Blue painter’s tape is traditional. It’s so if you roll over, the glass shards are more or less contained. Same reason a lot of HPDE orgs require you to tape headlights and taillights.
Unless the rule book is totally different back east, I wouldn’t plan on racing a street car. Even the novice classes require a full cage. That means no or minimal interior, plus it’s not really safe to drive a car with a cage without a helmet and the full harness.
Hey, as long as you’re spending $56k, might as well upgrade to the $136k BMW Alpina!
*The argument that Subarus aren’t reliable might not work very well 
My uncle loves his WRX but I’m still not a fan.
These are weekly “bring your family and come with what you drive” timed runs and require just a helmet and tech check for 1/4m runs. Last week’s BMW CCA HPDE was the same (with the exception of convertibles – those required a beefed-up cage; I didn’t see anyone driving a convertible, though). Honestly, though, I don’t know if I’d do another DE with my current Beast. I think I’d rent a track car.
Thanks for your sunroof info. So, I’ll use blue tape and basically do the same thing that house windows require in hurricanes?
Gotcha. I thought when you mentioned ‘novice class’ you were talking about the purgatory racers are restricted to for their first few races.
And you have the idea correct for the tape. Just overlapping strips of tape such that all of the glass is covered. I recommend doing the the same, maybe double thick, on your headlights. Rock damage at speed is costly to repair.
Someone will correct me if I’m wrong about the racing brake fluid, but I believe you have to change it much more often than the regular factory/street stuff. I believe that due to the high temps, it tends to collect moisture, which may result in rusted break lines which fail faster. So yeah. Look into that at your racing event to see what people recommend.
I always changed my brake fluid before every event. And I used the ATE blue alternating with yellow. At one point though it became impossible to buy the blue fluid as it was not a DOT approved color.
Awesome advice here so far, I’ll only add that brakes and tires should be your first priority. Being able to brake later in the corners gives you a leg up, and fade free braking is good for your peace of mind. Same goes for tires. Having 700whp is useless if you can’t corner or accelerate unless you’re drifting. That’s a whole different kettle of fish.
AFAIK, DOT4 is compatible with DOT 3 but DOT 5 (racing fluid) is incompatible with both. However, if you plan on upgrading to DOT 4 have a brake flush done just to be safe and commit to DOT 4. It’s what I did with my Legacy after I installed better pads and rotors.
Correct. Because the DOT standards are stupid, DOT 3, 4 and 5.1 are all compatible. DOT 5 is compatible with nothing.
Brakes are for sissys!
Yeah, look how well the Flintstones did it!
So I woke up this morning, checked on my cars, and thought "Do I really want to drive my lovely E39 into the ground? Look how she sparkles in the sun, how loyal she’s been, and how much $$$ I’ve devoted to restoring her . . . "
Today, at least, I’m thinking I’ll rent track cars until I can afford one. I dunno, my brain is very changeable :rolleyes:
If I were going to track race a car, I’d probably go with a Honda S2000. One done up like this: Supercharged Honda S2000 Car Review- A Perfect Honda - YouTube
Here’s a good link showing all the steps the author took to prep his S2000 for racing. He makes a good point that you want to look at the grids in the area to see what cars are popular as it’s no fun racing by yourself. I used to do a lot of work to support vintage racing a few years back and you’d see guys that had a super cool car but were the only entry in their class, or maybe they couldn’t be competitive in their class, so you’d see them tooling around all by their lonesome. Makes it hard to justify funneling the money into it.
[Checking in from vacation in Page, AZ.]
Unless you are very unlucky, you won’t drive your car into the ground, especially in the early days. In my 135 track days in three cars of my own, and three rental cars, the worst damage I ever experienced was when one of my rotors came apart. I had to be towed home, but there was no other serious damage. When I sold the Z with 8 years of tracking and daily driving, it looked great.
