Public Day at Teretonga, 27 June

[dnorth]

There's a Public Day at Teretonga on Sunday 27 June, 11am to 4.30pm, for cars and motorbikes. See the website http://www.teretonga.org.nz under Events Calendar.
No details of the day's programme on the website yet, but the last one I went to cost $60, I think, for an afternoon and was run in groups (maximum of 6 cars on track at a time, 3 laps per run) running in turn all afternoon. Everybody got plenty of sessions and I had a great time (in my ordinary road car). There was a wide variety of cars, from an elderly Holden Barina and an old Mercedes saloon through Imprezas and Evos to a V8 powered Macgregor being shaken down.

[dnorth]

This turned out to be very good, for one thing it was very sunny (if cold) all afternoon. The cost was $50 and the total attendance was 8 cars and 6 motor bikes (a Triton, an off-road style bike and four "road racer"-style bikes). After scutineering, we had a safety briefing and then two laps of the track behind a safety car, to get an idea of the circuit. For the track time we were split into three groups, the bikes, four Skylines and the rest - me (Peugeot 206CC), a Toyota Altezza and two Honda Integras. My group went out first, then the Skylines, then the bikes. The two car groups had four laps each and the bikes about six. (Half the track width was coned off at the big sweeper because of frost on the surface, so the bikes had longer to get their tyres warmed up a bit.) Track time rotated through the groups all afternoon, the only breaks being when one of the Skylines had the exhaust come loose and stopped on track (three times!) The last session for the cars was a longer one as the two Integras and two of the Skylines had had enough, so the remaining four cars went out in one group for eight laps. I ended up doing 80kms on the track (about 30 laps) and had a great time

The next public track day at Teretonga is on the 30th October and I'm planning on going again. Maybe some other forum members might feel like having a go! (The Toyota Altezza was driven by a dental student who'd come over from Dunedin for the afternoon, over 400km round trip!)