Wouldn't hurt to read your policy or talk to an agent, but there is probably an exclusion for racing on a closed course or something similar. There is extremely little chance they cover you without being intentionally mislead. Don't commit fraud. E36 M3 happens and sometimes it just sucks.
In reply to John Welsh :
My biggest fear with reporting this to insurance as an after-event accident would be the part where I, in different words, tell them that I hooned my car like a wannabe Ken Block into a lamppost on a publicly-accessible parking lot. Or otherwise smashed into a highly avoidable obstacle for some reason. If whoever I speak to makes note of that, and I think an insurance company would be strongly incentivized to, the outcome for my insurance costs could be disastrous even if they don't end up covering the costs. Sliding a car in an empty parking lot outside of a legally sanctioned event is actually a crime in Ontario, so I could end up giving them hints that I damaged the car while committing a crime.
In reply to ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ :
The airbag is different, but if it fits at all I might need one for inspection compliance reasons if I can't find a matching one. Could definitely use a driver's seatbelt assembly though.
GameboyRMH said:In reply to John Welsh :
My biggest fear with reporting this to insurance as an after-event accident would be the part where I, in different words, tell them that I hooned my car like a wannabe Ken Block into a lamppost on a publicly-accessible parking lot. Or otherwise smashed into a highly avoidable obstacle for some reason. If whoever I speak to makes note of that, and I think an insurance company would be strongly incentivized to, the outcome for my insurance costs could be disastrous even if they don't end up covering the costs. Sliding a car in an empty parking lot outside of a legally sanctioned event is actually a crime in Ontario, so I could end up giving them hints that I damaged the car while committing a crime.
Just some background on this, we have pretty strict stunt driving laws here, any speeding infraction of 50 km/h or more over the limit in a posted 80 km/h+ zone or 40 km/h over in anything posted under 80 km/h counts as well as burnouts, intentional sliding/drifting, squealing tires, racing away from a green light, jumping traffic to make a left turn ahead of traffic from the other direction, wheelies etc. As far as none speed related things go the police can charge you with this on public or private property if they witness this happening. Thanks to the takeover crews going out to a snow covered parking lot in the winter to practice some skills falls under this.
The fines/consequences - Car towed and impounded for 14 days on the spot, 30 day license suspension on the spot, a day in court followed by a minimum $2000 fine up to $10,000 (don't forget to pay the tow and impound fees!), 6 demerit points. Good luck affording insurance after all of that.
Just as a side note, I know Canada/US insurance laws are different..........but in the US even asking if an incident is "covered" usually results in a claim being filed even if it is denied.
So still gets a claim on his record and no money toward getting it fixed. I know when I worked at State Farm, if someone wanted a binding answer to a coverage question they had to file a claim.
So yes, there could be some detriment to "just asking."
How far is Cleveland for you?
In reply to adam525i :
Yikes!
I stand corrected. Disregard all my words above.
In reply to Jerry :
Cleveland would be a bit over 5hrs, I've found a possibly color-matched one less than 2hrs away I'm aiming to get and have a lead on another a bit over 4hrs away, both look like they're in perfect shape from the pics.
I'm in Montreal. This upcoming weekend is a bit hairy for me, but let me know if you'd me to scout something for you. I'll let you know if I can help
Marketplace - brz gr86 bumper | Facebook Front fascia in Windsor, but i can't tell the year from the ad.
In reply to Ian F (Forum Supporter) :
I have an eyewitness account from that event (or a similar one): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m-yaOyDbTFY
It turned a fun day into a serious one pretty quick.
DeadSkunk (Warren) said:Marketplace - brz gr86 bumper | Facebook Front fascia in Windsor, but i can't tell the year from the ad.
That's a 2021+ BRZ bumper which I don't think would fit at all, I'm looking for a 2017-2020 86 bumper which looks like this:
Edit: I also have a lead on one of these in Montreal but closer could be useful.
