Private Track Day @ Buttonwillow (Feb 24)

[rnr]

Event date changed to Feb 24 by Magnus

A friend of mine is organizing a private trackday at Buttonwillow on Feb 24th (Monday)- posting here if other Seven owners would like to join in as well. As of now there are 12 cars signed up including 2 Ultralites (me + another) and 5 Elise/Exige. Sign up before Feb 13th if you'd like to sign in. The organizer is Brian K and you can email him at [email protected].

I've participated in trackdays and/or Lemons races with most of the folks already and it is a good group to share the track with. If you have any questions please contact either Brian or me - it would be great to have Sevens outnumber the other cars on track

We're doing a private track day at Buttonwillow with the goal of keeping car count low and costs down. It will be a track day, not a race, so the standard track day rules apply - passing only in specific zones, run groups with like drivers/cars, helmets required, etc. Helmeted passengers are allowed and everyone will self-tech.You're welcome to bring any car that is capable of safely lapping the track. I expect primarily personal cars with a handful of dedicated track cars.

To try to make things as fair as possible, costs will be broken down as such:
~$3-400* for one car and one driver.Additional drivers are $50 each.Passengers/crew are free.

The $3-400 figure is completely dependent on the number of cars (and extra drivers) that confirm. $300/car assumes just over 20 cars. $400/car assumes 16 cars. It follows, then, that the final cost may be more or less - TBD. As a reminder, no money is being made from this event. Entry fees are covering the cost of the track, track workers, emergency response personnel, and event insurance.

I'd like to structure payment as follows:
- $200 (205.80 if paypal) non-refundable deposit for each car.
- That deposit guarantees a spot for one car and one driver.
- Deadline for entry is February 13th- $50 ($51.45 if you're going to paypal) per additional driver
- This will be fully refundable until February 13th, after which you're locked in.
- Final price will be determined February 13th.
- No more entries accepted after this time.
- All extra drivers must be registered and paid for.
- Final price will be [total fees
- (total deposits + total add'l drivers)] / total cars.

Deposits can be Paypaled to [email protected] or you can deliver payment (made out to "It's BK, LLC") to me in person. Message me for an address if you prefer traditional mail. Again, the deposit is $205.80 via paypal or $200 via check/cash.

[magnusfeuer]

I am so sorry for messing up the formatting of your post when editing the date.

As you probably know, our hosting server was bogged down yesterday, and the editor bombed out when I saved. When I tried to get back in to fix it, the server was just too slow.

/Magnus F.

[rnr]

No worries - thanks for editing the post title.

Any chance you will make it out to the track? So far we have 2 confirmed 7s and a third tentative.

[moosetestbestanden]

Questions:

What kind of medical staff / emergency med tech(s) will they have on-site in the event of unfortunate circumstance?

What happens when someone doesn't abide by "the standard track day rules"?

What does "self-tech" actually mean?

With all due respect, in my opinion, it's better (and actually cheaper) to go out w/ a sanctioning organization with established rules, formal inspections of all vehicles, enforcement mechanisms for bad behavior, and ambulances staffed w/ experienced EMTs.

Lacking the latter, thanks, but no thanks.

[rnr]

What kind of medical staff / emergency med tech(s) will they have on-site in the event of unfortunate circumstance?

From the OP: Entry fees are covering the cost of the track, track workers, emergency response personnel, and event insurance. If you need specifics I'd suggest asking the organizer

What happens when someone doesn't abide by "the standard track day rules"?

You get the boot. They are only signing up people with significant track experience plus folks that are essentially referred by someone else. I posted here as I have actually been on track with several of the SoCal folks at ButtonWillow in the past.

What does "self-tech" actually mean?

With all due respect, in my opinion, it's better (and actually cheaper) to go out w/ a sanctioning organization with established rules, formal inspections of all vehicles, enforcement mechanisms for bad behavior, and ambulances staffed w/ experienced EMTs.

Lacking the latter, thanks, but no thanks.

Are there many SoCal track(not race) groups that have a formal tech process where they inspect the car themselves? I havent seen any in NorCal and am curious how it works - here its alwas self tech where you are given a list of things to check and you basically attest that you or your mechanic have done so. The one time I attended a teched autocross it was quite painful as the inspector had no idea on what or how to inspect the Seven.

