Want to rent my car out for track days

[James-ysxhe]

Hey guys,

I have a Mazda MX5 track car that I would like to rent out but have no idea how to do it. Do you guys know of any websites I could use to advertise it? or know of any other ways?. I have spent thousands on getting it track ready (full cage, seats, harnesses, suspension, upgraded brakes, racing wheels and tyes) and the car is awesome on the track. Would be good to recoup a little bit of that cost if possible

Any thoughts?

Thanks

[SAS Tom]

How much would you charge?
What’s the cost if it gets broken?

I’ve rented motorbikes for trackdays and it’s reasonable at £240 per day. Car hire seems much more expensive for cars that ultimately are worth less money and not as high performance.

[IJWS15]

Speak to a solicitor . . .

Worst case if there is something wrong with the car and someone gets killed could you be liable and how do you protect yourself from any claims.

[James-ysxhe]

I'm not too sure yet. Other MX5 track cars I have seen are around £650 so figure I could undercut and go for around £550 for a day. That would include the fuel etc. and cover the cost of me getting it to most of the main UK tracks.

Depends what causes it to break down I suppose! hopefully that wouldn't be a problem for a little while as I have not long finished building it, only been on 2 track days with it myself and it sits in the garage the rest of the time.

£250 isn't bad at all for a bike! I would have thought it was more considering if you make a mistake theres a good chance you will fall off and trash the thing!

[HustleRussell]

James-ysxhe said:

Hey guys,

I have a Mazda MX5 track car that I would like to rent out but have no idea how to do it. Do you guys know of any websites I could use to advertise it? or know of any other ways?. I have spent thousands on getting it track ready (full cage, seats, harnesses, suspension, upgraded brakes, racing wheels and tyes) and the car is awesome on the track. Would be good to recoup a little bit of that cost if possible

Any thoughts?

Thanks

People aren’t going to pay a lot of money or take on a lot of risk. They will already be paying for track time and probably insurance so how much do you think they’ll realistically pay you on top of that? Look at the options already available and figure out if you can undercut them.

If the car lets you down they are going to be significantly out of pocket so how do you deal with that? What will your policy be? The customer has paid say £600 in total for the day and taken a day off work in good faith and then the clutch fails catastrophically at the pit exit. What do you do in that circumstance?

You then have a repair cost to contend with.

I guess you have a towing vehicle and trailer to get the car home?

If it was straightforward everyone would be doing it.

More often, a couple of people share a project 50/50 with a mutual agreement on repairs.

[James-ysxhe]

HustleRussell said:

People aren’t going to pay a lot of money or take on a lot of risk. They will already be paying for track time and probably insurance so how much do you think they’ll realistically pay you on top of that? Look at the options already available and figure out if you can undercut them.

If the car lets you down they are going to be significantly out of pocket so how do you deal with that? What will your policy be? The customer has paid say £600 in total for the day and taken a day off work in good faith and then the clutch fails catastrophically at the pit exit. What do you do in that circumstance?

You then have a repair cost to contend with.

I guess you have a towing vehicle and trailer to get the car home?

If it was straightforward everyone would be doing it.

More often, a couple of people share a project 50/50 with a mutual agreement on repairs.

On a couple of the track days I have been on it's written in the terms and conditions that if the car breaks down you are refunded for the car but lose whatever you spent on the day, unless using a larger company (like bookatrack) who sometimes have spare cars if one breaks down!. Every trackday I have been on has a high mandatory excess which you must sign before taking out the car incase you put it into the wall

I'm aware of the repair costs, a little Mazda isn't a huge amount, I can get a second hand engine for example for roughly £120, a new clutch is in the region of £100 etc.

There are definately alot of points to look at, many of which I haven't even got to yet. Was just after advise from anyone who knew of a way to do it. That's why I would have preferred to use a company to go through who would have all the legal issues in place (i.e if someone ended up seriously hurting or killing themselves in my car).

[silentbrown]

HustleRussell said:

More often, a couple of people share a project 50/50 with a mutual agreement on repairs.

