Track day cars that are crappier than your road car

[QBee]

Interesting question.

I bought a TVR two years ago, as a fun Sunday car. £10k.
Daily driver at the time was an E class Mercedes, now an Audi A8.
Ok, I couldn't/wouldn't take a diesel automatic A8 on track, even though it is worth less than £5k. Wouldn't be any fun.

I quickly decided i wanted to take the TVR on track days. I have spent a fair amount on the TVR, another £10k in fact, making it a balanced, focussed, more powerful track car. The question of buying a cheap 3 series or small sports car (MX5 etc) has crossed my mind regularly, no more than on Monday morning when it was raining at Cadwell Park. I really don't want to bin the TVR.

But it's such a joy to handle the TVR on track. The noise, the power, the presence, the flaming exhaust, the friends you make with a TVR. Track insurance (about £100 for the year as part of my classic policy) mitigates the worry a bit, and I still track the car despite the concerns.

So, no, I won't be buying a disposable shed for track use. But knowing what I do now, and assuming I had the budget for a car and trailer, if I could wind back the clock two years I might do things differently. But it would have to be faster and/or more powerful than my Audi. And handle.

Now where did I put that Tiger/Westfield/Caterham advert?

[Crowds]

E92 m3 daily just sold my caged saxo vts loved that car now have a Hondas ctr as track car. When you've a car you can really drive too the limits and not worried makes the whole experience more fun IMO!

[DiscoColin]

Frimley111R said:

Do you enjoy them anyway? I've got a Clio Williams and its not bad but compared to my Evora S its quite ste. I'm not sure I wouldn't just think 'I wish I was in my Evora' all the time. Or are they better because you can flog them because they are cheapys?

You might wish that you were in your Evora, but spend enough time of the track and you will _really_ wish that it had the long term track running costs of your Clio... There is always a compromise.

[MuZiZZle]

Crowds said:

E92 m3 daily just sold my caged saxo vts loved that car now have a Hondas ctr as track car. When you've a car you can really drive too the limits and not worried makes the whole experience more fun IMO!

Any VTS spares kicking about

[McSam]

For me, a track car isn't about ultimate pace, it's about enjoyment.. I keep running fairly crap tyres on my £900 E36 328i because it's cheap and the car is really good fun to take past its limits. Unless I'm competing in sprints or such, I'm not bothered how much faster I could be going, just how much more fun I could be having.

To that end, it has a mild brake upgrade and some decent coilovers so it behaves properly, but crap tyres are staying because I want to drive it, enjoy it easily and not spend a fortune keeping it going. The whole point is to have fun and develop my own skills, two seconds quicker around a lap I'm not timing anyway would be no achievement if it was just down to buying a faster car..