Learn me track day insurance

The Learn me track driving thread inspired this. The thread aligns with my interests. I have a DD that I care about not wrecking. I even pay a note on it.

While not tracking such a car makes sense, I am not sure that it makes sense to buy a car just for track days at my current level of involvement, that level being zero.

At least for my first event or three, I'd like to drive my DD, and cover it with an insurance policy.

Can anyone provide their experiences with track day coverages? Costs? Customer service? Claims?

Count me in on this as well. I'd love to do the SCCA Track Night in America program, but wrecking the DD would result in a divorce among the other pain.

I've read good things about Lockton track day insurance, but never used it.

A second option if you really don't want to risk wrecking your DD is to do an arrive-and-drive. More expensive up front, but possibly cheaper than a new set of brakes and tires if your DD is a big, heavy, high-power car.

Why not do time trials. No cars on track. Gets your foot in the door for If you like it.

codrus wrote: I've read good things about Lockton track day insurance, but never used it. A second option if you *really* don't want to risk wrecking your DD is to do an arrive-and-drive. More expensive up front, but possibly cheaper than a new set of brakes and tires if your DD is a big, heavy, high-power car.

Do you have any recommendations for setting up an arrive & drive at a track day as a novice? I don't care what car it's in as long as I fit.

I'm not so much worried about wadding up the DD as I feel my DD is too fast for a novice and being a somewhat competitive person, I think I might have trouble keeping my right foot out of it.

Trackmouse wrote: Why not do time trials. No cars on track. Gets your foot in the door for If you like it.

Most, if not all time trials events I'm aware of have more than one car on the track at a time. Not doing that would make the event prohibitively expensive.

In for info as well. This question has also been rolling around the back of my mind.

drdisque wrote: Do you have any recommendations for setting up an arrive & drive at a track day as a novice? I don't care what car it's in as long as I fit. I'm not so much worried about wadding up the DD as I feel my DD is too fast for a novice and being a somewhat competitive person, I think I might have trouble keeping my right foot out of it.

Spec Miata is probably the easiest to find in arrive-and-drive, is usually one of the cheaper options (in relative terms), and won't give you any problems with having too much power. :) If you're going to take it to a school, you'll need one with two seats in it though, which can be trickier.

You'll need to find an arrive-and-drive service that's local to whatever track you're interested in. If you're in northern California, I'd start by calling Lesher Motorsports (http://www.lesherracing.com), I've never used their services but they do a lot of Miata rentals at events I've been to and they seem to know what they're doing. If you're somewhere else, then you'll need to ask locals for recommendations. Ask on forums, ask any local racers you know, you could also call the track or the organizers of a school event that you're interested in and ask if they can suggest someone.

As I mentioned, arrive-and-drive isn't cheap. Around here, a 1-day rental of a Spec Miata is between $500 and $1000. For that they'll prep the car (with a full set of safety gear), tow it out to the track, fuel it up, put tires on it, adjust it to your needs, support it during the day, and tow it home afterwards. You just show up at the track with your helmet, introduce yourself, get in the car and drive. Oh, and pay for it. :)

Trackmouse wrote: Why not do time trials. No cars on track. Gets your foot in the door for If you like it.

please ... you will really need some track time before you jump into TT's

depending on the club, you'd HAVE to have some verifiable track time (signed off to be on track without instructor) ... NASA-SE comes to mind

different clubs run TT in different manner ... NASA-SE has all the TT cars out on track at the same time ... gridded fastest (per results that day) to slowest (me) ... but still you would need to have developed the situational awareness of other cars catching you ... that only comes with time spent on track

start with PDX/HPDE/track days with the multitude of clubs that offer this

drdisque wrote:

codrus wrote: I've read good things about Lockton track day insurance, but never used it. A second option if you *really* don't want to risk wrecking your DD is to do an arrive-and-drive. More expensive up front, but possibly cheaper than a new set of brakes and tires if your DD is a big, heavy, high-power car.

