What to know before your first time on track

That first time the grid worker waves you out on track can be an anxious moment. The day before, you were just a normal person, and today, you’re rolling your car out onto an honest-to-goodness race track, where you’ll be going faster than you probably ever have in your life.

Colin Wood Associate Editor
6/4/25 8:46 a.m.

There was definitely a "wait, what have I gotten myself into" moment when the grid worker waved me on track that first time.

Once I was on track, though, I was totally fine because it just felt like driving ... but faster.

JG Pasterjak Tech Editor & Production Manager
6/4/25 9:25 a.m.

Colin Wood said:
There was definitely a "wait, what have I gotten myself into" moment when the grid worker waved me on track that first time.

Once I was on track, though, I was totally fine because it just felt like driving ... but faster.

So one thing that definitely sets people at ease on track is when they realize that while track traffic moves fast, it all moves in the same direction in mostly predictable patterns. If someone is not in the right place on track, or going the wrong direction, it's a bug, not a feature like on the street. So it becomes easier to identify hazards instead of just assuming EVERYTHING is a hazard like out on US-1.

Keith Tanner GRM+ Memberand MegaDork
6/4/25 10:06 a.m.

You can't win a track day, but you sure can lose one.

Paris Van Gorder Associate editor
6/4/25 10:10 a.m.

In reply to Colin Wood :

Very true. My first track day with my old car club was a bit scary because some of the other cars were hauling around track. But once I started treating it like I was on I-4 and it felt natural haha.

z31maniac MegaDork
6/4/25 10:24 a.m.

My first track day was on two wheels! So no instructor. I was already a fairly competent ride, but not super fast. You started the day with a lead/follow session with multiple instructors breaking up the run groups then.......................go have fun in the rest of your sessions.

So when I did my first track day in a NA Miata, about 5 years later, I already knew the track and was turning slower laps.

Colin Wood Associate Editor
6/4/25 1:00 p.m.

In reply to JG Pasterjak :

It sounds wild, at first, to say that driving on track is less scary than driving on the highway, but it's because of exactly what you said: It's much easier to predict what everyone else on track is going to do.

MikeL77
8/19/25 2:50 p.m.

A driver in a Porshce Carrera GT, with an instructor riding with him, in an organized HPDE, pulled out of the pits and immediately drove across the track where they were rear ended. Both driver and instructor were killed. Did the instructor notify the driver to stay to the inside line while exiting the pits? Who knows? B O T H D E A D. Be safe out there. People will forget what they were told during the instruction lesson.