If you’re an enthusiast and you live in California, especially the Bay Area, there’s no excuse for not attending a track day. The Bay Area is auto enthusiast heaven: blessed with phenomenal weather, a strong enthusiast community, and more tracks within day-trip distance than I can count in one hand. As a car and motorcycle enthusiast, I believe California – specifically the Bay Area – is the best place in the world for people like us.
So we’re always excited when more businesses that enable this “enthusiast heaven” join our ecosystem. Speed-Dynamics is the new kid on the block when it comes to track day providers and organizers. Their mission is simplicity, and they’re a group of pretty serious enthusiasts. We were lucky to get a spot at the first event they hosted back in December, 2014 – so we took our 996 street / track car for a shakedown. Here’s a review based on our experiences:
People
Sina and the whole Speed-Dynamics crew embody what we’d expect from a group of enthusiasts running a track day: no BS attitude, support for the novice groups, hands-off for the experienced guys, and quick response times for issues that came up throughout the day. Special note on the issues part: this was a foggy, cold, and wet day at Thunderhill – so there were plenty of issues for the team.
Organization
Considering this was their first event ever, the morning check-in and registration was smooth. Correctly staffing the registration desk can be a logistical nightmare and these guys were on-point. There were some slight delays getting started since a mass of people arrived right up against the registration deadline, but the drivers’ meeting was lean and quick. There was lots of emphasis on support available for novices, and the general content was more concise than we have experienced with other providers. Novices and Advanced drivers are both clearly supported here. At most track days, the majority of participants clearly fall within those two categories.
Crowd
We really enjoyed this crowd. Some of your street tuner kind of guys that were new to the track, a solid showing of experienced guys, and lots of sweet cars. The damp weather proved a challenge, even more so for relative novices wrestling with high horsepower cars. We saw a brand new Porsche 911 Turbo go off and get deliciously muddy. A Camaro ZL1 got into a tank slapper coming onto the back straight, which ended with the car slamming into the wall. The Speed-Dynamics crew handled all off-track outings calmly and professionally, though no level of organization can prevent the delays inherent in serious off-track events.
Structure
Speed-Dynamics typically runs four groups, which keeps the car count per group low. The run groups are also very clearly defined, which makes things simpler for participants. The groups are usually: Novice, Intermediate, Low Advanced, High Advanced; or: Novice, Low Intermediate, High Intermediate, Advanced. Here’s a quick and dirty interpretation of this 4 group structure:
- “Novice” = First or second time at the track, ever.
- “Low Intermediate / Intermediate” = Still learning.
- “High Intermediate / Low Advanced” = Experienced, making slight tweaks.
- “Advanced / High Advanced” = Experienced with a fast car.
About 95% of all participants clearly fall into one of these groups. And the other 5% either learn really quickly, or are overestimating their skill level.
So keep these guys on your radar, they put on a great event and are a solid group of guys to spend a track day with. We’ll see you out there!