Whose Idea Was That?
The beginning of the GP Days 2023 Track Day Season has been a crazy ride!
With 4 Track Days in 30 days, it has not only been a challenge from an organisational perspective but also simply maintaining focus on getting everything right. But let's start from the beginning.
Why did we cram so many Track Days into a period of less than 30 days? That's definitely a good question but let me tell you, it wasn't intentional at all!
We finalised our Track Day Calendar for the 2023 Season around the end of November 2022 as per usual. As the world is currently not in the best shape, I was and still am expecting quite a challenging and busy year in my activities next to GP Days, so initially we planned to take it a bit slower this year with around 7 - 8 Track Days. But plans are destined to change, right?
At the end of November, our Track Day Calendar looked something like this:
- 1 Track Day at Circuit Mettet in March
- 1 Track Day at Bilster Berg in April
- 1 Track Day at Salzburgring in May
- 1 Track Day at Bilster Berg in June
- 1 Track Day at Circuit Mettet in July
- [August Off]
- 1 Track Day at Bilster Berg in September
- 1 Track Day at Circuit Mettet in October
This looked pretty manageable and evenly spread across the season…until we got two unexpected call.
The Big One...
Right at the beginning of December, I got a call from Circuit Zandvoort telling me a date in April has become available. After we organised our first Zandvoort Track Day in November 2022, we were eager to get a date during the "proper" Track Day Season - however, up until this call it didn't look good and we've almost given up on organising a day there in 2023.
So when this call came I quickly checked the calendar, saw we didn't have a Track Day planned around this time and confirmed it straight away. Two Track Days in April with around 10 days apart still sounded alright - and it's Zandvoort, come on!
The Very Big One...
Shortly after receiving the call from Zandvoort I received an E-Mail which to be quite honest, was pretty much the big one we've been waiting for a long time. It was the Circuit de Spa Francorchamps, offering us the chance to organise a Track Day at the end of March.
Seeing that we dreamed of organising a Track Day at Spa Francorchamps for a very long time and having been calling, meeting and writing E-Mails countless times trying to secure a date I confirmed the spot without even checking the calendar.
It didn't take long though to see that we just signed up for two Track Days back to back with Spa on the 30th of March 2023 and another Track Day at Mettet on the 31st of March. No big deal! At least both of them are located in Belgium (imagine some nervous laughter at this stage)!
In the end, that's how the crammed first months of our 2023 Track Day Season happened with
- Spa Francorchamps on the 30th of March
- Circuit Mettet on the 31st of March
- Circuit Zandvoort on the 11th of April
- Bilster Berg on the 21st of April
It's been an incredibly challenging couple of weeks but totally worth it as all those days could not have been better. Though I have to admit, that I'm pretty happy to return to a more "relaxed" schedule now for the rest of the year.
Check out the vibes of our first Track Days in 2023
Spa Francorchamps - 30th March 2023
A dream come true and an absolutely crazy feeling entering this historic track in the morning knowing full well, that it was all ours for the day. In typical Spa Francorchamps fashion, we had a Track Day with mixed conditions from sunshine to rain and back. Rest assured, many of our participants got a good bit of exercise changing from dry to rain and back to dry tyres several times during this day!
If you want to see even more picture of this Track Day at Spa, check out our Flickr Album: GP Days Track Day Spa Francorchamps - 30 March 23
Circuit Mettet - 31st March 2023
I always like to call the Circuit Mettet our home track as this is where the GP Days Track Day adventure began in 2019. So it was perfect that it was part of the back-to-back Track Day schedule as we felt very comfortable organising everything here as it should be even with the limited time we had with our Spa Francorchamps Track Day right before.
If you want to see even more picture of this Track Day at Mettet, check out our Flickr Album: GP Days Track Day Circuit Mettet - 31 March 23
Circuit Zandvoort -11th April 2023
Despite being still quite early in the year, we've been super lucky with the weather. A good old sea breeze, lots of sunshine and pretty mild temperatures in the afternoon made it the perfect Track Day in what's probably one of the best located race tracks in the world!
If you want to see even more picture of this Track Day at Zandvoort, check out our Flickr Album: GP Days Track Day Circuit Zandvoort - 11 April 23
Bilster Berg - 21st April 2023
The first day of spring - at least that what it seems like! We had absolutely great weather which makes a Track Day at Bilster Berg even more enjoyable!
If you want to see even more picture of this Track Day at Bilster Berg, check out our Flickr Album: GP Days Track Day Bilster Berg - 21 April 23
As you can see from the pictures, we had an absolute blast and while especially our back-to-back stint with Spa Francorchamps and Mettet was exhausting it was totally worth it!