And finally we are not doing this for the $$$. You'll get a equivalent track time for a better price at a GGLC event. Its more for having a low car count event at a still affordable price. I do understand you reservations though - its the first time this person is organizing an event and if I didnt know him I probably wouldnt go either

[mca]

Wish I could attend but work/school interferes. Buttonwillow is a great track and well situated for access from both ends of California. It is even better with less traffic!

Please continue to post these track day opportunities, private or not, as I've only been on track with another Seven one time. I would enjoy more company for my lonely Locost.

Aaron

[BrianK]

Hello all,

I am the organizer of the event. I tried to answer questions from this thread early on, but it takes a while to get approved to post on this forum. Fair enough. I also manage a forum & have to deal with spam postings on a daily basis.

For posterity reasons (the event was yesterday), and if an event like this comes up again, here's a very long-winded reply:

What kind of medical staff / emergency med tech(s) will they have on-site in the event of unfortunate circumstance?

While the track will rent the facility to anyone, and while they (Buttonwillow) are somewhat lax in regulations (compared to some other facilities), they require a few key items to be in place before you qualify to hold an event. A professional EMT is one of them. Luckily for those of us organizing such events, they (Buttonwillow) have done this sort of thing before & know who to call to fulfill this requirement. I asked Buttonwillow to contact and hire the EMT staff, which they did. We had 2 EMTs - Cody and Ryan - in a standard fire/rescue truck. In the event of an unfortunate accident, they are equipped to handle the situation and know to escalate to a full ambulance crew if necessary. It is my understanding that there is a regulated maximum response time to get an ambulance to a race track.

Along those same lines, another item required for track rental is an umbrella insurance policy.

What happens when someone doesn't abide by "the standard track day rules"?

When you rent the track, you specify the type of event that you will be holding. The type of the event determines the type of insurance required to hold that event. If someone were operating outside of the guidelines of the event, then the track, itself, would be none too happy. If the organizers allow it to happen, they are ignorant of the risks.

For our event we went with a starter, wrist bands, and tech stickers for race control. If you didn't have a wrist band and tech sticker, you weren't allowed on track. If you were not abiding by the rules, your wrist band and tech sticker would be removed.

Personally, I wasn't too terribly worried about that happening. With exception of this post, the invite to this event was completely private - by referral only. It was allowed to be posted here because, of all people on race tracks around the US, I would expect Caterham drivers to be respectful of the rules and other drivers on track.

What does "self-tech" actually mean?

In our case, it was am itemized check-list that needed to be signed for every car. Going back to the idea that this was a referral-only event, I didn't feel it was necessary to individually scrutinize every car, but wanted to make sure people knew what to look for before heading out on track.

With all due respect, in my opinion, it's better (and actually cheaper) to go out w/ a sanctioning organization with established rules, formal inspections of all vehicles, enforcement mechanisms for bad behavior, and ambulances staffed w/ experienced EMTs.

Completely understood. I wish could have addressed your concerns earlier.

Having said that, it was a really, really great day at Buttonwillow. It was 75 degrees and sunny. The cafe was open and served some amazing breakfast burritos. We had 18 cars registered (17 showed), which gave everyone more track time than they could manage in a day. We started the day off with 2 run groups to get everyone circling the track under yellow for their first few laps & to manage first-laps population (this was the first time several people had run Buttonwillow), then ran open track for the rest of the day. I think we only had to black flag 2 cars the whole day - both very minor issues.
Maybe because of all the extra track time, there were quite a few ride-alongs. I gave 5 people rides, got a ride in an insane Porsche 944T, and drove one other person's car (someone on this board, I believe).

Thanks to those of you who made it! It was great meeting you!

FWIW, I may organize another event like this, though likely not more than 2 a year. This is a special treat - it's a little pricey, but totally worth it, imho. It was also a bit of a pain to organize. ;)

[DaveL]

I was lucky enough to attend this great event, it was will run and well worth the extra couple bucks it cost, I got as much track time 2 normal track days, so when I look at it that way it was "cheaper" . I sure hope this can be done again soon. Thank you Brian for putting it all together, Dave