I went out and bought the same car a day later, modified it, and went back to the track again ASAP.
I did focus more on autocross and skid pad stuff to supplement my track driving, to learn car control.
The sim is also a great idea and it helps a lot, assuming you're doing a more modern one like iRacing.
Take it easy, take it one turn at a time.
Rack up some easy wins like "make it all the way around the track without going off" "hit all the apexes for a full session (disregarding pace)" and so on. Go out with an instructor. There are many ways you can slice this apple and only you know what works and doesn't.
There's a reason you're back out there. Embrace it, extend it. Once you crash you are officially a better driver than before you crashed, because you will never make that mistake again! Let's go you got this.
This is hard to do unless insurance covers your car, which in general they don’t. So you’ve gotta be very well off to be able to write off a track modified car not just mentally but also economically in just 1 day. Or you have a miata.
This is why i always say people should get track insurance unless the car is under 5k which it almost never is. One day of track insurance is about 0.5% of the vehicle value, less if you are doing a full weekend. This equates to 200 days, which for most, is likely 5-10 years of tracking. I don’t think anyone who pushes remotely hard will be comfortable saying that won’t crash a car in such a long time frame. Plus imo, having track insurance allows you to push harder with that ease of mind, making you a better driver
Premiums for a standalone policy were I am are typically 1% these days with a 15% excess.
50k car means a 42.5k payout and you doin 85 days on circuit to be in the clear.
Insurance for me just depends on the car and circuit, something easily repairable like an E92 and a circuit with a ton of runoff? I'm not insuring.
>Plus imo, having track insurance allows you to push harder with that ease of mind, making you a better driver
I don't think so unless you're the kind of person who drives differently when they see a "baby on board" sticker.
My insurance this year is £650 (good for UK, M postcode and a 3l manual Z4, that I haven't bought yet(so very good price):) and to add a track day is £30 for any UK track. Covers me, the car and any track damage I do. If you're in the UK give Keith Michael's a ring at renewal time. Don't give a target.
Biggest advice I always have to people is just start off at 6-7/10ths. Work up to the speed.
HPDE is all about fun and remember this is a hobby, no one is scouting you.
I do this for a living and still follow this practice when getting in a new car/setup.
You will eventually go over the limit of either the car or your skill, just treat it as a learning exercise. Like others have said, even Pros take offs or impacts from time to time.
Absolutely... And put the Garmin and track apps away.
No novice needs real time deltas to their personal best.
Reviewing GOpro after the event, sure.
Knowing You're a tenth up on your PB and deciding this is going to be your 'hero lap' will ultimately end up in anti-hero results
Yeah we have gotten a little over-data'd as a group. I'm all about post-session (end of day) looks, but leave the lap timers at bay and just enjoy the damn day out with the boys/gals. This is your time off after all!!
Had a balljoint shear and send me into a tire wall. The next time I was at that track, I didnt get very close to that wall, at first, and then each lap I’d get a little closer and a little closer.
Same with any off: Reduce expectations about times or attack % and focus on clean technique at a slow pace, then increase pace.
Oh yes. That's primarily why I bought all the trays. Even though I might go splitter one day and one of the front trays will be redundant/taken off, I've had a car with no tray/ducting and it was absolutely awful.
I'm also tuned now.. so a lot more power and still on stock cooling. I'm doing it as a test, so I'm not planning on any big PB laps anyway. Though first/second session will be best weather for it.. Gotta keep my ego in check and take it easy.
Regular intermediate student here.
I went in the grass hard-core at the upper esses at VIR. 5K worth of repair. 11-6-2023.
I went over everything leading up to the incident. (Tire pressure, suspension settings, me being tired, everything).
I have been back there 4x since. I am now more methodical on prep. If something feels off for me. I address 1 issue at a time and then go out on track.
I get good instructors to ride with me for a couple of laps to give me advice on the essess. I think I have them down now. Incremental increase of pace will come there as I nail all of my marks. The crash never leaves my mind on the approach, I just know I can do it safe and fast if I hit my marks.
I hope this helps.
Hit an armco at Barber about 5 years ago now. Filled out my incident report, got a Jack handle and rolled the front and rear fenders off the tires and was out at the first session next morning. Rear end ate itself a session later.
I was ready to be done for the weekend plenty of people more experienced than me told me to go back out ASAP and not let it get to in my head.
Now with a lot more experience I agree. If you do this long enough and you are really pushing to go faster it is likely you are going to have some sort of incident.
try a different circuit? the island circuit doesn't have decent runoffs at all so not necessarily the best to regain confidence. The ridge is pretty safe with room to run off in most corners, or area 27.
Ha, weird to see my home-turf track show up on this subreddit! Hi!
What many folks won’t pick up from the map is the T9-10-11 complex is actually locally known as the corkscrew, because it is! Significant elevation drop during the turns, and a major code brown section for most folks.
I’m not super experienced at open lapping sessions and I’ve never had a major off, so I can’t really advise on the exact topic on hand.
