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I think the "safe" amount of pad thickness is dependent on the friction material, track, driver, and of course supporting mods such as a BBK, aftermarket rotors and/or brake ducting.
Pads for the stock 135 front caliper come at 17mm total thickness (this measurement includes the backplate which is typically 5mm thick for most pads. That leaves roughly 12mm of friction material. Street pads or OEM pads will vaporize on most tracks even with a more entry level driver behind the wheel. Fade will set in quickly when the pad is at full thickness but obviously gets worse as they wear. Since no experienced drivers use OEM pads on the track (as they shouldn't) you cant really put a safe minimum on them.
Real race pads can be run very thin. I try to run my pads to within 1mm of the backing plate just to squeeze all the life out of them. Even with only 1 or 2mm of actual friction material my XP10s felt fine in a 15-20 minute session.
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