How long before first track day/nurburgring outing?

[Tim in Belgium]

How long/how much experience should I get before I consider my first track day/nurburgring outing, bearing in mind that you can ride the nurburgring at your own pace?

I presume this also depends how happy/confident I am on the bike as well.

Any advice out there to stop me getting carried away and filling my diary up for next year?!

[tomjones2]

instead of doing a trackday take a race school, i know that there expensive (normally in the £300 range but well worth it)

i would also say that your probaly safer on a track than at the ring, in the uk track days are normally bike only and the track are much wider than many parts of the ring, which allows faster people to overtake, or you to overtake slower people :)

some of the cars at the ring are really shifting, and you spend a lot of time checking your mirrors,
on trackdays you get told to fold up your mirror and concentrate on where your going and the faster people have a duty to avoid you, i know that this therotically applies at the ring but are many more serious accidents there than on normall trackdays

[Tim in Belgium]

some of the cars at the ring are really shifting, and you spend a lot of time checking your mirrors,
on trackdays you get told to fold up your mirror and concentrate on where your going and the faster people have a duty to avoid you, i know that this therotically applies at the ring but are many more serious accidents there than on normall trackdays

I've done the ring in a car (diesel!) before and know what you mean about looking in your mirrors a lot, but it is a lot cheaper than a trackday. If I'm keeping out of peoples way for 50% of the corners that still leaves me with a fair few corners to enjoy for myself.

In reality a race school followed by a couple of trackdays sounds like what I should be doing before venturing onto the ring, but it is so near that it's hard not to be tempted!

Thanks for the voice of reason to quieten the little voices in my head:
'ring..'ring...'ring....

[tomjones2]

i know what you mean about the ring, there something about it that normal tracks dont have, apparently the only other place simliar is a lap of the isle of man. :)

its also really close for you, i remeber seeing the germans and europeans who had done hundreds of laps and just pop down there for a quick spin on sunday, what a facility!

do the race school though, just take an empty head and listen and you will never think that you could as fast as they take you, soooo much fun