Oof, just seeing this now.
If it makes you feel better, I've bent two cars in 20 years of autocross. One clearly my fault for staying in it too long after control was lost (early on in my autocross days), the other.. I still don't get how it travelled that far full on brakes after it got out of shape on a ? Shaped turn. Did the abs do something weird? Who knows? Ultimately I was in the driver's seat and it was a friend's car when I wasn't in great financial shape. Plus the structure I hit wound up costing more to fix than reshelling the car. Thankfully, helping reshell the car brought me closer to the friends whose car it was.
Suffice to say, it sucks. Been there. I feel for you. I'm sure you have a lot of second guessing your driving. Happens to all of us. We live, we learn, we adjust our understanding of risk and how hard to push where.
You seem well on your way with the logistics of getting it put back together. All the best.
Not sure if it still is the case, but insurance in Ontario is brutal - you don't want to mess with it. I've been out of the country for about 10years, but 10-15years ago, they (insurers) were making life difficult for auto-xers even if there were no incidents. Having your insurance cancelled because they discovered (online or otherwise) that you were competing in 'timed events' was a real thing. Glad to hear that the original poster is not hurt worse - and hopefully the search for reasonably priced parts goes well!
Local Subaru dealership just quoted me $36.68 for a request containing both the hood support rod and radiator support assembly, should I be a jerk and try to hold them to it? 
Sometimes you get lucky with part quotes. I remember back in the day the motor mounts at the Mazda dealer for my 2000 Miata were something like $130+ CAD. For some reason they could order the mazda competiton mounts for $35 when they entered the part number.
So I've had a lot of time to think over the crash and watch the video many times. I don't think it was quite as avoidable as I'd initially thought. The time between initiating the slide that led toward the post and hitting it was just about 2 seconds, and there was a chance to do something to prevent it for only about the first half of that. Here's a video of my fastest (and last) official run so you can see where the course goes:
And here's the crash. AUDIO WARNING: There's no audio before the crash due to a loose connection or some shorted wire in the mic setup that happened after my last official run, but the impact of the crash knocks it back into contact. So don't crank up your volume and then deafen yourself with the bang of impact or the Howard Dean yell I let out.
I went through the last gate before the post in a slight rightward slide, as I went through the gate I went full-throttle and transitioned into a slide to the left, I kept it at full power until about when I started countersteering. By the time I'd initiated this ill-fated drift and slapped in about 160deg of countersteer, avoiding a crash by dodging the pillar to the left was no longer an option. The only way out was to the right. One option was to add more countersteer and more gas to extend the slide, a pretty unnatural move to make, especially when I'd already picked up more than enough speed and with a curb and some boulders to smash into past the post to the right. The other more creative option would be to add more countersteer and use the handbrake. This would avoid accelerating toward the curb and boulders at the far end, but if done improperly could cause a transition toward another curb to the right. But I hadn't looked at or thought about the post yet so I wasn't thinking of any of those options.
I think by the time I got to the mid-way distance between the last gate and the pole, that was about my last chance to start doing something to avoid it. At this point I went lightly on the brakes to bleed off some speed since I seemed to be approaching the next gate too quickly. Unfortunately this also adjusted the car's path even closer to the post.
When I started looking off-line, saw the post and realized how close I was getting to it was about when you can see it start to peek under the A-pillar in the video. At this point some part of the car was going to hit some part of the post unless I could bring the car to a stop before it, so I went to full braking force, but that didn't do much, probably because the ABS was preventing the wheels from locking up in a slide. I often worry that ABS might do more harm than good in some situation where I'd want to lock the wheels such as a spin and it looks like this was one such situation. If I could've locked the wheels I could've sent the car off straight to the right of the pole (if done early enough...but again I didn't think to avoid in time), or got more deceleration when heading toward the pole.
So, mistakes I made:
1. Sending it too hard in the general direction of a lamppost, the full-power transition through the last gate before the pole was unnecessary and a dumb risk to take.