Speaking as an instructor, and based on your age, gender, and the way you’ve written about yourself and your experience, I feel confident that you won’t do anything stupid that could cause serious damage to your car. Accidents happen, of course, but the fear of damaging one’s car is very common among novices, and leads many beginners to not even try. But in my years driving and instructing, the ones most likely to hurt their cars were 20-year-old males who just wanted to go fast and didn’t want to learn or even listen to their instructors. That’s not you (unless you’re really fooling us here).
As long as you keep up on the maintenance, and keep good tires and brake pads on it, you’ll be fine. Run another half-dozen events and see how it goes. Eventually you may want to get a dedicated track car, but lots of people track daily drivers, as I did for 12 years.
Besides, renting track cars is going to be very expensive. You could repair some serious damage for the price of one weekend’s rental!
Thanks, Comma! I’m def not a young male hot dog driver; if anything, I was a bit too cautious at the HPDE (plus the 530i doesn’t rocket off with more throttle – I could probably beat the lighter BMWs on a long stretch, but she’s just not that agile).
I got ready to go to the “gentle timed drag runs” on Wednesday night but my girl’s “Service Engine Soon” light was on. I bought an OBD code reader today and the issues it found aren’t too bad: spark plugs and an 02 sensor. These are the same readings the pro Bimmer guys got at the HPDE (though the SES wasn’t on).
I looked into several other forms of amateur motorsports after I started with HPDE, and tried a few. Here are a few thoughts about some of them:
Drag racing (in street cars). I never participated, but went to a few. Relatively interesting as a spectator, depending on the level of cars running. As a participant, I imagine it would be exhilarating for the 20 seconds or so you’re doing it, and you get immediate feedback about your performance. But if there are a lot of cars there, you may not get many runs. So a lot of time waiting, not much driving. Also, the driving you’re doing doesn’t really take much skill, IMO. On the plus side, it doesn’t cost much.
Autocross. I did this a few times. Sort of a cross between HPDE and drag racing. It takes more skill than drag racing, and you get the immediate feedback. It’s also much less expensive than HPDE, and you probably won’t have to travel very far, so no hotel costs. On the minus side, like drag racing, a lot of waiting and not much track time.
“Driving Experiences.” There are many outfits that offer a chance to drive a race car or super car around a track. They provide a brief (~ 1 hour) instruction period and then let you drive a few laps around real race track or their own small road-course track.
I’ve done the Mario Andretti Driving Experience at Las Vegas Motor Speedway and two Indy Racing Experiences at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway: one where you drive an Indy car with a detuned engine that can go about 120 mph tops, and the other in a full-powered two-seater where a pro driver takes you at around 180+. Driving (or riding in) a real race car is great fun and gives you a hint of what pro race drivers have to be able to do. Although driving the detuned car was fun, and being able to say you actually drove a race car around the Indianapolis Motor Speedway is pretty cool, I’ve gone faster in my own car (on track, of course).
But riding in the two-seater was AMAZING! My driver was Davey Hamilton, who ran the 500 eleven times, finishing 4th in 1998. Even though the pros go 40+ mph faster in races, at “only” 180 mph the G-forces in the turns are incredible! The aero downforce gives the car a grip in the corners you just can’t believe. It was light years beyond anything I’ve experienced in any of my other track driving! Unfortunately, it was only two laps, less than two minutes! But probably one of the most memorable things I’ve done in a car.
However, these things are expensive. I did Indianapolis back in 2009, and I don’t remember what I paid then, but today doing both will cost you $1,200. For three laps of driving and two laps of riding. That’s a pretty high dollars-to-track time ratio!
Super car experiences start at around $200 for about five laps in a Corvette, and can go up to $1,500 or more for a Lamborghini or Ferrari. In these, after a classroom session, an instructor will sit in the right seat and guide you around the track. Kind of like a very compressed HPDE session. A little more track time than the racing experiences, but not necessarily less expensive if you opt for the high-end cars.
