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SCCA's Low Cost, No Instructors, No Hassle Track Night in America

We take on the SCCA's radical experiment—a new, inexpensive take on the traditional trackday experience
By Jack Baruth

It's more ironic than anything Alanis Morrissette ever sang about, really: The open-trackday scene as we know it today is almost entirely the product of organizations formed in response—make that rebellion—against the SCCA. Dozens of groups, from Chin Motorsports to TrackDAZE to the 800-pound gorilla of High Performance Driver Education, NASA, were formed by people who wanted to drive their street cars on racetracks instead of following the SCCA's cautious safety and equipment guidelines. But as the years have gone by, those organizations have been forced to adopt an increasingly strict series of rules themselves, due in no small part to several instructor deaths and enough crunched metal to fill a Houston junkyard.

In the meantime, the SCCA has become vaguely aware of open-lapping's tremendous popularity, in much the same way that a Brontosaurus will eventually become aware of a Velociraptor biting its tail. Which led, in classic SCCA fashion, to the appointment of an SCCA Director of Experiential Programs. Now that there's a director, it's time for an Experimental Program. That program is called "Track Night in America", and it's a radical rethinking of the traditional trackday.

SCCA



Think of Track Night as a major-label band tour. It's crossing the country and hitting all the best venues, from Atlanta Motorsports Park to Portland International Raceway, with plenty of racetracks in between. Thanks to support from the Tire Rack and an FIA Sport Grant Program, the cost is the lowest I've seen in years: $150, even for tracks that normally charge $350 or more for a single day on course. The program is simple: you get three twenty-minute sessions plus one free parade-lap session in the course of an evening.
The most interesting thing about Track Night In America, however, is this: there is no in-car instruction. Nearly every trackday organization in the country offers a comprehensive (and usually mandatory) program of in-car coaching for novice drivers. The SCCA, on the other hand, does paced laps for the first beginner session of the evening. After that, you're on your own, subject to some simple rules for passing and on-track behavior.

Charley Willis

Can this really work? Can the SCCA turn people loose on racetracks in their own cars with just a lead-follow session under their belts? To find out, we took a couple of cars—a Corvette and a Fiesta ST—to the Track Night at the new Corvette Motorsports Park. We also took a few novice drivers with no track experience.
While most of the novices were obviously terrified before their first session, the slow pace of the lead-follow session gave all of them a chance to adjust. The second session featured a few spinouts but no crunched fenders or hurt feelings. Failure to yield to faster traffic was punished by aggressive "black flagging", a procedure by which wayward drivers are brought to pit lane for a brief chat with the SCCA stewards. We were black flagged once ourselves, even though we were in the "Advanced" group, for pitching a car off the end of one turn in a fit of late-braking enthusiasm.

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SCCA

A survey of the participants showed a wide variety of cars and drivers, from the GT-R pilot who had been racing motorcycles for ten years but had never put a car on a track to the sixty-something Cayman driver who had turned in his SCCA license years ago but wanted a low-speed introduction to this particular course. None of the novice drivers with whom we spoke expressed any regret that they weren't receiving in-car instruction. More than a few of them expressed additional confidence that "the SCCA wouldn't let anything bad happen," proof positive that the club's brand still commands respect despite its relatively low profile among the fast-and-furious crowd.
My previous experience with the SCCA, both as a National Solo autocrosser and as a club racer trying to get my NASA and Grand-Am licenses honored for an Improved Touring race, has been that the organization just loves to operate by the letter of the regulations. It's important to remember that while NASA is a for-profit corporation, the SCCA is a club, and it's clubby. Not everyone is welcome in the club. For years, you couldn't even attend an SCCA race as a spectator unless you were listed as someone's crewmember.

SCCA

The Track Night crew doesn't work like that. Every driver who arrived received personalized attention from the staff. Although the folks at Corvette Motorsports Park had multiple SCCA National titles to their credit, everyone was friendly and determined to make each driver's experience pleasant and safe. At the end of the night, the staff walked around to make sure that everyone was satisfied.
We certainly were, and we'll make sure to hit up a few more Track Nights this year. It doesn't matter if you're a complete novice who has never seen a checkered flag or a track rat looking to add a few more courses to your list. Get out there and try it. The SCCA might be late to the trackday game, but in this case late is much better than never.