THSCC Forums

Your post was in the Track forum in a thread that doesn't appear to have much to do with rallying and you referenced HPDE stuff (and VIR). My point was that you can have a significant enough hit in a little ole Miata to get hurt pretty badly, and many of the folks here are talking about tracking things that are way faster, including your Subaru.

Saying it's okay to push it hard in your street car because "eh, your insurance will cover it" is pretty short sighted, IMHO.


--Donnie

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My Blog

With a race coming up, I am refraining from piping in too much. I do not want to mess with my chi.

Personally, I think it wrong to be telling someone interested in doing HPDE that they have to be ready to write off their car. That just seems to me to be a lot of chest thumping.

As for the 8 damaged cars Bernie mentions...were they students? If they were, I would probably stay away from organizations like that.

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Jim Pastorius
2008 Silverado VortecMax
1992 Camaro CMC#92
2002 BMW R1150R

2009 3rd Place CMC Mid-Atlantic Championship
2009 CMC Hyperfest Winner

I just think people need to think through everything and make sure they're fine with the risks. Make sure you know your insurance situation. Make sure you know someone might hit you and NOT pay for your car. Make sure you talk to people who have run with any organizations you're considering and know what their particular safety history is like. Then think about your car situation (is this your only car, do you have others, is this something you ARE willing to write off, etc) and then decide how hard you WANT to push it. Talk to people about the relative safety of the particular track(s) you plan to attend. Hell, go WATCH an event like this first (and talk to the organizers and see if you can score a ride-a-long with one of their instructors) and see how it LOOKS to you. Talk to experienced folks to help you decide what tires you want to run on (even if it's your only set of street tires, make sure you understand what to do with pressures and how much life you might chew out of them on said day). Etc.

I agree it's flippant to just say "hell yeah, go do it, but be sure you're fine writing off your car." It's just as bad to say "what the hell, you might as well do it since your insurance will pay for whatever you damage anyway."

It's always a good discussion, but usually the one line responses are missing quite a bit of the story.


--Donnie

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My Blog

I've instructed with quite a few organizations in the last two years. All have had incidents. NASA has had them, trackdaze, national corvette museum, mazda drivers, PCA both wilderness and first settlers, 10 10ths, audi/mercedes/ bmw and THSCC all have had incidents, to name a few. So if the answer is to stay away from organizations that have had incidents you wouldn't get on the track evar!!!!!
I also don't believe it's chest thumping or flippant to say that these things can and do happen. To say otherwise is a falsehood. Some folks push the limit to the extreme, I'm one of them. But as an instructor I'm ultra consevative. It is my deepest concern that someone starting out in this sport is not subjected to the conditions that I've placed myself in. That being said, some people are risk takers and cannot be reined in, they are out there driving. But everyone should made aware of the possible dangers. And no one on the track is totally immune to having an incident. Its everyones job to do their utmost to prevent incidents. But, they have happened in the past and will happen in the future. To say it doesn't is an injustice to the nooby.

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2004 C5(415whp,390ft/lbs),
1997C5,1997Trans Am, 1986 C4,
1990 Miata, 1976 MGB,1997 Protege, 1989 MR2

There's things you can control, that's great. Yes, I drive heads up and stay very aware of where I am and what's going on around me. My car control skills are decent enough to keep me out of trouble while still pushing it hard enough to learn some things (and be entertained).

Of course there's things you can't control. And that's the part that sucks. Like when and where a car in front of you spins. Or the hoopty that someone is ready to push off the cliff suffers a catastrophic oil line failure.

If something like that happens then when and more importantly where determine if it's an issue for you.

Everything is a calculated risk. You just have to get comfortable with the math.

And while I don't have much to compare it to, the THSCC program is top notch all the way from the safety inspections to the on-track culture. Even in green.

—Sincerely someone who's HPDEed their daily driver a few times to no ill effects.

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Not spectacular just decent.
I'm not sure what I'm driving.
Maybe an ITR in DS.
Or half-assed STX prepped 330.

Really? I was told you can control that...even around a blind corner.

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Vincent Keene
'06 Ford Mustang GT (track rat)
'15 Dodge Charger R/T (yeah, it's got a HEMI!)
'07 Ford Fusion SE (205,000 miles and counting)
'98 Chevy Z-24 (retired)
'93 Acura Integra (Team SWB 24HOL Car)

Sure, VIR is waaaaaaayyyyy safer than say the public streets and highways near you: The Ken Block of Johnston County.

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Not spectacular just decent.
I'm not sure what I'm driving.
Maybe an ITR in DS.
Or half-assed STX prepped 330.

Good points Donnie. On this one here. More clubs are offering a "taste of the track" session for people unsure of whether they want to do this. It's an excellent way to do it. You pay a small fee. They give you 1 classroom session, then 1 driving session with an instructor, in a novice group.

For many of us some place like VIR is a day trip. So you could run up in the morning. Do your class and session. Then watch a bit in the afternoon. Then head home. A single day. No hotel costs or weekend event costs. I think they will even rent helmets in some clubs. So there is very little cost overhead to try it.

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http://www.greywinds.com

one hpde? absolutely, take your car out and have fun. nothing ventured, nothing gained. however, once you start talking about doing multiple hpdes it gets a little cloudier. do enough track days and you will eventually have an incident.

You are not serious? Look around and there are far more people that have done many. many track days without hitting solid objects. The exception are the people that do.

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Jim Pastorius
2008 Silverado VortecMax
1992 Camaro CMC#92
2002 BMW R1150R

2009 3rd Place CMC Mid-Atlantic Championship
2009 CMC Hyperfest Winner

of course i'm serious. those people who haven't hit anything just haven't done enough

the more days you spend on track, the higher the odds that at least one of them will end badly, it's statistics 101. the odds are lower if your car is well maintained and you don't push yourself too hard, but even then shit happens. do two or three events a year and you'll probably finish the year without incident. do 20-something events as i did this year and the odds are worse. do a track event every single day for 20 years and the odds asymptotically approach 100%.

nor did i say that incident != hitting into a solid object. blowing up a motor can be just as expensive, if not moreso, than hitting something.

Jennifer,

This guy's DSP build is FAST. Won 2d in DSP at Nats this year, with times that beat a lot of the SM Evos. Looks to be a good dual-purpose car as well

http://www.e30tech.com/forum/showthread ... megasquirt

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Steve Carter
1972 Datsun 240Z-- resto pics at http://picasaweb.google.com/srcartermd
2007 GPW Honda S2000-- STR 86

Alex's car has been the best prepped E30 DSP car in the country for about 8 years now. It's a wonderful car, but for an occasional track day/autocrosser, there are much better choices.

I'm sure after watching what Eric Campbell was able to do in an e46 330i, he realizes that his E30 is done. - AB

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'14 Toyota Sequoia Platinum 4WD
Super Westerfield Bros - '93 Integra - LeChump Du Jour
STX 93 - Scion FR-S

Sorry, I will take my two blown motors this year over stuffing my car into the tire wall entering the VIR uphill esses or backing it into the turn 1 tire wall at Summit. So I do not put balling up the car in the same category as blowing up a motor. I can and have walked away from a blown motor.

I guess it is a different mentality. I do not ever expect or accept hitting a solid object as being part of the game. I can not win with the car tore up.

Additionally, I do not equate wrecking cars with pushing it to the limit

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Jim Pastorius
2008 Silverado VortecMax
1992 Camaro CMC#92
2002 BMW R1150R

2009 3rd Place CMC Mid-Atlantic Championship
2009 CMC Hyperfest Winner