process we go through. And here at GTM, the coaches have a very particular process that we developed that we use with students in the car. And we’ll go into that in another episode.

But again, Coming with a bad attitude or having a chip on your shoulder makes it difficult, even for the coaches, because it means you’re not receptive to learning. And so it just, the day is just kind of meh at the end of it. So [00:48:00] again, be happy.

Mike Crutchfield: So there’s two things that, that Eric just made me think of.

One, you all seem to show up at the track, knowing how to drive. I had a student who really didn’t know how to drive. Two, if you show up at the track in something with a stick shift, you better know how to drive stick shift. I’ve also had that problem. Those seem like minor oversights, but they’ve happened to me in just the span of like five years.

So just something to keep in mind.

Crew Chief Eric: Yeah. And, and, and if you’re a younger driver, make sure you look into the organization’s policy on minimum age. Some of them are as low as 16. Most of them are 18, 19 years old. There are some disciplines that allow you to drive at 15 with a parent’s consent, which is really weird when you’re on autocross and your mom’s sitting next to you and you’re trying to compete for points.

I mean, whatever, I’ve seen it. But again, consult the organization’s handbook and their guidelines. It’ll usually be on their website just to kind of get a feel for what that means. So Brad, what’s the last thing you need to bring?

Crew Chief Brad: Bring [00:49:00] your friends. You don’t have to be alone. Bring your friends, preferably to drive their own cars, even.

I mean, the more, the merrier, uh, also bring your family. If you are one of those younger drivers, if you’re 16 and you really want to get out there with your 1991 Honda Civic and talk your dad into bringing his, uh. Chevelle or something like that. I don’t know, bring your friends, bring your family. Even if your family don’t want to go out, they don’t want to go out on track.

There’s usually designated times throughout the day where you can take parade laps around the track. It’s low speed, no helmets, no safety stuff required. It’s a fun time to kind of just show people and give them a little taste of what it’s all about. Also, if you want to have somebody go out for a ride, many of the instructors are friendly and nice and they’ll.

Take somebody out for a joy ride for a lap or two. Uh, it usually doesn’t disrupt their day too much unless they’re extremely busy. So yeah, bring people out and show them and share your, you know, passion and enthusiasm with other people.

Crew Chief Eric: I [00:50:00] charge a whopping free 99 for all thrill rides in my vehicles.

Mike Crutchfield: Uh, you said all instructors are friendly and nice.

Have you met Eric?

Crew Chief Eric: It’s like riding with Darth Vader.

Crew Chief Brad: We mentioned the all black before.

Crew Chief Eric: Thank you. Next up is the Cylon red sweeping LEDs. It’s coming. All right. So the day of the event, Brad, let’s kind of walk us through what happens.

Crew Chief Brad: First thing is to find out about the schedule, but you have to get there first.

So you show up to the track, you go through the Usually at the sign of disclaimer at the gate. That’s for the track itself. Meet up at the track registration tent. Many organizations will have it easily identifiable. Um, you go through registration, you, you give them your name. You get the. Whatever their welcome package is, uh, some companies or some of the organizers will give you a free t shirt.

Uh, some of them will just give you your track numbers, whatever, they’ll give you your, your wristband. [00:51:00] Uh, that’s very important. The wristband identifies what run group you’re going to be in. For most of you, you’ll probably have a green wristband for novice.

Crew Chief Eric: I mean, I usually come to the track post rave, you know, with my glow sticks, uh, hopped up on monster and Jaeger.

I mean, is that a good plan for everybody?

Crew Chief Brad: If you come like that, you’re going to have a bad time. I’m joking. I don’t do that. But my point

Crew Chief Eric: is he’s not joking. He’s serious. My point is come to the track. Well rested. You are going to be nervous. You probably will not sleep well the night before. Come rested, have a good breakfast, try to clear your mind.

We all go through it. Even I, after many, many years of doing this, I get the jitters the night before, because I’m, I’m actually overly anxious. I’m overly excited and I have to calm myself down because I’m really looking forward to the weekend. I’m looking forward to the event.

Mike Crutchfield: He’s saying come well rested, but also.

Don’t differ too much from your routine. If you’re someone who normally needs two cups of coffee to wake [00:52:00] up in the morning, and you don’t take that coffee, you’re probably not going to be with it. But if you’re someone who normally doesn’t drink coffee, and you show up to the track with a cup or two in, you’re also probably going to not be in the right state of mind.

