Track Day Mishap Contingency Plan?
 

For those of you who drive your car to and from the track, do you have a contingency plan for if anything were to happen and you can't drive the car home? I'm dying to do a track day, but the anxiety I have for having something happen and not being able to drive the car back, is preventing me from doing so.

AAA is an option, however, the closest track to me is 50 miles out of the free tow range. At $4/mi, it would be $200 to get the car all the way home.

Would there be a cheaper alternate if things went south on track? Have you been in this scenario before?

:thanks:

Where are you at in Ohio?

I went down this route long and hard. Back when I had a BMW 128i my codriver nailed a concrete cinder block that was holding timing equipment at Nationals in Lincoln Nebraska. We damaged a eccentric bolt and caused the LR wheel to toe in 1/2". If we didn't decide to tow out there, I don't know how I'd drive that thing home 14 hours.

After that, went through and decided that a dedicated truck (that doubles as a winter car) and trailer is ultimately the best for my uses and what I wanted going forward.

So, there is no "best" answer. If you're willing to accept and pay $200 out of pocket to get your car home then that's what will have to happen. Also I'd recommend looking into Hagerty or Lockton Motorsport for HPDE Insurance as an extra safety barrier. Sure, added cost but also could help avoid total burden cost if you have a total loss.

Hope to see you out at Mid-Ohio or Pitt Race this year. I'll be at those 2 tracks a lot...

Uhaul truck and trailer

Local towing operation may be cheaper than AAA, I'd just pay the AAA fee to not think about it too hard. Pay to play.

Get AAA plus, 100 mile towing...
Broke driveshaft in LS3 FD at Palmer, had it AAA towed 98 miles to Peabody MA for zero $$$.

When my friend's car started spewing oil on the track, he called a flatbed to tow it to a local shop. I gave him a ride home.

Triple A plus sounds like a good option as well.

I factor potential tow bill as a risk to playing. The primary tracks I go to are 180ish miles away. I try to mitigate the risk by carrying parts that I have seen fail. I usually roll with an extra CV, extra front hub, and extra accessory belt along with some spare fluids.

There are several levels of AAA membership. I think I have a platinum one, which comes with one free 200-mile tow and two free 100-mile tows a year.

I'm in Cincinnati.
Putnam Park - 149 mi
Mid-Ohio - 167mi
NCM - 210mi

I've looked into Hagerty, for track day insurance, and would definitely get it anyway, but they don't have any details about adding the towing supplement on. I wonder if adding that to the insurance package would be an option.

Thanks for all the responses!

AAA is definitely the best bet for me personally, and $200 really isn't too bad of a price. I like the idea of pre-budgeting for it.

Please continue to throw out ideas though in case someone in the future has the same questions with different circumstances.

I always get Track Insurance. Towing is included. Pays for damages to the car, too.

I go through Hagerty these days. The policy includes (at least for me and events I've been to): $1k for Towing, $500 for rental car, $10k for clean-up. I didn't have to add it on or pay more for that.

If you do a thorough prep on the car beforehand and drive within your limits the likely hood of not being able to drive home from an HPDE is very small....BUT there is always that risk. I did it for many years without issue. Now that I have a wife and kid we use the truck and trailer but I do miss the simplicity of just throwing a few things in the car and heading to the track.

Just do it, you wont regret it...much more fun than autocross if that is all you have experienced so far.

We had a group of friends that went to the track for the same day of fun. Two of us had trailers. All these cars had plates so they could be driven home. we figured that the chance of more than two not drivable was slim so if one got bent then there was a trailer there.
I have taken home other cars several times. Each time the car owner has offered to pay my fuel for the truck, and they got to drive my car home following me.




Track cars are an other story. All of us have trailers, an enclosed with tools and spare parts. Also good if it rains or you want to spend the night cheep. and an open roll back that is easy to load whether or not the car is running or broken (never my fault, right). This is a long and slippery down hill road you are traveling.


find out who else is going, and if they have a trailer.

I towed for a couple of years for autocross, but I've driven to events the last several years.

I have several friends that tow, so if something does happen, I hope that I can get help that way. If I can't and have to pay for a tow, that still comes out cheaper than buying a truck and trailer.

Not to mention, in the couple years I was towing, I had a radiator failure once and had an ECU brick on me another time. So that is something to think about as well.

Car trailer and my truck.

Depends on how far the track is. I'd consider the risk and location and if it's close enough and like an autox or HPDE I would just drive it and risk it. Worse comes to worse have someone grab the truck and come get me. If it's a bit away I'd trailer it to begin with.

The best insurance is to stay on top of your maintenance and prep and drive the car on the track with the mindset that you need to drive it home. You may leave a couple of seconds on the table however you lower the risk by a huge amount. Doing HPDE is all about fun and learning to be a better driver and not an exercise in beating the sh#t out of your car.

