TRACKDAYS

(OR HOW TO KEEP SANE WHEN YOU HAVEN'T DONE ANY RALLYING FOR A FEW YEARS! )

   I first got involved with Trackdays back in 2002 when Peter White and I were competing in the National Tarmac Championship in a Honda Civic Vti. My mate Dave Nicholls and I did a Trackday at Ty Croes, which was a bit weird just going around the circuit without turning off onto the rough tracks!

   We had a great time and spent most of the day altering the suspension settings on the Civic, whilst chasing Lotuses - ending up with a much improved tarmac setup ; although we also managed to blow up the engine (which was getting tired and needed replacing anyway!) Along with the newly devised suspension setup and new (Scrapyard!) engine we then went on to win the National Tarmac Championship F2 class on our next rally which was also the last event of the 2002 season.

   And that was it for rallying for the next few years , except for co-driving on a few events; until I got my Astra out of hibernation and did a couple of ANWCC events in 2004, before having to "retire" again. By the middle of 2005 I was really missing the buzz again and since I wasn't able to rally any more decided to turn my old unused Honda Civic road car into a trackday car (with the help of my mate Dave Nicholls).

   Although you can run any car on road tyres on trackdays; if you want to run slicks -and who doesn't! - (especially if you've still got them mounted up on Civic wheels) you have to have a roll cage fitted. With this in mind we set to work stripping out all the un-necessary bits from the car and fitted an OMP bolt in cage / the safety harnesses from my Astra and some second hand bucket seats from Ebay.

    Next on the list was some uprated springs (dampers previously fitted to the car) tubular exhaust manifold ,de-cat pipe and uprated camshaft (isn't Ebay great!). Closely followed by a Scap yard big front disc conversion and some

competition brake pads. We then went and did a trackday at Oulton Park which was brilliant and had great fun trying to improve on / beat each other's best laps. During this trackday we both decided to get some driving instruction in the Civic; which was really eye opening! It's amazing how quickly you can go around the track without seeming to have to push / drive that hard. The mistake we were making was treating the circuit like a rally stage and arriving at a corner braking very heavily and at the last minute, whilst trying to turn the car into the bend. What you should do is brake early / lightly and feed the car into the turn carrying the speed through the corner. You wouldn't believe how much easier it is to turn the car into the corner with the few tips the instructor gave us - Best £20 I ever spent!

    Following on from this I've continued doing trackdays over the last few years while further developing / improving the car (and driver!). Several different mates and relatives have come on the various track days and we've all have had a great time - so far without hitting anything - although I've been off the track several times (especially Anglesey one winter!)

    There are several different trackday providers about with costs ranging from £150 - £250 at local circuits like Anglesey / Oulton Park throughout the year, with some companies charging for 2nd drivers and some not.

    With careful time management on the day its easily possible to do about 250+ miles around somewhere like Oulton Park ; which makes it excellent value compared to stage rallying ;especially if you split the cost between drivers. Ok you don't get the same ultimate buzz from it as you do when competing, but as far as I'm concerned you can't beat it for cost / milage / lack of hassle (are you reading this MSA!).

   And it definitely beats sitting around at home doing nothing!

Rob Edwards