So, so be mindful of what your normal routine is to be a generally awake alert state. Because It’s, it’s easy to think, Oh, this is, this is nothing. I’ll be fine. But it really, you want to be you when you first show up. Cause I’ve had a student show up who was just in the wrong state of mind. And that was actually the last event he ever did.

Because he just was not in the right state of mind, got very frustrated, got very angry, and just said, I’m done. And really the only thing that happened there is he didn’t get a good night of sleep, according to his friend. So, you just, you need to be, you need to be ready for that.

Crew Chief Brad: And if your normal routine is to be up and eating breakfast at 9 a.

m. That’s not going to work for you folks. Most of the track events, the driver meeting mean, meaning you’ve got to be registered [00:53:00] and everything else before this and ready to, you’ve got to be at the driver meeting at 8 a. m. So you’ve got to get to the track at least an hour before. I think most of us get to the track hour and a half before two hours before, so come early.

If you show up at eight o’clock, you’re, you’re too late. You’ve already missed it.

Crew Chief Eric: If your, if your session is at the crack of, you know, 10 30 in the morning, don’t show up at 10 20. You’ve missed everything you need to, including your first classroom session, a lot of other things. So to, you know, to Brad’s point, be punctual.

Uh, you know, we, we pride ourselves on. Staying on a schedule. We only have the track for a certain window during the day where it can be active and we don’t wait for anybody. So once the green flag drops, we are active all day long until the final checker, you know, so we’re running from, let’s say eight to six every day.

So it’s very important that you’re there. I know it can be extremely boring. That’s why it’s good to have your friends and your family and something to distract yourself with. But the schedule. Is your go [00:54:00] to that whole weekend and it doesn’t usually deviate unless something catastrophic happens. So if you missed a session that’s on you Nobody’s waiting for you.

Crew Chief Brad: So As a students you’re gonna get both track sessions And classroom sessions. So we’re going to go into now the differences between those two. Both are educational and, and both can be fun depending on who you have for your classroom instructor. But we’ve got Mike now, uh, who has been a classroom instructor many times with Hooked on Driving.

I don’t know if he may have even done it for SCCA once.

Mike Crutchfield: And it varies by organization. Some organizations actually. We’ll cover the essentials only in the morning meeting. And then a student, novice students might be out first and then go to classroom. But most of the organizations I’ve run with, there’ll be the morning meeting where they’ll go over the basics, things like what flags mean when you’re out on track and, you know, basic flow of the event, but then they’ll take all the novice students and put them in a classroom and they will go over that exact same [00:55:00] information again, because your first time at track, it’s complete information overload.

We’ll throw 100 facts at you, and 10 will stick. And then the second classroom session, we’ll throw another 100 facts at you, and 15 will stick. It will feel repetitive, but it’s for a reason. But dammit, I wanna go fast!

Crew Chief Eric: Nothin you have said makes me fast!

Mike Crutchfield: So, so your first classroom session, while you’re still probably half asleep, just because, uh, that’s how it always works, uh, they’re gonna go over things like How to tell someone you want them to pass you, which is usually with a point by or without a club, it’ll be turn signals, pass me on the right hand side by putting your hand out the window and up and over the roof.

So they’ll go over those basics and might even role play how you give a point by they’ll talk about what the different flag stations, where the different flag stations are on the track and what the flags that they will display mean. because as you’re going around the racetrack, you’ll notice that there’s usually all these little gazebos all over the [00:56:00] place.

There’s actually people in those and their job is to keep you safe and to keep everyone else safe. They have different flags that have different meanings and the classroom will go over that. Once they get all the, the, the administrative stuff out of the way and, and the, the basic safety stuff out of the way, various clubs will start going into.

Theory about driving on, on the track and how you need to approach driving on the track. It might be something as basic as where you want to position your car to, to have the best movement across the track. You know, you want to start on the outside of the corner and then you turn in, you’ll learn the terminology like apex and track out.

And as the day progresses, they might start going into more advanced topics such as threshold breaking or, you know, car control for rotation.

Crew Chief Eric: That’s where you start to go fast.

Mike Crutchfield: Your classroom sessions through the day at times might feel very dry. It really is informative. Try to pay as much attention as possible.

Try to get to all your classroom sessions. Some, some [00:57:00] organizations even enforce it, where if you haven’t been at the classroom session, you can’t get back out on track. But don’t be afraid to approach your classroom instructor, classroom instructor, after the fact, if you have questions or concerns, because they are there to teach you, they are there to keep you safe.