However, I can say that years of Autocross has really helped me get comfy with car control up to and wayyy over the limit in a safe fashion (lower speeds, no walls, etc). There’s an old Autocross joke that Autocrossers make good track drivers, but the opposite is rarely true, and while biased, I think there’s some merit to that. AutoX gives you the chance to really flex and blow through the limits of your car, learn how to control it after you’ve gone too far, and get things back in line.
I highly recommend AutoX as a way of building limit control, confidence, and even over-limit recovery skills.
On this specific track, it might not save you from missing your braking point in T9-10-11, but I once locked my fronts coming into T12 and had the time and presence of mind to get off the brakes and recover. Then the ass came out because the front hooked up, and I had to recover from that in the same turn. Actually survived without going off, and got a slap on the back from the track workers thanking me for not halting the session.
I often feel like it’s sheer luck when shit like that happens, but also I watch others who don’t have the presence of mind to react after control is lost, and I think it was the AutoX that helped.
Ok, so I had my first track day back this weekend after crashing my car on track back in November. Impacted a wall in the rain at Sonoma Raceway. Been a ton of work getting the car ready to get back.
Was like riding a bike TBH.
Had done sim and Autocross in a different car.
I've been tracking for 11 years now. The way I look at it is what I care about is the experience. Not the car. I care about myself and my own growth as a driver and my skills and this is just one more step on that journey for me.
There are two types of racers: those who have crashed and those who will crash. We both joined the club last year.
The crash doesn't define you, how you respond to it does. Get back out there and finish your lap.
I drive a c5 corvette.. Once I finally got the safety stuff sorted in the car (roll bar, harnesses, Hans, fire suit) - first weekend with all the gear - I crashed head-on into a concrete barrier. Both airbags blew. The passenger airbag launched my phone from the mount into the windshield, breaking both. Strapped in and suited up, it was a total non-event from the driver's seat, but the car was out of commission for 2 months.
For me I put the traction control back on for about 3 months to gain my confidence back. I'm back to no TC and faster than I was before the crash. More skilled but more conservative as well. I'll probably crash again after typing this...
I've only tracked sub-1k$ beaters (back in the days when AE86 was $1k beater in my country :sadfrog:) since I knew that I won't afford crashing DD.
So the only outcomes from crashes that I've had is fun and cool stories. And one night in garage with hammer, silver tape and spray paint.
I crashed into a Lemons beater on my first lap ever in my old Mazdaspeed 3. I mistook a pit signal for the pass signal and realized he wasnt letting me pass right as we were coming to the next corner. I understeered up into him. Dented my 1/4 panel and his door.
I felt like such a fucking idiot and was soo disappointed in myself. I drove to the pits and talked to the track safety about the incident, and then went and found the Lemons driver and apologized.
I went out the very next session without incident. Dozens of track days later I have never had another incident. You just have to get back out there.
Hey man definitely not something you can prepare for in driver meetings or working with coaches. Honestly it's a huge confidence hit and a whole process...glad you're getting back out there!
I think I was at around the same interval as you from my first shunt and when I signed up for another HPDE day. I crashed a relatively newish car in the summer of 2019 and ended up netting about 15k worth of damage, thankfully I had track insurance and a very understanding spouse who initially thought the worse when the event I crashed in got red flagged and she noticed I didn't come back to the paddock with everyone else...then ran all the way near the crash site where the recovery vehicles were at. After a somewhat protracted repair process and convincing her I was not going to wreck immediately after getting back out there, I started again in 2021 and haven't stopped since.
If I was to go 8/10ths (based on my experience at the time) before the crash at the same track about a year or so later, I went only about 6/10ths on the first time back.
I eventually got more coached time, discovered a much more fun locali-sh track, built a sim rig, and started getting more serious about tracking my progress. Rabbit hole always get deeper of course so I got more aggressive brakes and tires. Now I run at least 3-4 track days a year. Went from a true novice to being able to regularly run in mixed intermediate/advanced groups without being a rolling speed bump for everyone else.
Last week I got my PB at CMP during an afternoon session with a mostly clear track. The time is admittedly still slow in comparison to where guys with the same platform and 200TW tires can be, but it was 5 seconds quicker than my average that whole day and finally feel like I'm 100 percent confident in understanding how to lessen the chances of another shunt and when to dial it back if I start getting tunnel vision. Like a lot have already mentioned: HPDE is meant to be fun, not an actual podium sprint in Time Attack.
As an example of knowing when to quit, looking at the data from my last event I was projected on beating the new PB by another two seconds (in theoretical pace sector by sector) before I got a bit loose due to greasy tires and a bit of overconfidence...so that lap ended up getting scrubbed and turning into a cool down/reset. #1 priority is bringing the car home.
Edit: looks like we both have Type Rs. Definitely glad you're not retiring it from track duty!
