By David Swarts
On the surface, it may seem that the new Precision Track Days organization is simply filling a gap in the market previously occupied by the now-closed Track Day Winner. In reality, however, Precision Track Days co-owners Fahad Khan and Rafael “Rafi” Pacheco say they have a fresh approach to track days in the eastern United States.
Pacheco, a racer, motorcycle service shop owner, and industry veteran for 10 years, was a major part of Track Day Winner track days. He helped run the events and provided trackside tire sales and service, among other things. So, Pacheco brought with him hands-on operational knowledge of the track day business.
Khan, on the other hand, is an IT professional and entrepreneur who is new to motorcycling and track day riding. But with this background, Khan has been able to look at the track day business from a different view.
“From my perspective, if you look at the rider lifecycle of a track day rider it’s three to four years before they jump into racing or before an unfortunate accident happens and they just completely abandon it,” said Khan. “So, the goal is we really want to focus and be very welcoming to the newcomers to the track, especially the Novice and the new Intermediates, and keep them coming back.
“Our goal is to keep the groups small. Keep them between 20-25 riders max. Make sure there is plenty of quality, open track time and people are more tightly grouped together [by skill level] in each of their riding groups. Our goal is to make sure people don’t give up and don’t drop out of the Novice and new Intermediate stages.”
To accomplish this Precision Track Days has gone from the somewhat traditional structure of three rider groups – A/Novice, B/Intermediate, and C/Expert – getting one 20-minute session each hour to four rider groups – A/Novice, B-/Intermediate, B+/Intermediate, and C/Expert – each getting one 15-minute session each hour.
“I see a lot of people who come in, do two or three track days, they become faster, they immediately go into Intermediate, and then they are scared s–tless because they don’t know how to pass or they don’t know how to be passed,” said Khan. “One of the biggest goals with creating the second Intermediate group was to teach them how to pass, to teach them the etiquette that they need to grow more progressively.”
Their focus on customer service goes beyond simply adding another group, though. Khan created a very professional website for Precision Track Days that provides new and experienced riders with a lot of information they need prior to their track day, from clear pricing (including early sign-up discounts and bundle deals) to refund policies to the benefits of becoming a member to other important things participants need to know. And not only can riders book and pay for their track day on the website, they can also sign their liability release waiver online, eliminating the long wait in line at the track entrance each morning.
While their arrive-and-ride rental programs are done in conjunction with outside vendors, Precision Track Days takes pride in doing everything else in-house.
“Not only do we focus on quality track time, we also focus on providing tire service and making parts and gear available,” said Pacheco. “When you have too many vendors you start losing consistency. Owning our tire service within the org we guarantee we will always have someone doing tire service for our events, and we don’t have to rely on third parties like most orgs do.”
It may sound like Precision Track Days has been doing this for a long time, but the truth is the new organization just held its first event in December 2023 at Jennings GP. And by all accounts, the event went well.
“It went above expectations,” said Pacheco. “We know where we’re coming from. We are a new org in this small niche market with only so many riders and many good organizations out there. So, when a new group comes in the bar is pretty high. So, we busted our asses getting everything ready, making sure everything was up to date. We double, triple, quadruple-checked all the systems.
“The riders who were there told us it was a pretty quick process, that they enjoyed the emails with waivers, that they enjoyed how quickly we got them through tech, that they enjoyed the time they had on track, that they enjoyed having four groups, which was a small gamble for us because around this area it hasn’t been tried.”
Precision Track Days has 20 total track days scheduled at six different tracks in 2024 and hopes to add more dates as they become available through the year and into 2025. For more information, visit www.precisiontrackday.org.
