If you have a sports car, hitting the racetrack and learning to drive at the limits is the best way to spend a summer day. If you’ve never set foot on a racetrack though, it can be intimidating. First, you need to make sure your car’s in perfect working order, and then you need to know your track’s safety specifics.

In the above video, our friends at Donut Media and James Kirkham guide you through what to expect on your first track day. Of course, you probably won’t be driving a Porsche 911 the first time you hit a track, but this is all good information for whatever car you plan on racing.

After Kirkham fills out his tech inspection worksheet, he goes into the drivers’ meeting, where he’s thrown into the novice driving group. Drivers’ meetings generally outline some safety procedures for the track and novice racing etiquette, and sometimes will offer tips for harder sections of the course.

Kirkham flogs his borrowed Porsche through the novice group and advances through the intermediate group to the advanced group. After driving in all three driver groups, Kirkham says he had the most fun in the novice group because he had a chance to truly learn the track; the intermediate group was the sketchiest because people started inflating their egos.

If you plan on hitting a racetrack, this video is a solid tool to help gauge the expectations for your first time. It also offers good commentary for novice racers, as well as captures the essence of a racing — fun. And if you want to get your first taste of track driving in a more controlled environment, check out our list of high-performance driving schools — attending one is a great way to learn the basics of car control and track etiquette.