Dear reader, if you have never met me before, welcome to Focused Events. If you do not know about us, that’s because we have only been in the car trackday market for 2 years now, but actually we have been running track events for over 15 years as my background is primarily bikes. However that does not mean that I know nothing of cars, and I’ve actually become quite a petrol head in the last few years on the 4 wheel scene, and 2 years ago did my 1st car race. So why am I writing here. Well I am well known in the 2 wheel world for wearing my heart on my sleeve and I thought it was about time I wrote something for our 4 wheel customers and for those who have never used FE before, so as you can have a clearer understanding of how and why we run our events.

So let’s start with the obvious difference between us and other trackday operators. The Price! I decided a long time ago that I was only interested in running good quality events at realistic prices. And as soon as I started looking at some of the prices in the car world, I realised that there appeared to be a number of people out there making a ridiculous amount of profit on their days (in my view). Well that’s not the way I work. I believe that we are at an event to work hard and give the customer great value for money and at a realistic price. This of course is good for everyone. Its good for the customer because it keeps their costs down, its good for the circuits because we are a professional operator that not only is there for the long term and signs for lots of events (around 300 in 2010), and I hasten to add, at no preferential prices, but also for those looking at their 1st trackday, its not so frightening when they look at the cost!  So hopefully we are always attracting new customers into the fantastic world that we all enjoy. And as we all know the roads today are too over crowded and an easy way to end up walking for a year when you loose your licence.

And with that we also bring our F1 club, which is a loyalty club that’s free to join that also gives discounts and even a free day every year. For us what’s important is that we say thank you for being an FE customer and we give you something back for that loyalty.

Its time now to have a look at our rules of play, because it’s important that you also understand why we do what we do. Firstly the extra drivers. We have a couple of simple rules here on this one. It only one per car and a maximum of only 20% of the event can actually have extra drivers. Why.... well the reason here goes back to the event itself, we are a business but we are not prepared to ruin the event for the sake of taking more revenue, and then overloading the circuit with cars, that come into the pits and go out again almost immediately with the 2nd and then the 3rd driver. And we are finding that the customer is starting to understand this when we explain why we are not allowing more than one 2nd driver.

Then we have the black flag rules. We have introduced a couple of simple rules here. 2 Black flags and you’re going home. Why? Well it’s obvious that we are all there to have a great day out, but for people that continually spin, that are putting themselves and others in danger or slowing the flow of the event, or stopping session. It’s a simple rule, 2 spins and you’re going home, the 1st is a reminder of their responsibilities and a chance to improve, the second is obviously because they have not bothered to consider themselves or more importantly other customers on the day. And it’s the same for bad attitude as well. Here at FE we are well known and respected by the UK circuits for the rules we run and also because we don’t forget to administer them when we are dealing with the problem. And the majority of our customers completely agree to this approach. 

For those of you wondering regarding overtaking, we run a black flag system on drivers who miss 2 blue flags, because again they are not giving their 100% attention to the rules or the activity and we remind them of this, and it does without a doubt frustrate and annoy those running by the rules and trying to have a good day out. We are now finding that this rule is having a real effect on this tiresome approach by the small minority of drivers who choose to ignore the blue flag, and it’s a big improvement to all.

So, onto queuing. I have noticed that there is one particular operator who is having a bit of a pop in his advertising about "no queuing"; well to be honest he won't have any queues, because of the prices he charges. Of course everyone is welcome to go where they want to, and if you want to pay another £50 for an event, then that’s your choice of course. However we find that people do want to save money, and they do want value for money, and the people who wrote remarks on certain websites, did so because they resented a 5 minute wait. However they didn’t resent the £50 they saved when they booked!      We all know that in life you get what you pay for. But I will make you this promise. Here at Focused Events we will continue to bring you quality events at realistic prices ( look at our Silverstone’s this year) and we will work hard for you at every event to make sure that you are getting great track time and loads of it. And we will also reward you for your custom as well. And if you find yourself sitting in the pitlane for 5 minutes, then please remember we are there for you, working hard to get you back out there and give you more quality time at realistic prices, and to be honest what’s 5 minutes anyway !

Finally, thank you for your time reading this, and if join us in 2010, I am sure you'll have a great day and we look forward to meeting you.....

And if you've not been with us before, why not try the "FOCUSED APPROACH"

Yours Sincerely

Kevin Healy
Focused Events Ltd