Best track for first timer!

i did my first TD at siverstone and would recommend that as fast wide and safe with good visibility.

easy to get too as good road system .

consider oulton park cadwel park as cheaper and if you prefer turns bends etc there's plenty to learn at cadwel

Looking at your location fella you'll have to travel I'm afraid, unless you can get on one of the few days at Croft, which is pretty novice friendly.

Silverstone is a good shout for the reasons Lonner mentioned, although it can feel a bit spaced out, hard to pick out markers and as the lap is so long you'll find remembering particular corners difficult at first. Dead flat too, which has its good and bad points. Silverstone days tend to be £160 or so.

I'd recommend Mallory Park. Nice tight, short circuit, not too demanding, easy to learn (but difficult to get quicker on once you've reached a level). Cheap too, £80-90.

Would advise staying clear of Oulton & Cadwell in particular. Tracks renowned for local heros, duffing up newbies in the novice group to make themselves look good. Cadwell is particularly demanding, tight and narrow, you really need to have some track time under your belt before you tackle those IMO.

Wherever you go grab an instructor for your third or forth session, they're all pretty approachable & will give great advice.

HTH

No limits are a friendly bunch, Focused Events have most of the good dates/circuits sewn up, Easytrack have started to get a good rep. for newbies. All of them should look after you OK, although the pits/garages are intimidating for first timers. Will you be on a road legal bike? If so you might want to consider one of the Bike magazine "Reclaim our tracks" days. MSV (Brands, Snetterton, Cadwell, Oulton) do novice only events also.

If you do decide on Silverstone let me know, just down the road from me, I'll pop over if I'm not tied up to (hopefully) give you some encouragement.

It's annoying having to travel from up north but worth it! I went to Rockingham as my first one and Cadwell for my second, either were fine (and I was at Silverstone "stowe" for CSS). I don't think you can really have a "bad" novice track day, there will almost certainly always be someone slower than you, just go at your own pace .

No worries fella, I've "introduced" more novices that I can recall to track time over the years so I'm sure you'll be far more accomplished than some of the drongo's I've let loose!

Haven't even ridden in 2012 yet . But yes I do go over to Pately Bridge quite often, both on the bike and in my work van . Correct on the black... had Arrow shotgun exhaust on most of last year if that helps you identify? Gone back to my Akra now though for this year! (repacked it).

PaulW said:

No worries fella, I've "introduced" more novices that I can recall to track time over the years so I'm sure you'll be far more accomplished than some of the drongo's I've let loose!

Click to expand...

Grooming alert !!!!!!!

Seriously though, some good advice from PaulW here and it's fair to say that he's shared more than a few track days with some reasonably accomplished drongos over the last 8 or 9 years ;-)

Jon