2. Focusing on the racing line too hard, not seeing the big picture in time to take action to avoid the lamppost. Probably a case of familiarity breeding complacency.
Technical issues that contributed:
1. ABS only allowing gentle braking in a slide. I'm pretty confident that if the brakes had locked when I hit them hard the car would've slowed down a lot more or possibly even stopped before the post. After the crash I wondered if I didn't have much braking because they locked up, but it looks like it was the opposite.
This is just "One of them racin' deals"
It sucks but I'm glad you're OK. Don't make it worse by getting your insurance involved.
So, this is where I get to be that safety weenie guy and point out that if this were an SCCA event, that course would not have met safety requirements. Specifically, the requirement that the course not be within 25' of a solid object. That turn where it essentially uses that lamppost as a pin cone with cones just the other side of it was a poor safety choice.
I was an organizer and course designer for a local non-scca autocross club for several years. We made a specific point to follow the best practices of SCCA as they are the largest group and defacto standard. (Best liability defense!)
You do share some for driving the course and driving hard there, but I would incorporate that knowledge for the future. Stuff happens and we can get out of shape in weird places. It's hard to spot and step back and not push somewhere for safety reasons. It's also hard to be that guy and go tell event personnel they have a safety problem in the making and feel like that guy. It's very very hard to make a decision that you won't run an unsafe course or run a section at 8/10ths for self preservation. ("I know where I could make up time, but nope!")
I'm not saying it's a bad club or bad people. It might be good to feed back the 25' thing to help prevent it happening again to someone else.
In reply to Apexcarver :
The videos seem to reinforce what I wondered after seeing the picture in the original post. The racing line looks way too close to the light poles.
Regardless, I'm sorry this happened and glad you're not seriously hurt @GameboyRMH
AClockworkGarage said:This is just "One of them racin' deals"
It sucks but I'm glad you're OK. Don't make it worse by getting your insurance involved.
Bingo and that's a bummer namely in a domain of motorsport that is supposed to be as low risk as possible and its well known the majority of participants are playing with their street cars.
Another 10-15' wouldn't have helped, yes there are some fundamental course design problems. The distance is far less important than not aiming cars under power and potentially out of control at hard things and/or people. When designing courses put your major "features" (typically your fastest and/or physically largest elements) in the most open spaces, never "point" a car towards anything but the course. Avoiding objects is far more important than the distance between objects.
Glad you're not hurt. Glad you have a repair plan coming together.
Interesting course layout...
I watched the crash version first. From the crash video I thought that rounding of the lamp post was to be a right hand turn that you "under turned" for. Upon watching the clean run, I see it was intended to be a left turn which you "over turned" for. However, as pointed out the lamp post itself was really the turning object. The cones did nothing, or very little to keep you from the actual lamp post.
Another thought was, "wow, tall cones look like a great luxury from a visibility perspective." Easier to see up high. I then further thought, "boy, they look easy to catch with a car mirror" and that would suck. Low, standard cones are nice when they tuck under the curvature of the door panel to the point where you're generally over the top of the cone. Not so easy with a mirror height cone.
Is it possible that this turn should have been approached as a single pylon turn with the pole itself being that single point considering that the actual pylons were less relevant at this turn? Late apex.
Sample video
Edit: rewatching the clean run, you did pretty much hit this as a late apex...that time.
I'm really sorry to hear about this. Glad you're ok.
Make sure you don't get close to the line of insurance fraud. Don't forget it went out on the police scanners.
This club pretty much always uses that post as a turnaround point, although this is probably the tightest one I've ever seen set up around it.
The "tall cones" were great for visibility, but they were a substitute for the ordinary cones that this club normally uses, which were locked in a container with a key that nobody could find...adam525i did smack one with a mirror and it made a loud noise and folded the mirror but no other damage was done. Somebody else got one caught under the car and it didn't seem much worse than a normal cone.
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