Racing/driving schools. In contrast to “driving experiences,” which are essentially high-priced carnival rides, schools like Skip Barber, and Bob Bobdurant are actually trying to teach you real race driving skills. They take between one and four days, and you generally progress through street cars to single-seat race cars. Although they are also quite expensive – up to $6,000 – you get lots of track time and great classroom instruction.
I took the three-day Skip Barber course at Mid-Ohio in 2001 (it was a lot less expensive back then, and I got a price break by buying the class while at an IndyCar race). It was one of the best weekends of my life. The course is extremely well structured, building up one skill at a time, then moving to the next, and toward the end bringing them all together.
However, I had a couple of years of HPDE experience at that point, so I wasn’t a rank noobie. I would strongly urge anyone who is serious about learning track driving to run a number of HPDE events to learn the basics before spending the big bucks for a pro school. You will go a lot further in the school, and get a lot more for your money, than if the school is your first experience on track.
Racing. Once you have done some HPDEs and the bug has bitten you, you may be inclined to join one of the club racing series, like Spec Miata. Here you run a specially-prepared race car that is probably not street legal, in real races, not merely open-track diving sessions. This gets incredibly expensive, even with relatively cheap and simple cars like Miatas. Beyond the car and all its special equipment (roll bars, racing seats, harnesses, fire extinguishers, etc.) you’ll need a trailer, tow vehicle, lots of race tires and other spares, and you may need to pay for a race mechanic and/or other crew members. At the very least, you may have to pay for their hotels and meals. Expect to spend tens of thousands a year, and to dedicate most of your weekends during the season to driving to the next event at various tracks around the country. Amateur racing is for people with lots of money and spare time.
HPDE. I saved this for last because, for me, it hit the sweet spot between track time, level of commitment, and cost. As I mentioned above, drag racing and autocross are inexpensive, but don’t give you much time on track. The driving experiences also don’t give you much time on track, but are very expensive. The pro schools are expensive with lots of time on track. Racing is crazy expensive!
HPDE sessions might cost a couple hundred for registration for one to three days, and if it’s a multi-day event not near your home you’ll have to pay for hotel and meals. (Pro tip: book a hotel with a hot tub. There’s nothing better than a nice hot soak after a day at the track!) Early on, before you’ve done much to upgrade your car, those may be your only expenses. If you can do a one-day event at a track near your home, registration may be your only direct expense.
As you progress, you’ll start going through tires and brake pads faster, and you may start buying track tires and making performance mods. You may even buy a dedicated or-semi-dedicated track car.
Even with those increased costs, you’ll still only be paying a few hundred bucks per track day to run whenever and wherever you want. For that you’ll get at least an hour or two on track per day. You’ll have instructors helping you learn, and dozens of laps during which you can hone your skills. I found that much more rewarding than autocross or drag racing. And I could afford to do it a lot more often than a racing school or driving experience.
I kept very thorough records of all my track days, and counting everything except the cost of the cars (including all travel expenses, parts, racing equipment, maintenance, oil changes, etc.), I averaged $470 per day over 135 track days between 1999 and 2011. This includes the three-day Skip Barber school for which I paid $2,500 and seven instructor training days for which I paid nothing.
I was able to save some money by becoming an instructor starting in 2004. Although instructors generally aren’t paid, they also don’t pay registration fees for the days they teach. I instructed for 28 days which would have cost me at least $5,000 more.
But being an instructor isn’t just a cost-saving measure. It also made me a better driver: you learn a lot by trying to teach other people, and you can often see your own mistakes and bad habits more clearly in other people than in yourself. I recommend learning to instruct once you’ve reached the intermediate level.
So there’s my long-winded rundown on some of the many forms of motorsport that are open to amateurs. I hope it’s helpful.
Did my TL;DR post stun everyone into silence with its magnificence, or are you all out at the track? I didn’t mean to kill the thread.