Thinking About Your First Track Day? Read This First.

*Media provided by Rich Sainato, MotorSportMedia*

Written by Rohan Nair

For more than a decade I wanted to drive my own car at speed on a track. As someone who loves all things automotive, being on track was like the final frontier for me. No amount of backroad carving or (arguably) hours in the sim could have prepared me for the exhilarating experience I had this past January. I didn’t have big expectations for my first track day though. I wanted to have the right mindset going in to it. I knew I wasn’t going to be Lewis Hamilton setting purples in Singapore. I just wanted to have fun, push the limits of the car, and learn how to properly drive in a performance setting.

The car I’d be taking to the track? My daily, a 2019 BMW 330i. Bought in 2021, this specific car was a part of BMW North America’s marketing fleet at launch. From the factory it made a respectable 250hp, had near 50/50 weight distribution, and came with lots of M-Sport goodies like an LSD and bigger brakes.

Over the years, with some DIY and help from the shop, I increased the car’s horsepower to around 320. As the event approached, BPC took some time to understand what I wanted out of the track day and got me prepped. No track specific alignments or 200TW tires for my first go. The goal was to keep costs low and get a feel for the car as is, without a massive amount of track oriented modifications. BPC ensured the car was safe and mechanically sound and that I had plenty of life in all of my consumables to make it through a weekend of high performance driving. When it came time for this track day, I was ready to experience what it truly meant to drive the ultimate driving machine.

Outside of car prep I honestly didn’t worry about too much. I made sure I had good track insurance that not only covered me and my car but damage to the track which gave me peace of mind to push my daily. I loaded up on waters and snacks and blew the dust off my helmet and lawn chair. I got paired with a great coach, a seasoned Miata driver that knew his way around tracks in the southeast. We talked about goals, what to expect out of my specific car, and my overall desire for self improvement, session over session.

The weekend I had been waiting for was finally here and it was…. cold, gloomy, and wet. At first I was honestly a little disappointed. In my mind I thought these conditions meant I wouldn’t be able to push as hard as I’d wanted to. My first classroom session quickly eliminated those concerns. It was a whirlwind from there. The amount of information being thrown at you from 8am to 5pm is something you can’t prepare for. There was a moment at the start of my first session when the car was idling on grid, my helmet was on , and my instructor was sitting by me, where the whole reality of the day hit me. Do I actually have what it takes? Am I going to be an embarrassment? This is real, the speed is real, the walls are real, there is no reset button. And then the visor went down and we all started to move.

All of a sudden all those thoughts were drowned out and I focused on my instructor’s voice, the racing line, and my surroundings. My grip was tight, my breath was heavy, and I was zoned in on the road right in front of me. All of the wrong things. But it was a start and I was properly moving through my first session. My instructor largely observed what I was doing and not doing, providing guidance on braking points and turn in points. My lines were decent but I was being cautious and he encouraged me to keep pushing.

This was one of the major take aways from the weekend. If applied correctly the car had so much grip. Learning about the camber of the road, weight transfer, and contact patches were very helpful in understanding how much I could push. Using the throttle to rotate the car around a corner was another take away. Going down one of the straights and braking into ABS was eye opening for me seeing how much the car could handle before the computer stepped in. Something that was repeated throughout the weekend was loose grip and soft eyes and that really helped remind me to loosen up and look up ahead so my brain could process the next corner faster.

I started the weekend in the mid to high 1:5x’s, I think a 1:55 to be exact. I’m not going to lie, the feeling of getting a point by from cars worth twice mine and with 100+ more horsepower was intoxicating. Momentum was the name of the game and by the end of the weekend I shaved 2 seconds off my start time. What was once a dream finally became reality and I took home a wealth of information. It’s safe to say the big definitely bit me and since then I’ve already done autocross events and am planning my next track day.