Trackday/Race tuition and coaching

[hazd31]

Obviously there is a market out there for driver tuition.

You pay a few hundred pounds; drive a Ferrari for 2 laps with an instructor sitting next to you.
However this is almost useless, not enough time to actually teach a driver, just enough to keep them on the circuit.

I was wondering about day rates, or hourly rates you would be willing to pay for a fully qualified friendly instructor that could guarantee you to go faster and be a better driver.

Also car prep and rental, do you think there is a market for that, i.e. you turn up pay x amount of pounds to drive a rented prepared and safe 'e36 m3'

Any thoughts would be much appreciated!

[George_Of_The_Jungle]

lots of people do the training, and 'rent a seat' deals. There is a huge market for it as well, as many rich people want to race but not have to prep or run the car.

The biggest selling point will be to make a name for your self. This can only be done by winning races. Either your self racing, or some one else racing your car.

This is the sort of thing that I will be doing a few years down the line, after I have created a name for my self.

[harry_p]

it's already done!

most trackday organisers will have an instructor on hand who you can hire for 20mins at a time for a pretty reasonable price. several also do car hire, i know bookatrack used to have their own caterhams. pay in advance, turn up, thrash their car all day long, go home.

i'm sure other places do it with a range of different types of car too.

[Brian28]

Rates I've looked at for driver coaching are from around £250 to £650 a day in your own car. Very mixed and competitive market out there. Drivers after race driver coaching would likely want to be in their own race car, people after instruction in the M3 may well be more the "red letter day" type experience end of the market.

Personally, what I'd spend would depend very much on the ability and experience of the instructor, and how good they are at instructing (as opposed to how good they are at driving quickly). Good experience of race podiums in different types of car, to show that they can "walk the walk" so not just somebody who has done a few track days and read a few books, or is a one make specialist. I'd want somebody who can do a lap in my car at least 3 seconds quicker than I can, as due to a lack of natural ability I'm unlikely to pick up more than 40% of how you are doing it, if I'm 1/1.5 seconds quicker at the end of the day that's a good result.

Would also want to dig into the "fully qualified" a bit more. May be ARDS qualified, qualified teacher/trainer, qualified by graduating from the track day school of life/school of hard knocks ( ) etc etc. (I'm a self employed/freelance trainer so get a bit sniffy about training/instructing skills )

I'd be interested definitely if there is a guarentee of better lap times, usually the cheapest way to go faster. I'd need to spend a couple of grand minimum on the car to be two seconds a lap quicker, if you can achieve that for a small fraction of the price I'm in (Seriously, PM me if it goes ahead)

It may be difficult to make costs stack up for Joe Public in the M3 as people don't always compare like with like. You would need to charge a fair bit to cover wear and tear, brakes, tyres, petrol as well as professional indemnity/public liability insurance etc, the big players would always make you look expensive due to economies of scale. For Joe Public its a choice between your M3 on a track day with instruction for ?8/900 compared to driving a Lotus or Ferrari or whatever exotica around Thruxton for a half day for £400 or so, most would opt for Thruxton. (Even if most of the time isn't actually spent on track and your M3 would be much better value for money)

Cheers, good luck with it if it takes off

Brian

[rix313]

My local track day organiser offers an instructor for £25 for 20minutes of tuition. I know one of the instructors and he's offered me £100 for a full day or £50 for a half day.

Best thing I can say is be helpful and freindly ( a given I know but all the same ). I've met a few race instructors who think the sun shines out of their arse.

[hazd31]

great imput!!

The name is out there, I have been racing karts at national level for many years and europe the last few, will be hopefully stepping into a formula ford of some sort on a very tight budget, basically would use this to raise my funds for racing!

I was thinking day rates of £150-300 ish Not only will i have an ards liscence (which a lot of people have) but a btec and level 2 nvq in motorsport instructing (which less than 20 people will have at the end of the year)

Some of the kids on my course already instruct, they can drive the race car daddy pays for very well, but have no people skills, and you would not be best pleased with the experience, no names but one is on the autosport driver award thing, yes he can drive but that is about it!

[thebigfella]

have a look at these guys im sitting my ards next month and have booket a bit extra tuition with them ,www.bmwracedays.co.uk

[RPM]

If your building a car to teach in, then build a car that the people you are teaching can race.

Build it to a series regulations, that way you can double your rental potential with the same customer base.

ie build a PBMW/TTRS spec car, teach people in it and then rent it to them to race. There are a number of companies already doing this in a PBMW spec car but there is a very high demand for rental cars and novices. bmwracedays being the latest to jump on that wagon, RAW motorsport do this, as do Markey motorsport to mention a couple.

So I'd probably advise not trying that one, but an E36 M3 built to a tame spec could cross many series- TTRS, CTCRC, Sports and saloons etc etc

As said though if you chose to specialise you will need some results to back you up, RAW and Markey do so well with PBMW drivers/renters as the guys also race/d in the series and bought in the results.

[Bristol_Jer]

My local track day organiser offers an instructor for £25 for 20minutes of tuition. I know one of the instructors and he's offered me £100 for a full day or £50 for a half day.

Is this at Combe?