Experiences of RWYB events

[mikek]

regarding the rwyb days at santa pod etc, pretty safe IMO as in a normal car you won't be going over 100mph i shouldn't think.
a fantastic day out. £10 per car to get in, and £25 for unlimited runs. you'll never forget the first time you're at the staging lights......


here's a run on my 1st day ever at da pod. i'm RH lane.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2fhHXegSWbc

 

[obi_waynne]

Re: How dangerous is drag racing?

How many runs do you get in a typical day then mikek?

 

[mikek]

Re: How dangerous is drag racing?

hi wayne,
well, that's the thing. it deffo pays to get there early.
i live in devon, so get a premierinn the night before, and get there for about 8am, maybe 8.30. by lunch time, the queue is maybe 20mins, but before that, it's more or less straight on the strip. (oh, you can't race at 8.30, you gotta wait for signing on office to open etc, but you can have a coffee, get ready, have a chat etc before then)
in reality, if you get there at reasonable time, you can have as many runs as you would like to put your pride & joy through! most people only seem to do about 4 runs, but i can't stop - it's that much fun!
you get a computer printout for each run, 1/8 mile. 1/4 mile, terminal speeds, reaction times etc etc.
if it rains, the strip shuts. it has some glue on it to aid grip, and i think it gets very slippy. they can dry the track after a shower in minutes, though.
it was fine for me being a novice, plenty of help there (i've only been twice, & done 11 runs in total), and there's all sorts of vehicles going up the strip, evos, skylines, minis, escorts, road bikes, all of it.

 

[old-git]

Re: How dangerous is drag racing?

My experience of RWYBs is a little different. They are hell!

Racing doesn't start until 10am. If you get there early and manage to get near the front of the queue, you will get an early run. However, unless you go straight round to the end of the now very long queue, it will a at least an hour before your second run, if you are lucky - I have had reports of over 2 hours between runs. This means you have to stay with your car slowly pushing it along with all the others. This also means that you miss the racing as the queue is now situated behind the grandstand. If you decide to go back to the pits to make some adustments or have a snack, you won't be running again for a couple of hours. Spend all day racing and queuing and you may get 5-6 runs in.

Alternativley, go to a Peak Performance Test and Tune day and the day becomes much more fun. It costs more but the cost oer run is a lot less. Entants are restricted to 100. Therefore there is no rush to join the queue. You can go back to the pits to make changes, have a bite to eat or even watch some racing. A lot of the big boys go to these in order to sort out their cars before the next meet. The jet car often runs. Friends have made over 20 runs in a day, making the trip worth while.

Most of the cars at these days are serious machines, rather than the hordes of boy racer Saxos etc at the RWYBs.

You will NEVER see me at a RWYB, my time it too precious to waste it queing for hours just to make a couple of runs.

RWYB - £35 for perhaps 6 runs but you will need to queue up all day to get that many in.

PPT&T = £60 for as many runs as you wish with very little queuing compared to a RWYB.

No contest.

 

[mikek]

Re: How dangerous is drag racing?

yup, i have heard this also. i should've mentioned it, and made more clear i'm a novice - only been twice, but those 2 times where fine, just as i described above. last time was feb 2009, a very cold day, so maybe not surprising it wasn't busy, but the other time was aug 2008, and i still got 5 or 6 runs in. my old evo3 is a daily drive, and 5 or 6 runs is enough for me in 1 day.
i think it's just as much fun with the saxos / boy racer crowd etc - more like real street stuff. i don't take anything in life too seriously.

 

[obi_waynne]

I thought this would be an interesting separate thread as we were going off topic a bit.