Hi Peter
yes...I’ve been to about 5 TNIA and was at the very first TTN “trial” at CMP. You are correct, no disaster and people had fun. However, I HAVE seen a lot of totaled street cars with beginners driving that could have been avoided with an instructor. (Mostly at Charlotte Motor Speedway) . I won’t get into the rest of what I’ve seen for liability purposes, but in my opinion, it’s not a matter of if, but when, something serious will happen.

look, I applaud SCCA for getting more people on track. But track driving is not autocross, and that’s who they are marketing to for the new TT program: autocrossers. I’ve instructed a lot of autocrossers in the past and they have all needed to be broken of certain autocross habits when on track... but with no real instruction, they’ll never get better.

But as I said...I’ve seen too many serious incidents on track to not take it seriously (heck, I rolled our race car before it was a race car at Limerock in a DE...2.0 liter/4 cyl stock bodied 914 caught a tire wrong, spun, and rolled. Good thing I had a roll cage, race seats and harnesses. Crushed the A pillar and bent the cage but saved me. S**t happens and safety equipment can minimize the seriousness of the outcome.

Bob,

How much longer are we going to get people to sit right seat and instruct in the future. I quit as it wasn’t worth the risk anymore. I had a friend seriously injured at RR and another came very close at RR, also at turn 1into the trees. We all know about the CMP and Summit Point incidents.

I applaud SCCA for their Experiental Programs and trying to bring the SCCA Q Tips into the 21st century, yes I’m a Q Tip. Hayward and crew have put a lot of thought into the programs, they are able to make needed adjustments on the fly. The whole idea around TNIA and their TT program is not to make them serious business by keeping it low key and friendly to people of all skill levels.



Peter

A 200mph+ crash is no joke. We have to remember that energy goes up as the square of velocity.

216mph in a 3000lb car = 6.4 MJ
140 mph in a 3000lb car = 2.6 MJ

In the example above, while only 54% faster, the 216mph car has 146% more energy to dissipate in a crash. Think about that for a sec. the 216mph car can have a glancing blow that only dissipates 50% of it’s energy, and it will still be worse than the 140mph car driving head on into a brick wall.

Yup, I had a Green student last week at Road Atlanta with a 770 HP Rausch Mustang, who said, “Let’s see what this baby will do.” He had two track days. We did 168 on the back straight and 35 through 10AB. Wouldn’t listen. Rejected instruction. Organizers wouldn’t respond because of an instructor shortage. I packed and left. The alarm bells were sounding.

Good for you. I would’ve done same.

I had a new student two weeks ago in an 800hp Hennessy GT350 Mustang (like a regular GT350 isn’t fast enough, lol!). I made him turn off all nannies on the very first session. He was instantly sideways going onto the main straight the very first lap and into the mud. From that point on, he was very respectful of his cars’ power and don’t think we went over 100mph the rest of the day.

The insurance question is always a good wake up call. They rarely have track insurance and once they learn their regular auto insurance won’t cover a race track they back down a bit. I had a Audi TT with 720 HP on a tight technical track, on the second lap he exited Turn 2 and did a 180. While the spin was harmless with no one was around us I immediately asked about his track insurance... that he didn’t have. We pitted and he turned down the boost.