I have pondered a driver experience day with an instructor BUT the prospect of some clown believing they are Lewis hamilton and destroying my car - which would not be insured - terrifies me. Better to rent a track car me thinks.

Re: Springs: that's funny. In SM we consider our springs to be soft. I was having a coaching session with a semi-pro driver one time. He was telling me "you really have to turn the wheel hard because the SM springs are so soft that you have to be really aggressive with the car to get the weight to transfer quickly." SM is still where its at!

Not so much for Tom but for everyone. A 700 lb/in spring deflects one inch for every 700lbs you put on it.

The OEM front spring on a 1987-91 BMW 325i is 118 lb/in. The 315 /b/in that we're walking away from would be very unpleasant in a street car.....brutal on any imperfect road surface.

Point of note. The miata does not have struts, it's double a-arms on all 4 corners. We run adjustable bilsteen coil over dampeners with the springs. We have had issues in the early days with shocks punching through the tower. It was really punching through the hat because the shock pushrod washer wasn't strong enough and would fold. That was solved with a modified shock hat a long time ago. Banging curbs is not an issue for the suspension.

The value in the past few years for his Porsche has skyrocketed. He bought it for $40,000 about 12 years ago. Had it in the shop for a tune-up and the dealer offered him $160,000. The rate it keeps going up is crazy.

I just had a weird thought. I live in a Philly suburb. The neighborhood is about 30 years old, 2200-2500 sq ft houses (mostly 2 story colonials), 4-5 bedrooms, most basements are finished, 2 car garages, 1/3 acre properties, culdesacs, probably 90+% college educated and 90+% families with children.

That's a great point. I got into tracking cars >10yrs ago. It didn't take long to see the risks associated with high hp and the minimal safety associated with daily driver (DD) cars, as opposed to a "race prepped" car withe cage, race seat, 6pt harness, Head-n-Neck restraint, and fire suppression. It's still pretty darn rare for someone to get hurt on the track, so statistically, it's pretty darn safe. But it didn't take me long to get the DD off of the road and buy a low cost, low hp, vastly more safe, race prepped car.

I used to do a lot of instructing. I would not have been comfortable with in someone's high hp DD unless I had a lot of confidence that they could keep the aggression dialed back. All too often the high hp car owner is an A type personality that's pretty much only known success their whole life. Then they get on the track with big sticky tires, aero, and handling electronics, and are slow to understand that the car is covering for the skills they've not yet learned.

There were a couple times when I had to tell a student that they either dial it back or the chief instructor was going to have to assign someone else to them. My father died when he was the same age I am now and I have 3 teenage boys. Being in the passenger seat, at 150mph, with some knucklehead that doesn't know wtf he's doing is stressful, statistics be damned.

In 2011 I had a helova crash the same place you were at, Road Atlanta. Some called it the worst crash in club racing that year. A car dumped coolant right in front of me and I hooked into a cement wall at about 80mph. I decelerated from 80 to zero in about 24" of crushed sheetmetal, the wall having zero give. I don't figure I'd have survived had I been in a DD. But because of all the safety equipment, to include the (now bent) cage that reinforced the passenger cell, the impact only knocked the wind out of me and cracked a rib, so essentially, nothing.

Consider how many g's a person has to absorb to go from 80mph to 0 in 24". And I just crawled out of the car, laid on the grass to wait the emergency vehicles, and enjoyed the sun on my face in the cool afternoon.

Since we are sharing crash video...
https://vimeo.com/164793791

Texas World Speedway, crash happens in T7, about 45s into video.

Yes, it's the coupe. Obviously, most "sports cars" are two doors, and don't provide a lot of access to the back seat, making it hard to work with kids, unless you don't really care about having them in a safety seat.

-
nice! The Elise ticks another important "sports car" box with "lightweight", though technology all around helps mute even that.

Crash was in the S's. Read the comments for the details. I didn't try too hard to save it. I felt the rear end giving way far before it's visible in the video. I decided it couldn't be saved and I would instead try to slide sideways down thru the S's. But ABS kicked in and tried to make the car go in the direction it was pointed. The wall. My plan failed. ABS's plan succeed.

https://vimeo.com/33128427


I can't watch the vid anymore. In the second before the impact, as I headed for the wall, I was astonished to see just how fast I was going. You never really appreciate how fast your car is going until you're headed for something. Then it's suddenly "holy shit I'm going fast. This is going to be bad".

We're racing at Roebling Road next weekend. 3 day weekend for me because I'll be teaching Comp School on Friday.

I haven't come up with solid work reason to to go LeMans yet, but I'm working on it.

2 car wrecks in DE are exceedingly rare. In fact, I don't know that I'm aware of one. This is in large part because DE almost universally outlaws passing in the corners. And passing is again almost universally only allowed with a point-by from the car being passed.

What that means is that the lead car has to recognize that the following car is there, and stick his arm out the window and tell the following car which side to pass on, at the beginning of the passing zone. Then the lead car has to let off the gas (in most cases) to allow the following car to make the pass before the end of the straight.

People who pass outside of the designated passing zones, or pass without a point-by are usually given one warning, and asked to leave on the second offence. Its simply not tolerated---and is dealt with swiftly. Drivers who don't give a point-by for several laps, or who drag race after giving a point-by are treated equally harshly.

So, your risk of a wreck in DE is entirely within your control. If you respect your car, and your abilities, you are VERY unlikely to take your car home in pieces. You are in MUCH bigger danger on the road to/from the track. I would have zero concern about serious damage to your DD at a DE day. I did it for several years. I drove my car to the track, I spent the day lapping, then I drove home. No big deal.

That said, driving a race car is much more fun than a street car--and you will learn more faster. A full harness, and a race seat provide the proper restraint for your body which allows you to focus on driving the car instead of resisting the cornering and braking forces. This also allows you to perceive what the car is doing better, and therefore react more correctly to the early signs of altered traction.