Insurance/Tuning Question

#1

I was planning on driving my car to the track, which has obvious drawbacks I’m aware of, but I don’t have a safe, comfortable tow vehicle. That may change now that my wife drove my Legend sedan into the front of my classic truck (in my front yard).:angry:

If I get a trailer I would like to drop all insurance coverage on my SE30, but I was wondering how y’all handle testing the car once you make changes. I’ve done plenty to it (maintenance or installing the go-fast parts) where it’s been nice to know everything works by tooling around town instead of waiting to get the track. What do you do?

Thanks,
Sasha

#2

I’ve never had insurance (or tags) on my E30. I bolted everything on and tested it all at once this past weekend at Rockingham. Prior to that, I had never taken the car to red-line or even exceeded 40 mph in it. Thankfully, everything worked.

What I did was cruise through my neighborhood at low speeds and make sure I had no vibrations or weird sounds, and that the brakes, steering, and clutch all felt normal after I made changes to those systems. Hopefully you can at least get away with that. The street into my development dead ends so there is not a lot of traffic and I felt very comfortable and safe doing this. The only problem this method exposed was my upper spring hats contacting the camber plates - easily solved with a thicker spacer.

The only things that we can really change performance wise is suspension, brake pads, bushings, and exhaust. I’ll bet you can get most of the answers you need by one of the follwing: tooling around your neighborhood (if you can get away with that), the alignment rack, the dyno, and lastly by taking it to the track. The track is where the real answers are anyway.

Based upon my experience, I say go for it. Worst case, load the car up and take it somewhere you can test the changes you have made (country road, private parking lot, etc.).

Steven

PS - sorry to hear about the truck.

#3

Sasha,

I’ve simply left the insurance (pared down to minimums w/ comprehensive) on the car. Since NC demands that you return your tags when you remove insurance from the vehicle, it was the only way to keep it street legal (other than attempting to persuade the DMV that it is a farm-use car).

A fair number of the SpecE30 drivers who have unregistered their cars have told me that they wish they hadn’t – it makes it that much harder to make sure that a modification or repair was done correctly. Testing on the track is expensive and testing at low (incognito) speeds may not show an issue. Plus it means having to trailer the car everywhere it has to go (exhaust shop, body shop, graphics shop, promotional appearances, cruzin’ downtown Carrboro on a tuesday night, etc)

It feels surprisingly goofy, however, to drive around in your race car, BTW. And speeding is, for obvious reasons, verboten, so it feels even more goofy driving in the slow lane.

#4

Sasha - I would also consider some kind of insurance, like storage, transport, paddock. We got a policy from Parish Heathcock (http://www.parishheacock.com/content/) that covers the car for damage for everything except racing.

Ed

#5

Be awre that these guys (and any of the Classic car companies) can’t write their policies for NC cars. The NC Dept. of Ins. prohibits it.
'
And how do I know that? I’m a ins. agency owner and I just called both Parish Heacock and the NCDOI to double check it again!

These folks can only offer coverage to autos older then 25 yrs old.

edavidson wrote:

[quote]Sasha - I would also consider some kind of insurance, like storage, transport, paddock. We got a policy from Parish Heathcock (http://www.parishheacock.com/content/) that covers the car for damage for everything except racing.

Ed[/quote]

#6

Bummer for the NC guys. I do remember them asking me about state of residence before they accepted the application. Is there any way to insure with a rider to home owners ins, etc.?
Ed

#7

I’d suggest keeping it legal for the reasons cited. If you carry only the bare minimum (liability) on it, and it is not listed as a primary transport vehicle, the cost per year really should not be much. It’s nice to have that ‘spare’ car you can drive if necessary while yours is in the shop for service or whatever.

I’m a bit surprised but equally pleased at the number of cars that are driven back and forth to the track. Gives me hope that I can pull off the same for awhile until Santa, Easter Bunny or Tooth Fairy bring me a trailer. :stuck_out_tongue:

#8

Driving to and from a racing event is not a good idea for several reasons.

  1. 944 blows up dumps oil on the track and while racing you and your ride home slide off the track into a tire wall at high rates of speed.

  2. Racing machines, even e30’s break from time to time. Having a truck and trailer to get to the track and home again isn’t a ‘nice to have’ its a "HAVE TO HAVE"

  3. HPDE - yea sure drive the car to / from the event. If you make the jump into racing tow vehicle is the first thing you’ll need…and no matter how expensive it seems, it’s a nessesity and you shouldn’t try racing without it.

my2cts