That's why events like the DaSilva days at TMP are a great place for people to get their feet wet giving this a go for a pretty reasonable price. No membership of any kind required, you pay the entry fee, and show up with a vehicle in ready condition and the proper attitude. Any private group that puts on a lapping day is free to create and enforce their own rules, which I certainly agree with especially at a dangerous circuit like Mosport. You are speculating about the ego and attitude of people that you've never met ... I'm not saying that I haven't come across ones like that, it certainly happens. Once you have done a sufficient number of track days to consider attending a lapping event at the Mosport GP (which should be at least half a dozen if not more), you and people that have ridden with you will have a pretty good gauge of your competency. Then it won't be a roll of the dice as to whether or not you're going to be allowed to run at an event after getting checked out. The event organizers are always looking for repeat customers, they are not going to let their instructors send people home for trivial reasons.
Having been involved with circuit racing and instructing for almost 30 years now, I am reasonably experienced and competent, but certainly don't consider myself an expert,. I'll give you an example of why people need to be checked out before being allowed to run in an advanced lapping group. Two summers ago I was assisting at an event run as its own deal by some people who were affiliated with the BMW Trillium club. Two students that I got paired with, one advanced and one intermediate, were sharing the intermediate student's late model BMW M5. Neither of them had ever driven the GP circuit before, but had some previous lapping experience. The organizers' criteria for putting him in the advanced guy in that group was that he had been to the Nurburgring.
It was raining pretty steady all day, and in the first session with the "advanced" driver he decided that even though he'd never driven this circuit, he was going to push his friend's very fast and capable car to the point where the electronic aids were intervening multiple times per lap. He did slow down a bit after being repeatedly admonished, but this behaviour continued throughout the day. I told the chief instructor that he should be in intermediate, and the car owner who was already in that group should be in with the novices, because he was struggling, but they encouraged me to keep working with them in their current groups. Compounding the problem was their scheduling for the sessions, after lunch they were combining the novice and intermediate groups so if we had moved these guys as I was asking for, they would no longer be able to share the car that day and get all of their sessions.
Finally by mid-afternoon and the advanced guy still not heeding my direction to slow down (he did have some decent skills, but he didn't realize how much the car was intervening and saving his ass), I told the chief instructor to pair someone else with him because I did not feel like being in a crash that day. As I've got past 50 yrs old my self-preservation instincts kick in at a lower threshold, especially at Mosport. If I had been the chief person that day, I would have been telling this person that he either slowed down, or be sent home. He is an example of someone who claimed to have adequate experience, but should not have been in the group that he was ... partially the organizers' fault there as well to suit their scheduling with him sharing the car. Sure he'd been at the Nurburgring, but unless he mastered it while he was there, it's not really much help on a rainy day at Mosport.
Driving quickly on a race track with others around you is NEVER to be taken lightly. In almost all cases the people organizing these types of lapping events and schools have a pretty solid background and track experience. These are first world problems when you boil it down ... if you feel that you can do a better job cheaper running an event, then by all means get a group of participants together and rent a day at the track!!
/ RANT OFF
Likes: 
Reply With Quote
Originally Posted by hammerhead