Do you have any recommendations for setting up an arrive & drive at a track day as a novice? I don't care what car it's in as long as I fit. I'm not so much worried about wadding up the DD as I feel my DD is too fast for a novice and being a somewhat competitive person, I think I might have trouble keeping my right foot out of it.

listening to your instructor .... and doing what he says to do, will go a long way in helping you in this regard

and I've seen drivers (novices) that won't listen to their instructor being asked to pack up and leave ... the instructor wants you to have a good time ... wants you to learn and progress in track awareness AND pace of play ... it really is overwhelming first time out

good luck, it's a legal crack pipe you're picking up here

wbjones wrote: listening to your instructor .... and doing what he says to do, will go a long way in helping you in this regard

As an SCCA TT/PDX instructor myself - please follow this advice and don't try to give us a heart attack. Most of us have been around a track a couple of times and try to show you a safe way of doing that. Speed comes later.

Plus, given your instructor a heart attack is just bad form.

Re rentals - I've rented a Spec Miata before at Thunderhill when my MR2 was out of commission. IIRC it was about 700 bucks for the day (which included all fuel, tires etc). Mine didn't come with a passenger seat, but there were a couple available that did. That said, if you stuff the car into the scenery and/or break it, you're on the hook for up to the full value of the car and even a race prepped Spec Miata isn't that cheap.

Generally you don't see that many incidents at well run event as the crash test dummies tend to getting filtered out pretty quickly and asked to leave if necessary. Nevertheless I've seen the odd incident resulting in bent fenders or similar, usually towards the end of the day when people get tired. Don't underestimate how tiring driving on a track can be even for people who do it regularly.

I certainly would listen to my instructor. I live in Chicago so I would be looking to do something at Autobahn or Blackhawk or perhaps Gingerman.

My concern is actually that I'm aware of some track day instructors that push their students too hard.

I don't fit in an NA/NB with the stock seats (my eyes stare straight at the visors/top of the windshield frame), so unless the race seat moves the driver down and back a lot, I don't think Spec Miata would work for me.

Anyway, thanks for the suggestions. I actually know a guy selling a Neon ACR with cage and harness but still all the seats, which would be perfect for what I want out of a track car, but alas, I have nowhere to put it.

They have an online calculator at Lockton assuming they are covering your event.

http://locktonmotorsports.com/product/hpde-insurance

I've seen way too many really nice balled up cars (New GT-R, 911 turbo, m3, c7 Corvette, challenger + brz) with no track insurance. If you can't walk away from it being balled up, get track insurance.

A lot of people don't do it: if you get caught up in traffic or someone is making you nervous go into the hot-pits to get some breathing room and Point-by early/often, if they're behind you they're faster than you.

In reply to accordionfolder:

Good call on a drive through or lots of point bys. I've only done one track day and couldn't afford to bring the car home in a bucket, so I only drove well within my comfort zone and gave many point bys throughout the day. Still had a good time even without going at 10/10ths.

drdisque wrote: I don't fit in an NA/NB with the stock seats (my eyes stare straight at the visors/top of the windshield frame), so unless the race seat moves the driver down and back a lot, I don't think Spec Miata would work for me.

Generally they do (this is not an unusual problem), although it might or might not be enough. If you find a local shop with one, I'm sure they'd be happy to let you come over and test-sit in the seat.

I haven't tried the online calculateor, but a couple years back I called one of the companies that advertise in the back in grm. For an agreed value of 15k, it was about $300 for a track weekend. You could get cheaper per-weekend rates by buying in for multiples at one time.

I'm doing my first hpde in at few weeks. I like my car a lot and don't want to ball it up but I can't afford that, so I'll be very careful and hopefully so will everyone else.

EDIT: I just ran the numbers through the Lockton estimator and got $161 for an agreed value of 10k with a 15% deductible. That might be doable.

being careful yourself is great ... and a very good thing to do, when you're driving your DD and can't afford to ball it up

but that doesn't stop someone else from screwing up and coming back on track just when you're the most vulnerable ... E36 M3 can happen even if you're doing all the right things ...

this isn't trying to keep you from doing this track day ... just if the car is that important, I'd either find a car that I could leave there, or I'd really get the track day ins ...that can get you back on the street without a lot of hassle

http://forums.viperclub.org/threads/630601-Highly-Recommend-Steve-Katz-(aka-ACR-Steve)-for-Track-Insurance-.-.-.

This guy is one of us.

I've been curious about this too as I'll probably do my first HPDE with an instructor this summer.

Is Track Day Insurance structured similar to regular car insurance?

Meaning do you have a regular set deductable amount, coverage for injury, property damage, etc?

Do they insure you for claims from contact with another car?

Is minor damage like say bumper or fender damage from going off course covered?

