Anyone on here do car trackdays?
 

If so what's yer weapon of choice?

I'd be interested to know if on the same track you lap faster in the car or on a bike. If you have done the same track on bike and car please say which make/model of bike & Car.

Ray.

PS the idea is not to pour petrol on the bike versus car flame war!! just curious, to quote Mr W.

Without doubt matey I'd use the family Volvo S80 that would frighten the carp out of all and sundry!!!!!!!!!:D

lotus elise at Spa - last year, would scare the pants off me on a bike, but hey thats worth a go. The track is phenomenal, spun the elise 3 times in the day as it was the slowest out there - went with a bunch of porsche and BMW M3's - so had to reeeaaalyy push in the corners. Spinning at the top of eau rouge (about 95mph) was interesting to say the least. If you get the chance Spa is fantastic - you can see why people(racers) rate it so highly.

*ding*

I have a modified Lotus Elise Sport 160 just for track days. It runs cut slicks and 400/500lbs springs on 2-way Racing Dynamics dampers plus race brakes, geo and harnesses. I do a lot of UK and European track days including Spa (7 visits), Nurburgring (5), Zandvoort, Folembray, Croix, Silverstone, Snett, Cadwell, Oulton, Goodwood, Brands, Donny etc...

The only time I have compared performance is at the ring where the car is *much* faster round the corners (by a huge margin) but get murdered on the straights.

I will also be racing a BMW in the UK Kumho series this year. The BMW is 5 seconds slower a lap round Brands (55 secs in the Lotus, 1 min in the BMW).

I would say it would take a fast bike and a good rider who knows the circuit well to lap quicker on a bike than the Lotus.

ps. Misterpink: are you a member of SELOC?

If you look at club racing times for motorbikes around Brands Indy, you'll see that any half decent club racers is under the 55 second mark, even on a 250!

So - a half decent club racer on a 250 race bike

That would be a fast bike, good rider with a knowledge of the circuit then ?

Not necessarily, depends on your point of reference. If you're doing car track days in a tricked up Lotus, I'd imagine your point of reference is quite advanced.

As Ray said, not looking to spark a bike vs car debate.

But to help you, I did Brands on my very first time at a track day on my 748S, after having only owned the bike for 4 months, and I still managed to get round in 1min 2 secs or so. That was an early session too, before I got to know the circuit. Not trying to show off, just disagree with Martin Dower's last point. S'all. :D

55 secs dower?????? in your car???
I'd expect better than that.:frog:

Either way, most/all trackdays the companies are not insured for people to be timing their laps so this is all guess work i'd imagine.

oh no I get it
1 elephant 2 elephant 3 elephant 4 elephant 5 elephant.........54 elephant 55 elep

Or a mate with a stopwatch on his mobile phone.... :P

The lap times of racers on circuits are not really what I'm interested in. You just end up with the motoGP bike V F1 car, no contest,

Just road bike and road car comparison with the same person at the controls.

e.g. road going elise V CBr 600, Evo V 998, or what have you


Hmmmmmmmmmm is that circuit beacon on??

Ray.

Never ridden a bike on track....yet

But it took me between 49 and 50 secs in an r500 to do BH indy
58 secs in a standard elise
45 minutes to walk it!!!!!

HTH

Martin - yep SELOC member too, mine was a standard elise so was even harder to keep up at Spa - getting onto the straight after eau rouge at a fast pace was the key and that started from a good exit from the bus stop, the back half with the sweeping corners was where i could start to get back the disadavantage. obviously a 160 sport(or better, sounds like a nice motor!)) would be a huge improvement. learnt a heap about car control that day - just like bike trackdays - still learning as bikes require more subtlety.

lol Alistair, didn't know you frequented this place :D

Timing at track days is restricted for some reason I can't unplug my DL1 so it seems to record GPS data....etc...

Not sparking a "what is quicker round a track" fight - I am a biker first and a car racer second. A club racer beating 55 seconds is doing that on full slicks, full race Elise versions are knocking on the door of 45 seconds round Indy. Also 1 min 2 secs is 10% slower than 55 seconds (approx) so the bike would get lapped by the car every 8 laps and knocking 7 seconds of your time is actually quite hard to do.

if you are talking standard cars vs bikes then it depends on what you call a standard car. Remember that a well set up Elise driven with commitment will catch a Porky GT3 driven by a less-committed driver. My Lotus is road legal aswell so still counts as being a road car, albeit somewhat track focussed.

Surely some of the track day regulars can post times at Brands Indy. All I was saying was that at the 'Ring only very rarely does a bike go past me and I tend to get seriously held up by the bikes. I remember vividly last year following a bike (Blade I think) into a turn and he had his knee down and was trailing sparks and I was not travelling at maximum speed so could have cornered faster etc...

I can do sub 55's on Rennsports. In club racing terms, I'd get slaughtered.

Excellent. So bikes are quicker round Brands than cars. I did hope so. Wonder why they seem slower at the 'ring then?

Martin.

The Elise has allways been rated as one of the best handling cars and a track prepped one is going to be better still I assume. A fairer comparison with a bike would be with something like one of the road 250,s 400's, bikes which, like the Lotus go for light weight and excelent handling over power and speed. One of these will also easily out corner a 'blade, and if sorted for the track, by quite a margin. A well prepared 250/400 road bike can turn in very impressive lap times around a tight track like Brands Indy in much the same way the Lotus beats faster, more powerful cars.

Who said they were quicker? It obviously all comes down to driver/rider ability and the type of circuit.

i had the chance to take my e46 m3 cab around cadwell last summer, but it was already 500miles over its service indicator and thought it wouldn't be a good idea until i got serviced, then i binned it a while after that!

i hope to track my next car!:eureka: