Are track days really hard on our cars? It would seem that full throttle all day long would put a lot of abuse on the cars and also the brakes? jus curious to what you experienced drivers have to say.

 

Going to get the obvious out of the way...your brakes, tires, and clutch will take a toll. Many of the guys on here are gear heads as well as experianced drivers so they can cover all the technical stuff.

Try searching on google, you can find some really good articles on there about proper ways to race to prevent some ware and tare on your car. Also articles on what is hit the hardest and ways to prevent it. I did research on there before my first race.

Best of luck!

 

dont be too hard on him, hes got 5posts and hes asking experienced drivers questions.... not kids building s204 knockoffs on daddy's paycheck.

he asked in a suby forum, to the guys that race. which is why other NON racers didnt pipe up.
/be rude, you will get a rude response to your stupid comment back.

 

Simply put, it's abusive. You're risking messing up your car if you're not careful. But if you're smart about it, you'll be able to drive your car for the rest of the week.

 

QFT

 

If your car is properly setup and maintained, the abuse will be limited to an accelerated wear of disposable items such as tires and brakes. Your engine will be fine as long as it is either stock, or if modded, has been properly tuned with engine management. Wear on wheel bearings could be accelerated if you have larger than stock tires or improper wheel offsets.

It sounds like this would be your first time at the track. If you have never been out before, don't fear. Your first time out will be more about learning the line and how your car handles. You won't be pushing it anywhere near the limits where you have to start worrying about parts wearing out or breaking on you. At this point you are fine to run on stock brakes and a decent street tire.

Of course after your first track day, you will become addicted and you'll be back for more. As you get better and faster, you'll start pushing the car to the point where you are increasing wear on your tires and brakes. Of course, the biggest wear will be on your wallet as you spend umpteens amounts of money to make the car handle better, accelerate faster, and stop shorter.

If I attend 8 or 9 track days in a season, I will go through a set of tires and a set of brake pads. I just figure this into the cost of tracking the car for a season.

One other cost you need to figure in is gas. I usually burn through a tank to a tank and a quarter over the course of 4 or 5 20 minute sessions. I always mix a little 100 octane in for some added knock protection. BTW, that works out to about 8 MPG.

 

psh... if it drives when you are done... u didn't push it hard enough

 

Hehehehe, oops

 

I was not trying to be hard on him, his question is pretty open ended so i was narrowing it down by stating the obvious. If i am correct he was looking more for a detailed answer, in which he got a a few posts above me, not a bunch of posts simply saying its hard on your tires...its hard on your brakes...hence why i said it up front.

And if you are trying to sarcastically refer to me about the S204 knockoffs at least get the facts right. it was actually a S203 knock off and no its not with my daddys paycheck, i work for my money. I may not race as much as some of the guys on here but i have raced before and do have some experiance so once again you are wrong abut being a "non-racer."

Thanks though...

And to the OP my apologies bro if you took it a rude way, it does seem kinda rude, i meant it in no rude way. Just trying to get the obvious out of the way, and i was serious about google, they have some cool articles by experianced drivers that you can read.

 

thats what she said...