They’re there to make sure you learn and make sure you have a good time. So don’t be afraid to ask them. And if you have questions about maybe what your coach said versus what the instructor said, have those conversations, you know, every, everyone who teaches the class and all the organizations I’ve worked with.

They, they’ve all been very receptive to talking to students, clarifying things, and if you ever come across a classroom instructor that is not willing to do those things, Then personally, I would actually suggest going to a different club because that is their job. They’re there to, to keep you safe, to teach you, to, to let you have fun.

And they’re there as you know, you’re their customer at that point when you’re in that classroom,

Crew Chief Eric: it’s what you paid for. It’s what you signed up for at the beginning of this [00:58:00] on motorsport reg, your, your, the whole package, the track experience, the classroom experience, the white glove with the instructor in the right seat with you, you know, everything is part of that.

And, and you hit the nail on the head. It’s Safety is paramount. And I joke about going fast, but at the end of the day, fast will come. There’s so many other things going on that, as Mike said, you’re going to be overloaded. You have to process it. These are not parade laps. These are not, you know, 65 miles an hour down 95 or route one or whatever highway, you know, you’re at.

These are. At speed and we’re going to try to go as quickly as we can within your physical limits and the car’s limits And you’re going to have a good time. So the speed is going to be there It’s going to be like it’s going to be unlike anything you’ve ever done before taking a corner safely at you know, 75 80 miles an hour That’s not something you do on the street.

I mean, do it. Go. You could have tried once, but I’m sure you have a really good story to tell me. It’s, it is about safety. It’s about learning and the speed will [00:59:00] come. That is, that is a guarantee. And every, every driving organization says the same thing. Speed is always the last part of the equation. And for very good reason.

And when you do your first track day, you’ll see.

Crew Chief Brad: So after your first classroom session, It’s time to go out on track with your instructor. Now, before your first classroom session, usually at the all hands meeting at 8 AM, you know, sometimes 7 40 AM, if you’re dealing with certain people at certain clubs, just cause they like me waking people up extra early at the end of the meeting, they’re going to.

Break everybody away. The other, you know, more intermediate people and the advanced are going to go their own way. You’re going to be left there with the instructors. The chief instructor is going to introduce each of the a drivers or each of the novice drivers to their instructor. You’re going to have about 510 minutes or whatever to Go through introductions, talk about your car, be honest with the instructor about your experience and about your car, things you know, things you want to learn, they’re there to help you learn.

[01:00:00] Make sure that they understand kind of what you want to get out of the weekend. But after your classroom session, we’re fast forwarding there. You’re going to meet with your instructor. Again, your instructor is the brave soul willing to get in the car with you, but it’s a high stress and very dangerous situation where they try and teach you all at the same time, keeping you safe.

Uh, as well as themselves, the instructors don’t get paid. They are volunteers. They don’t get paid monetarily. They do at some clubs get free track time. It’s one of the benefits of being an instructor, but I would say 90 percent of the instructors that go to these events do it because they want to. They want to teach.

They want to grow the sport. They’re not doing it just for the free track time. Those guys are usually weeded out within the first year or two of them being instructors. So they’re there. They’re volunteers. They’re there to help you. They want to make sure that you’re safe because if you’re safe, then they’re safe.

Crew Chief Eric: So the other thing I’ll

Crew Chief Brad: say

Crew Chief Eric: about teaching on the track, you know, and you talked about that introduction and being honest with your, your student, being honest with you [01:01:00] as a coach, one of the things that’s really important to understand is you may have watched all the really cool track videos and I’m not going to name any groups of, you know, Oh, this Corvette goes around VIR at this lap time and blah, blah, blah, and all this kind of thing, or maybe you played.

Like me and Brad, we’ve done 10, 000 laps of Roto Lana. Well, guess what? When you get there, it’s a completely different reality. What you don’t get in those videos is the G forces, the speeds, or the elevation. Everything looks flat. And even in a video game that tries to show you Watkins Glenn, if you’ve played Forza seven, just as an example, or iRacing, the true elevation of the boot.

You’re talking 160 foot rise in less than a quarter mile. No video game can, can present that to you. So again, be honest about your experiences and be prepared for something that you’ve never experienced before.

Mike Crutchfield: So I will say worse than Watkins Len is that first time you cross under the bridge at Rhode Atlanta.

Crew Chief Eric: A hundred percent. It was on [01:02:00] your phone off

Mike Crutchfield: a building.

