Thought I would spread the word around a little on this DE. Thanksgiving weekend Tracquest is putting on a DE at Barber Motorsports Park in Birmingham, Al. Two things I like about Tracquest are lots of track time and in the instructor/advanced group no point by required and well you can pass anywhere. Even with those rules I believe he has never had metal to metal. Also his DEs seem to attract some pretty stout cars, Ferrari 360 Modena;race prepped Ferrari F355, Porsche GT3, Lotus Elise; Porsche Turbos, a gaggle of Z06s, some Evos, and even a tube frame Racing Truck! Here is the entry list
http://www.tracquest.com/atten...00411
The price is stout $405 for one day, $700 for two but then Barber is expensive anyhow. Six hours of track time over the two days is a real possibility. I think Tracquest notes at the VIR event last summer entrants could get 8 hours of track time. Whew. There are only two FWDs registered for the whole event with the other being an ITB Suzuki. Should be fun.

For more details go to http://www.tracquest.com

 

$700? Wow. I want to go to Barber, but not that bad

 

I am instructing so I don't take the hit. I did pay for Road Atlanta on a Tracquest event and gots tons of track time.
Barry H.

 

i've been saying for a long time TQ is worth it... but not to most budget minded students/racers. they tend to attract more of the affluent crowd. great atmosphere though, and great group to instruct for. not likely anybody here will sign up. altho i did get get some people for mid-ohio before... and i met shawn (nsx forum mod) through tq @ mid-o. he drove from like NY.

 

Could you explain why the price is so high? I've never heard of Tracquest, and am curious as to what their program is like.

 

well it's a money making biz for Todd Serota. he is a lawyer, has a wine business and also runs TracQuest which have about a 8-10 events a year. the instructors are top notch group and drives for free. awesome track food are provided. and plenty of seat time. 3 run group format so min. of 2.5 hour a way. but you you can move up or down a group, so if you can handle it you can run all day long just about... (altho slow groups are... usually really slow because they're beginners). but int/fast groups are high quality drivers. tq instructors all have intercoms are are work hard with the students. because of the dedication and seat time available, most people progress a lot with tracquest. even wtih high price he gets plenty of repeat guys. and it kind of becomes a tradition for people they just run tq events whenever they can. 1st night everybody brings out the fine wine and everybody dine out (out of pocket). it's a good social event. basically todd's got a niche.

and when you goto the event it's like a car show. plenty of cool hardwares. 360, 355, lots of e46 m3's, bunch of 996 c2 c4s tt's, gt2 (ohh todd is a long time porsche fan, thus lots of porsche's come out at his event). it is at todd's event i got to experience a lot of cool hardwares. 360, gt2, lots of 996's, evo7 (gray market before offical evo8 introduced in usa), real Jaquar E-Type, m3's ... etc. students are actually recommended (but of course not required) to have instructors drive their cars. of course we use utmost care, with emphasis on helping the student learn the car. when done right it is extremely helpful to their learning curve.

 

Todd is a nice guy. Looking at the line up I am the red-headed stepchild of entrants with my CRX but there are some miatas several of which are spec miatas. I can just see the look of disappoint if a student wants to ride with me and walks up and sees a 88 CRX. Ole slow ricer car. Well that is until I wind it up on pit out and they find out if has a lot of motor for a very light car. That should be a fun eyeopener. I know it was for me when I sat in the car the first time as an instructor. I had never been in a hybrid and I was very surprised by the accleration. Made me sell my twin turbo supra 6sp. for the CRX B18c (well I did have a good bit of money leftover). Should be fun.

Barry H.

 

yep Todd is one of the coolest event master. as expensive as TracQuest is, it is still pretty packed. there are even more expensive clubs such as Motorsports Club of Beverly Hills http://www.motorsportsclub.com. As you can guess it is even more exclusive. typical attending cars are 360 challenge, 360 Stradale, 360 N-GT, various AMG mercedes, 996 cup cars, 996 GTRS' highly modified e46m3's... it is open track all day long, and gourmet cooking (one up on TQ) by the event master himself (Italian guy Michael Lederman). cost for this fun? $595. typically less than 10 cars on track at any given time. our instructors include popular Porsche racers Craig Stanton, Doug Barren. special guest instructors in the past Bill Auberlen and Cort Wagner.

Barry: you are absolutely right. i love taking remix out (95 civic si hb, sohc vtec power with budget suspension and pep boy pads) and the students thinks not much of it until they got for a ride at the limit.