There’s this stigma that once you enter a track that the car automatically becomes unreliable. The AAA program is a good backup though. Running with a good track day organization will get you a safe environment so just get out there and enjoy yourself.

I have driven my car to and from events in the northeastern US and Canada for the past 20+ years, probably more than 150 track days. HPDE/drivers school/time trials, limited passing on straights only with point-by. I've had to have the car trailered back home for me a total of three times, twice by people with streetable cars they trailered to the track, once by AAA.

If something happens you can figure out a way to deal with it. For me it's never been worth it to invest in a truck and trailer or pay for track insurance. If you're tracking a street car, IMO it's a ton easier to just arrive-and-drive. Yeah, something might happen, but between being surrounded by fellow enthusiasts willing to help, and having Gold AAA with extended towing, you won't be on your own if something happens.

For what it's worth, I've never felt pressured to drive beyond my comfort zone at a track day. Lots of guys there are taking it very easy, and at our small track I still find myself passing most people even while giving myself a significant safety buffer.

If you can make the extra preparations for the peace of mind that's great, but don't let it come between you and the track experience by treating it as an absolute necessity. You can have a ton of fun and learn a lot at the track even while driving very conservatively. The majority of drivers at events I've attended have just driven their cars to and from the event.

+1, ZDan gets all the kudos here. :cheers:

It's well worth the annual cost for peace of mind alone, and if you bought it and didn't use it for say 3 years, the moment you need it it will have paid for itself instantly.

Can you elaborate?

Its worth noting here. AAA will not tow your tire trailer.

I recommend AAA+ if a truck and trailer doesn't make sense. Track days have been so relaxing since I got a truck and trailer. I now have zero anxiety over what could happen concerning how I am getting home. The closest track to me is 2 hours away. The track I frequent the most is 6 hours away.

Making it a track only car has only made it more relaxing. If something does happen, load it on the trailer and shove it in the corner of my garage until I can get to it. I don't need to and cant drive it on the street anyway. The only deadline is the next track event I feel like participating in. I don't recommend getting this far tho. It tends to consume a good chunk of your life. lol

All I meant is that it'll be ok to go even if you can't afford/coordinate a trailer or insurance or whatever else. You don't need to approach it with the mindset of "oh if I can't afford a trailer then I can't afford to track my car."

All you really need to do is make sure your car is in good condition and drive within your comfort zone.

I would think that if you are with a good group that you will have an instructor with you for the first part of the day. They usually will not let you go along until they feel you are doing well.
Have at it and have a good time.

If doing a one off track day or even a couple of them a year then if the worst happens a $200 tow job is actually pretty cheap. Little sense is spending the cash on a truck and trailer for a couple of trips a year. If a $200 tow is the make or break on deciding to track then I would assume that expensive repairs would be out of the question anyway. Just budget a spare $200 for the day and consider it a windfall when you don't need to spend it or stay away from the track.

I vote trailer with a tow vehicle and a good life insurance policy.

The tow isn't going to be your expense. And I would be really surprised if you'd be stuck without preparing in advance.


When my car was wrecked, I had multiple offers of a seat for the day (I never even got a run, codriver didn't complete his first run...) as well as trailer offers, rides home, even people willing to let me take their car home and my car in their trailer. I've seen this since for others, as well. In the end, someone hauled the car to a place it could hang out for a little while so we could sort out whether it was repairable and my wife made the trek out to get me home (with a stop at the ER on the way... I was a passenger and had pretty bad chest contusions, nearly passed out when I had to cough but my body tried to refuse to let that happen).



That ER visit was nearly the biggest expense with health insurance trying to say 'nope', car insurance not an option, and the event insurance not actually covering the injury (they'd have covered out of pocket expenses another insurance company wouldn't pay, but only as secondary... so would not have covered had I been denied coverage at all). Eventually it worked out, but not without some work.


So, even had I needed to pay for a tow, it would have been a tiny part of the cost... and was peanuts on what I ended up out of pocket (some of which was my choice, since I chose to replace a '14 with a new '17).

My nb miata failed on me at poconos. Had AAA gold(?) and towed it to nyc. After the Free 100 miles they charged for the balance.
I didn’t know track insurance covered towing. Does that count as a claim? Or make your track insurance increase for the next time?

I started with a daily going to HPDE's and did a bunch driving it to and from. Track time is a rabbit hole though...and now that same car is gutted and no longer registered or insured for the street so...

Same: Its sad. I have NO other reason to own a truck. But here I am. lol
2019 pre-wrap pic:
https://i.imgur.com/y6yWsV7.jpg

Your Takumi avatar is casting a skeptical side-eye towards your enormous truck. I chuckled.

My plan: call mommy