Crew Chief Eric: Again, I’m not joking. I’ve probably done 5, 000 laps at Rhode Atlanta in a simulator, but until I drove it for real, I heard you in the back of my head, look at the paint markers and be prepared. And when you came down the hill the first time, you’re, you felt like you were on a roller coaster.

You had no idea what was on the other side of that hill. I love that track. It was bonkers. I love it. And when are we going back?

Mike Crutchfield: I want to go back. It’s been too long since I’ve been down there. But I do want to add one other thing. The experience of meeting your instructor beforehand and all that is, is not consistent across all clubs.

Some clubs do a round robin style instructor. I’ve instructed many times for summit point at Friday at the track, where their official stance is you just walk down the grid and find a car at that point, just hop in with whoever’s there. The instructors who care the most will walk around the paddock early in the morning and find a student before they even start talking about instructor [01:03:00] assignments, introduce themselves, talk to the student, learn about what the student wants to do, and offer to be their coach for that day, because good coaches want to have a consistent.

Student instructor relationship because you want to grow the experience through the day, and they also want to establish a good working rapport by by putting themselves out there first. So even if you’re at a club with a round robin style instructing method, you know, you might be approached by an instructor.

And if you if you are. Consider that instructor someone you probably want to consider having get in your car with you because they actually care the most.

Crew Chief Brad: In talking about instructors, during the introductory period, you may find that for some reason your personalities clash or you don’t get along or whatever.

Don’t worry about it. You know, it happens. Not everybody’s going to like everybody else. If this happens and you find that you just don’t mesh with your instructor for the betterment of your time and theirs, tell your instructors, like, Hey, I, [01:04:00] I, I think that I, I would be better off with somebody else. They won’t take it to heart.

You know, it’s nothing personal. It’s just, maybe your learning style doesn’t mesh with their teaching style, whatever. They’ll go to the chief instructor. They’ll get somebody else. They’ll shuffle the deck a little bit and we’ll find somebody. That is better suited to your needs because ultimately you’re the customer where the employees were there to, to help you.

So if you don’t click with your instructor, don’t worry about it. It happens. I wish that I had done this before when I was first coming up, I had a couple instructors that were just terrible for me. They weren’t terrible instructors. They were just terrible for me. Uh, and I wish that I had asked for somebody else.

So if, if you feel that you need to ask for somebody else, do it, you’ll both have a better time and it’ll be better in the long run. To add a

Crew Chief Eric: personal story to that as well, I mean, as I was coming up through the system, I had a different background than a lot of people, being in carding, being in autocross, all of the stuff we talked about the very first episode.

I went to an event. I had an instructor [01:05:00] who, as I, as I am now a coach and instructor, I look back and go, you know, that guy was really good with a, what we would call an A student, novice, beginner, green student, you know, all these different colors and acronyms we use for these groups. It wasn’t for me and his teaching style didn’t work for me and I was having a really hard time and I just kind of just swallowed it.

And I was just like, you know, I’m just going to put up with this. I’m going to participate and graduate and move on from this event. And it was just, I had a terrible weekend. And my group leader at that event came to me and said, Hey, you don’t look like you’re having a good time. What’s wrong? He jumped in the car with me and said, show me what you’ve been learning.

And so I showed him what I was being taught. And he’s like, man, this doesn’t work for you. your car, your driving style, anything. And granted, he knew me immediately. He was like, yeah, we had a meeting and he’s like, this really isn’t working out for him, you know, this and that. And they paired me with somebody else.

And that changed my whole perception. And it was, it’s actually kind of funny because it had left. such a [01:06:00] terrible taste in my mouth for a very particular track, and I’m not going to call it out that I almost thought I would never go back to it. And now it’s actually one of the ones I make a pilgrimage there multiple times a year.

So having the right instructor changed my whole attitude with respect to the organization. The event, the track, all of it. So don’t, don’t write it off. There’s always options. You know, there’s, there’s a lot of different instructors out there. Finally, the fun part. We’re going to go fast. We’re going to go fast.

I’m so hold,

Crew Chief Brad: hold on there. Ricky Bobby, hold on. You, you are not Dale jr.

Crew Chief Eric: Yes, you gotta learn the basics, right? And those basics aren’t going to come by you just going out by yourself. Your instructor is in the right seat telling you what to do your first session out. If it’s not an orientation session, which is generally.