Agreed with all of that. You'll also be spending all day at the circuit on hand to sort niggles, replace brakes/tyres/fuel, etc.

And you'll be hearing the driver missing gears and apices all round the circuit or (worse yet) going 5 seconds a lap faster than you've ever managed...

[T0MMY]

I'm not knocking MX5s at all, I had one for years and think they're fantastic track cars but...I'm not sure you'd be able to rent one out for £550 a day. My opinion isn't really that of your target audience as I don't and probably never would rent track cars but I'd have thought the people who do it would be looking for something a bit special (Caterham, Atoms, Radicals etc.). That said, there was a guy at Rockingham last month in the garage with me who was running an MX5 and an E36 M3 as rentals and he said he had a few other cars (RX8 maybe? And even an Atom I think). His company was called Real GT I believe (that was the number plate on both the cars anyway), maybe worth googling to see what he was charging?

[silentbrown]

T0MMY said:

I'm not knocking MX5s at all, I had one for years and think they're fantastic track cars but...I'm not sure you'd be able to rent one out for £550 a day. My opinion isn't really that of your target audience as I don't and probably never would rent track cars but I'd have thought the people who do it would be looking for something a bit special (Caterham, Atoms, Radicals etc.). That said, there was a guy at Rockingham last month in the garage with me who was running an MX5 and an E36 M3 as rentals and he said he had a few other cars (RX8 maybe? And even an Atom I think). His company was called Real GT I believe (that was the number plate on both the cars anyway), maybe worth googling to see what he was charging?

a quick google gives this... https://www.therealgranturismo.com/

MX5 : £385 including insurance.

[The Selfish Gene]

do not do this :-)

the only way is have a professional team rent it and maintain it for you.

You won't make money - it will break and be crashed

[The Selfish Gene]

just to add - a car I was driving at Zandvoort recently needed £700 worth of wear and tear fixes.

That wasn't including tyres, fuel.

I didn't hit anything (other than kerbs as god intended)

To stop it from becoming a dog you're going to need to maintain it to within an inch of it's life.

This is why all those experience days are so st.......because they don't let you do anything remotely fast with the car.

On track days people can pretty much drive it how they want.

Look at someone like BookATrack who massively know what they're doing..........they I think are charging about 1k per day for a Caterham. They have the best people looking after those cars and they're a hugely experienced team of racers and builders.

[James-ysxhe]

Yeh I rented a caterham r300 from bookatrack last year and it cost me £1k for the day. Hokay I'm being met with overwhelming negative comments about this idea haha. Mabye I will just work overtime in my normal job to recoup the costs lol

I hadn't actually thought of bad drivers in the car (grinding/ missing gears, downshifting too early, riding the clutch, taking corners badly etc.). One bad person in the car could destroy it in an hour without going near a wall I suppose

[Wooda80]

Maybe speak to some track day companies and if they are interested in using the car then let them rent it out.

They'll be able to to tell you how much they can return you per rental and what each party's liability is for maintenance, damage and wear and tear.. No doubt they will have established processes, terms and conditions in place.

Saves you having to deal with individual enquiries and should protect you from any lunatics.

[The Selfish Gene]

James-ysxhe said:

Yeh I rented a caterham r300 from bookatrack last year and it cost me £1k for the day. Hokay I'm being met with overwhelming negative comments about this idea haha. Mabye I will just work overtime in my normal job to recoup the costs lol

I hadn't actually thought of bad drivers in the car (grinding/ missing gears, downshifting too early, riding the clutch, taking corners badly etc.). One bad person in the car could destroy it in an hour without going near a wall I suppose

I reckon - I could break your engine and gearbox in one corner. I wouldn't because i'm nice (well not on purpose). Some of the ham fisted cretins that rent track cars though..........

there are ways to do it - i'm just saying it's loads of hassle, and I don't think you'll make any money. Certainly not enough to warrant your time.

I'm guessing it's why the instructors don't have their own cars - and they always use the punters cars. I could be wrong, but if an instructor could make more money by using his own car, and renting it to you I'm sure they would.

They're at the circuits all week etc