Contradiction wrote: I've been curious about this too as I'll probably do my first HPDE with an instructor this summer. Is Track Day Insurance structured similar to regular car insurance? Meaning do you have a regular set deductable amount, coverage for injury, property damage, etc? Do they insure you for claims from contact with another car? Is minor damage like say bumper or fender damage from going off course covered?

I've never used it ... but reading on here and other threads re. the same thing .. it seems that there is negotiating room with each of the companies the offer this product ... as to overall price, deductible, what they actually cover ... etc ...seems the best thing is to google and find as many track day ins. companies as you can, and start calling ...

I've always found that voice to voice is better than keyboard communication ... but I'm old ... so y'all get off my lawn

JUst to update with my experience - I ran the online calculator on the Locton site for a declared value of 10k with $1500 deductible and it came up to $170. Taking wbjones advice, I called Lockton to see what kind of quote I could get. I spoke with Fred there and he was most helpful and courteous. He tells me the minimum they do is actually $20,000 with a $2,000 deductible and it's...$170. Basically, you can give them any value under that but you're paying the same thing. In case of an...incident...they pay up to 90% of the KBB value on the car. You can be covered for modifications that add value to the vehicle above KBB if they are documented. Basically, if I were to total the car I could try to prove to the adjuster that it was worth, say, $15,000 because of mods, but how much I could get over KBB would be up to the adjuster no matter what I bought the policy for.

That seems reasonable from the insurance company's operational point of view. You don't want some schmuck insuring his clapped out Miata for $20,000 and stuffing it in the wall on purpose. I get it.

But it puts me in a difficult spot on my car. My Mustang would have a sale price between $7,000 and $8,000 according to KBB's website. I have done some mods to it - springs, shocks, antisways, etc - but not really anything that would raise the sales price to most buyers. In the real world, we all know most mods don't actually raise resale anyway, unless they're BIG ones.

So...I could declare a value of $10,000 for my car and pay the $170, which actually means I'm getting half the coverage I'm paying for. If God forbid, something bad happens, I might only get $6500.

Granted, that's a LOT better than nothing, but also not enough to replace the car. I guess I'd feel better if I was paying $100 for a real $10k policy, even if it might have the same payoff issues? I dunno. Maybe I'm looking too deep and I should just accept that I'm effectively getting $6500 coverage for $170.

Any other recommended agencies to call? I suspect policies are similar, and I would prefer someone with as good a rep as Lockton's, but it seems unwise not to shop around.

In reply to ultraclyde:

Wow, good info. I tried the online quote whatsit, and got the same results. I wild guessed my CR-Z was worth about $12k.

I guess that means I need a more valuable car to take to the track, right? Anything else is just bad value.

Thanks for the report on it ultraclyde!

It isn't the greatest value knowing that the coverage is intended for a more expensive car, but it's still a generally reasonable price and better then nothing. I'm sure my rabbit would appraise to them around $5,000-$6,000 but I would probably still consider it.

Bringing this thread back from the dead to update since I just purchased the policy from Lockton.

I took the time to do a quick spreadsheet with the NADA private party value of my Mustang ($10,500) and all the modifications I've done. I priced all the parts at current replacement cost and saved links to all the websites where I got the prices. I included a reasonable estimate for the custom paint work I've had done, but that was the only place labor was effectively included since I've done all the other work myself. Adding the mod costs to the NADA, I came up with a value of $17,000 on the nose. I was able to enter all the mods on the Lockton website and was very specific with name brands and such. For a single event with 10% deductible was $168 out the door. Seems reasonable.

I guess I hadn't thought about the amount I really have in modifications before. Kind of surprising.

I received all the paperwork by email 5 minutes after purchasing online. The policy reads as very comprehensive, even covering track clean-up and rental car if needed. Hopefully I won't need it, but it looks solid on paper.

Once the event's over (this weekend) I'd be happy to email a copy of the policy to anyone who wants to read it, with sensitive info redacted, of course. Just in case you are looking into it yourself.

ultraclyde wrote: I haven't tried the online calculateor, but a couple years back I called one of the companies that advertise in the back in grm. For an agreed value of 15k, it was about $300 for a track weekend. You could get cheaper per-weekend rates by buying in for multiples at one time.

That was much lower then I have seen, it runs about 3K for a weekend when I had the viper. ~50K value. So I just did not do track days with passing and on tracks that had good runoff.