Without helmets at lower speed at highway speeds, which is still relatively quick around the track. I mean, let you say you’re averaging 60 miles an hour around the track. When you really get out there the first [01:07:00] time you’re going to have a parrot in your ear. Break here. Turn here. Accelerate now. This and that.

It’s going to be a little bit more wordy than that. We try to keep it concise because on a very busy track, let’s say like summit point Shenandoah. It’s extremely difficult for us to teach. It’s probably one of the most challenging tracks to teach on. And it’s a track they use actually to certify a lot of instructors because 17 turns in two miles.

So it’s busy for everybody, but you go to somewhere like Watkins Glen. I’ve got 11 turns in three and a half miles. I can read war and peace. Between turn two and turn four. I mean, you just got all this straight away to deal with. So it’s a little less stressful. So taking a look at the complexity of the track, if you’re nervous, try to find a track that maybe it’s a little less intimidating right up front summit point.

Main circuit is great. 10 turns, two miles, much more relaxed than Shenandoah. That being said, we got to walk you through it. You’ve got to walk before you run, before you go fast. But the speed will come and it [01:08:00] will come in the sense that you’ll become familiar with the track, you’ll have memorized it, you’ll become consistent.

And once you’ve mastered those three things, those are really the basics, then you can apply speed, then you can go faster. And then also you’ve built a relationship with your instructor at that point. And you can say, Hey, let’s, can we, you know, can we pick up the pace or he’ll push you or whatever it might be to get you to that point where you are moving at a very brisk pace.

You are now no longer giving those point buys. You’re getting those 5s and

Crew Chief Brad: but don’t feel obligated to advance too quickly. If you’re uncomfortable with something, talk to your instructor. Go at your own pace. You’re not out there racing anybody. You may be in a C8 Corvette. You may be getting passed by somebody in a Miata.

That person may have a little bit more experience than you. It’s fine. It doesn’t matter. And you’re not racing for money. There’s no prize at the end of the day. There’s no trophy. None of us, except for Eric or HPDE champions out there. Uh, so I mean, the

Crew Chief Eric: prize, the prize at the end of the day is taking your car home in [01:09:00] one piece and having had a good time and having a lasting memory.

That’s your trophy in HPDE.

Mike Crutchfield: Going back to the 85 year old student I had, I actually instructed both the father, who was 85, and the son. They were doing it kind of as a bucket list thing. And they were both in Mini Cooper S, and we were at Summit Point, Maine. And the son was having a blast, driving really hard, driving as hard as he could.

He quickly ramped up and was The father was more timid. Because the father was doing it as, as just a bucket list thing. Like, you know, someone might want to jump out of an airplane just once in their life. You might show up and find it’s not for you, but I still strongly encourage you to try and make it through the day because he never went above highway speeds on the front stretch, but he still had fun and he still learned things.

So don’t, don’t feel bad if you aren’t comfortable going at, at flat out speed, keeping your foot all the way down to the gas pedal at the last second. Try and, at that point, transform it into something that [01:10:00] is useful and still is fun. You know, let yourself be slowed down to just be able to enjoy it and learn some things.

If you feel like your coach is pushing you too fast and you aren’t comfortable, Just say something, he’ll let you slow down. We always act as the voice of reason when we feel like you’re going too fast. And so we might even tell you to go faster. Cause we, we, we know we’re comfortable with you going faster, but if you weren’t comfortable with going that speed, say something, it’s perfectly fine to back off a bit and drive slower, especially as a novice, especially your first time out, because ultimately you’re there for your enjoyment.

And

Crew Chief Eric: instructors get this really cool tool over the years. A lot of people call it a sphinctometer. It’s used to, it’s used as a butt dyno. It’s also used to feel the car. We do some sensory exercises sometimes where it’s like you’re in the right seat with another instructor. Close your eyes to really develop, you know, to really refine that tool.

And we sense a lot of [01:11:00] things. We know things. Things are coming before even the driver realizes a half the time. So again, we’re there as your safety net. We’re there to help you. We’ve been through a lot. I mean, if you listen to episode number two of the podcast, not only have we broken stuff, but we’ve been in some, some interesting situations as coaches, you know, in the right seat with other students that they’re, they’re life lessons for us as well, and we want to.

You know, we’ve compiled that and we want to share that with you guys to make sure that you have a good time and that you’re safe and that you come back again. And with that, there is a natural progression to this sport. And that’s the other thing I want to point out. This isn’t just driving, right? So don’t approach it as I’m just going for a drive around a piece of asphalt on the side of a mountain.

