You can always but specialized track day insurance for the day. It's usually $200-300, but gives you piece of mind if you need it.

 

That is one reason that I have been looking into a dedicated track car--something that I can afford to repair without too much pain financially or emotionally.

And one to consider is a used Mazda Miata--a cheap and very fun track car. I don't own one, I've just seen how well they can be driven on the track.

 

They are practically a free track car.

Very cheap to buy and maintain for the track. I hate them anywhere else.


Good note about the other drivers/conditions being a risk to you. Being slow around corners doesn't stop a fluid leak from the car in front of you popping a hose loose, and dumping brake/tire lubricants on-line, giving you a surprise when you hit your normal (conservative) braking point at speed.

Accidents happen. I'd speculate that most track-goers are already more attentive, and usually take better care of their stuff, but sometimes things just go wrong.

 

I've been doing track days since 1996, so that makes what..17 years? First as a student, the the past 13 years as an instructor. I've seen a LOT of cars torn up in Driver's Schools. I've even been in a BMW as an Instructor where the student totaled the car into the tree line at Summit Point at T3 and I sported broken ribs from that one for 8 weeks. While I've never crashed my own car at a track event, I did totally and completely grenade a Porsche 993 engine in my C4S at VIR that cost me $ 16,000 to replace.

My thoughts are that if you play at the track, you will pay the piper sooner or later. A dedicated track car is really the way to go or simply do class racing with Bertil Roos or Skip Barber, etc. You can even rent a race car at many venues for the day.

I'm one of the 'poor' Aston Owners, I can't afford to trash my Vantage as a loss, so its not going on the track, plain n' simple. Others that own these cars can afford to write them off - but its surely not in my pay grade.

 

That's it exactly, you're always going to be near the limits of traction around corners. Even if you're at 80%, that's not going to stop you going off when you hit that unanticipated fluid spill.

 

As a 993 owner, I have to ask -- what happened? Missed shift (I hope )?

 

Money Shift, T10 (Oak Tree) at VIR - 2002. Instructor Session, my pal Shane has just passed me in his ITS class Race-Prepped Audi and I was trying to get my pass back. Had a student in the car with me who wanted to see a hot lap, and he said "What just happened" when the car went 'pop' and the dash lights came on. I said "I just blew an engine" and we coasted over to the unused pits just after T10.

My '96 C4S was pristine with only 14K miles on it. My engine was 100% grenade'd, with the block blown apart, so an entire new engine was in order. All I could find where junkyard engines on cars with 50K to 80K miles on them. I didn't want to put an old engine in a nearly new car, so I started calling around for new 993 blocks. There were none in the USA, Porsche told me, only 996 blocks. Still I called around. Knowing Brumos Porsche in Jacksonville FL does a lot of racing, I tried them. They said they had a brand new 993s short block for my car at $ 10,000. I bought it and had it put on a pallet and shipped to Virginia.

When it got to the shop I was using for the work (RPM Motorsports, Newington VA) Stan, the owner, called me up and said "You need to come over here and look at this engine". So I did. Stan says "Take a look, tell me what you see" when I arrived. So I started looking at it and after about 45 seconds said to Stan - "There's only one spark plug per cylinder, they sent us a 993 Turbo block" (standard 993 engines are dual plug). Stan just stood there and grinned and said "Want to make your C4S into a Turbo?"

Well, after adding up the cost of doing that (about $ 30K) coupled with the fact that Stan told me that's a $ 25K engine instead of $ 10K and I knew someone at Brumos was going to get into a lot of grief for shipping that out - I called them back up and told them what happened. You could have heard a pin-drop on the other end. The Parts guy said "Would you PLEASE ship me back that engine?" And I said I would - but that didn't solve my problem.

The Parts Manager at Brumos was so grateful to get the engine back, he had Porsche in Europe build me one from scratch out of parts, it took 60 days to get it. He told me that it was now a $ 15K engine, but since I was square with him he'd stay at the original price. It was air-freighted over and once it landed at RPM I got another curious phone call from Stan.

"Duane, would you mind if I took this all apart? I've never see a brand new Porsche 993 engine or any new Porsche engine for that matter, and I'll put it all back together with new gaskets and everything when I'm done." I said "Stan, if that's what you want to do then knock yourself out - have fun". So he did.

When I went to get the car a few weeks later Stan had it fully sorted. He said "Guess what I found. When I disassembled that engine, I found a piece of steel wool in the # 5 cylinder they must have left in there by mistake during the build - and that surely would have scored that wall and possibly destroyed a ring". The car was ran flawlessly after that and Porsche even had a 2 year warranty on the engine.

I've been driving/riding/racing manual trans cars and motorcycles for 40 years, and the one turn, on one day...got me. Wife was not pleased to see that $ 16K dent in the bank account, as you can imagine.

 

For this very reason I have sold my R8 V10 and purchased a Cayman R. Its half the cost and the pain will be far less. Plus its not as hard on consumables.

My V12 Vantage is just too costly to risk (coolant spill, idiot driver etc)

The odd thing is an accident CAN happen on a track, but my guess is the track is statically not nearly as costly to insurance companies than public street. People are safety belted in, all the traffic is moving in the same direction, there are no lights, no cell phones, not drunk drivers, no pedestrians and cyclists etc.

Most tracks have had thousands and thousands of miles at very high speeds and NO FATALITIES etc.

Every time you drive you take a risk. At the track I reco you buy a car that has at least a half cage, proper seats, harness + helmet + hans, fire extinguisher, tow hooks, proper brakes and pads and a very regular maintenance program.

Having that base will make you feel far more secure and as a result you will be able to push your car with some confidence that you are at least safe.

Oh and most of all, some proper driver training.

 

Thanks for the thorough reply. It hurts me to read it -- sorry to make you re-live it. Quite an interesting story about what happened afterwards!

 

HA! That was not a painful memory at all, it just took money and time to fix it. You play at the track long and hard enough, you eventually have to pay the piper one way or another. I keep things in perspective, these are man-made objects we play with, and really just big boy toys. I don't get too excited when they break. I battled a late stage 'terminal' cancer in 2005/2006, now THAT is a dark story that brings back bad memories, but also makes you realize that material possessions really aren't that important in the long run - compared to dying, anyways.

 

Here's a reason I won't go to track days.
BTW I got boood for posting this on a Porsche site when I thought it was
useful info for newbies.
http://videos.streetfire.net/video/D913F445-B773-42E8-B23C-5D7B82294422.htm

 

Sorry. The video must have been removed.
It was a DE from Pocono of a student dropping a wheel off the track, over-correcting and crashing into about 4 exotics stopped and waiting to go out on the track.

 

Not sure that a Nissan G37 is an 'exotic' in my book but I can tell you the event organizer should never stage the hot pits that far out into the track. That's a clear safety violation at any driver's school or track event. I'm surprised the track personnel let them do that.

 

I can't download that video on my I-pad. Were you able to download it ?
It's been a while but I seem to remember at least an NSX in the group of victims.

 

Drcollie,
Sorry to hear about your battle with cancer, but congrats on being here to write about it!!!

It's amazing how something like that puts everything else in perspective.

As far as cars go, I agree. They are toys and eventually luck will not be in your favour. That's exactly why I sold the R8 V10 for the Cayman R Both excellent cars, but one won't break my heart if I have to fix it.