This is a sport. It’s motor sport, right? And DE is the entry, the gateway into other disciplines and other variants of circuit racing, be it club racing, be it time trials, whatever your aspirations might be. Maybe it’s formula one or group B like me. Some

Crew Chief Brad: people stop at DE.

Crew Chief Eric: Oh yeah, some people stop at Dean, that’s true.

Crew Chief Brad: But at the end of the day, don’t worry about what other people on track are [01:12:00] doing. Yes, you’re going to learn a lot of situational awareness. Um, you’re going to learn to recognize the cars coming up behind you, uh, and your instructors should be paying attention and helping you. Manage traffic. If you aren’t having that, if you aren’t doing that well of it yourself, if you’re not doing that well at any of this stuff, don’t worry about it.

It’s your first time out. You’re going to learn the skills and the experience will come. Just stick with it more times than not. A lot of people come for some reason they have a bad experience. They don’t come back. That’s not what we want. We want to grow the sport. We want more people to come because the more people that are there, the more fun we have.

I mean, that’s that’s why G. T. M. Is The way it is because everybody likes going to the track with their friends and with other people. It just makes things that much better. So don’t worry about it. If you’re, if you’re not Ricky Bobby the first time out, you’ll, you’ll get there. You’ll get there eventually.

And then the last thing in between your sessions. I mean, just because you’ve gone out on track a couple of times, you’ve got your classroom sessions and everything. You want to take some time to rest. You want to speak with your [01:13:00] instructor, debrief about everything that you’ve learned. If you’ve got questions for them, ask them, just have a conversation with your instructor, talk about the car and make sure the car’s got plenty of fuel in it.

After your sessions, some of our coaches even have gone out and. Ran out of fuel on track. It’s very embarrassing, but it happens. It happens to the best of us. If it happens to you, it’s not the end of the day. You’ll get ribbed a little bit for it, but whatever, who cares? Make sure that you’re fueled up, drink plenty and plenty of water and make sure that you’re eating throughout the day.

If you’re not going to the bathroom every hour, then you’re. You’re not drinking enough water. You’ve got to make sure that you’re drinking. It’s usually all these events are usually during the summer when it’s hot out, you are going to be dehydrated very quickly. If you’re not taking care of yourself and then check on the car and make sure that it’s higher pressure is good to make sure that your brake pad, your brake wear is good.

Check your oil levels and your coolant levels. When the car is cool, don’t touch your, your wheels when they’re hot. When you first get off track, you can touch the tires, check the tire pressure, but don’t torque your wheels or anything, or you may [01:14:00] break a stud. But check on your car, check on yourself, uh, and just make sure that you’re, you’re good to go.

Crew Chief Eric: So that’s it. Those are our tips. That’s really a summary of how your first track day would go. Obviously there’s a corresponding article with this. So you don’t have to try to remember. Everything that we said, you know, go to our website, www. gtmotorsparks. org. And you can do a quick search for the word noob, N O O B.

And this article will come up. It corresponds directly with the podcast and you can revisit everything that we talked about here, but just bear in mind, obviously there’s going to be some subtle differences. between clubs, between driving organizations that you run with, but don’t fret. Most of them operate the same way, but the most important thing to remember is to have fun and be safe and try to make some new friends because the longer you’re in this, you’re going to see a lot of the same people.

It is a small community. We do want it to grow, you know, when it comes down to it. And before we sign off this week, a couple of shout outs. This one in particular goes to the Chivalry family. We’re sorry to hear that Chris, son of [01:15:00] member Nick, is in the hospital after a motorcycle accident. And Chris, if you’re out there listening, we really appreciate you tuning in every week.

And we hope that we’re helping with your speedy recovery. And we look forward to seeing you again out in an event sometime soon. So get well. In addition to that, a quick shout out to the Novak family for becoming a Patreon member this month, as well as Racer Ron, also known as Uncle Sparky. Thank you again for contributing and continuing to support GTM and everything we do.

Hey listeners, did you enjoy this particular episode? Did you know you can learn more about what we just talked about by visiting the GTM website? If you want to learn more or just review the materials from this episode, be sure to log on to www. gtmotorsports. org today and search for this particular episode.

From all of us at GTM. Never stop learning.

Crew Chief Brad: If you like what you heard and want to [01:16:00] 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 the 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 GT motor sports, or visit our website and click in the top right corner on the support and donate to learn how you can [01:17:00] help.

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