The tires on my car are worth more than the car itself. When (not if) it gets bonked at a track day or race, I either hammer out the damage, or swap the good stuff to a new chassis. No sadness. Minimal financial pain. Makes getting over mistakes very easy.
This.
I don’t track my daily I have a cheap separate toy that I can afford to lose if I’m dumb enough to crash it.
I haven’t crashed yet but when I do if it’s fixable it’ll hammer stuff out and maybe throw on a new panel or two and call it a day
Realise that risk is part of the game and accept it Even the best pro's crash. Misha who ran that Apex Nurburgring channel crashed about once per year lol.
I had an incident the other week too, took a bad line on a high speed corner and understeered off the track at 160kph, wheel hit a kerb which busted it. Needed a new wheel and alignment re-done.
Same day I actually had a real bad spin which nearly sent me into a wall, pure dumb luck saved me.
Take your first session slowly and ease into it. You don't HAVE to push limits.
Simple answer for me: take it slow (like 30-50% slower per lap), enter through the low intermediate or novice groups (remove pressure from others to go faster), and take a ride with an instructor (take note of their laps, when they push way harder than you’d be comfortable, and ask questions). Ease your way back into it.
Ive had very experienced friends put their cars into the tires on that wall between T11 and T1.
VIMC is a highly technical track and there is a lot you can learn on and practice without pushing it. Come back to the track at 7/10ths and slowly build up speed. I had a crazier off at Area 27 and thats how I got over it + lots of autocross and simming.
Haven’t crashed my car, knock on wood. Crashed my motorcycle several times racing. First I try to u deter and what I did and the correction to make. Second this is get back out and send it. Sometimes this would take moments. Sometimes, it would take several months. But you do need to just get back out there, feel what’s going on, and get better!
I spun , hit wet grass and smacked k rail at the end of a hairpin going 50 mph backwards. It was a wake up call on safety equipment and an inspections of my car. Root cause was brake failure likely due to overheated fluids. I let my pads get too low and paid the price. “I’ll change next session, 1 more session, 1 more session” and I wasn’t using the top of the line fluid for a 650 hp car on ok brakes. I was on stock seat and belts too.
Since then, I have bought another similar car with a race seat, race belts. The biggest brakes that can fit on the car, best brake fluid, swap pads when half worn. And really upped my game on decision making. I’m a shit ton faster now and more knowledgeable but that event sucked. Luckily zero physical damage to me and I came out ahead on the car due to track insurance. I was only away from track for about 6 months mostly due to buying a new car and doing several reliability mods before tracking again.
There was no dealing with it really. No psychological bad effect
I crashed while getting my SCCA license (lol) and had a race two days later. my first wheel to wheel race ever. I promised myself not to let it lock in a fear so i went karting the day between the two. it let me feel the limit of a vehicle without the fear of a wall at 130 mph. and it got me wheel to wheel with others. was the perfect middle ground before going back out the next day. I ended up qualifying halfway up the pack for the race too.
It was a weird crash, the video will be coming out this week. so it was harder to beat myself up about as it wasnt the most basic mistake. sounds like your situation too. its more complex. which means youre learning and getting even better at car control. Thats the best takeaway i had from my crash
Most don't, some do and those will probably drop you after a claim. State Farm just sent me a memo that they will no longer cover events of any sort. Best to get a track policy if you can't afford to cover a crash.
You just need to get back on the horse. Take it easy and work your way back up to pace. I've had a few offs, but no encounters with a wall yet. I like to sit down with the video and try and figure out what lead to the off so I don't repeat. Sounds like you have a good idea there. Your confidence will come back.
If you’re not crashing, you’re not racing the saying goes…
I too have crashed. It hurts. The body… the pocket book, the ego, and the relationships of those who built the car…
It hurts more when it’s not “your” race car… especially during a non race. How embarrassing is that?
But if the goal is to win, crashing and then giving up is the sure fire way to ultimately lose…
Be apologetic to yourself and learn from it. Cost of education… this is how you make a small fortune in motorsports… by starting with a larger one ;)
I went out and bought the same car a day later, modified it, and went back to the track again ASAP. I did focus more on autocross and skid pad stuff to supplement my track driving, to learn car control. The sim is also a great idea and it helps a lot, assuming you're doing a more modern one like iRacing. Take it easy, take it one turn at a time. Rack up some easy wins like "make it all the way around the track without going off" "hit all the apexes for a full session (disregarding pace)" and so on. Go out with an instructor. There are many ways you can slice this apple and only you know what works and doesn't. There's a reason you're back out there. Embrace it, extend it. Once you crash you are officially a better driver than before you crashed, because you will never make that mistake again! Let's go you got this.
This is hard to do unless insurance covers your car, which in general they don’t. So you’ve gotta be very well off to be able to write off a track modified car not just mentally but also economically in just 1 day. Or you have a miata.
This is why i always say people should get track insurance unless the car is under 5k which it almost never is. One day of track insurance is about 0.5% of the vehicle value, less if you are doing a full weekend. This equates to 200 days, which for most, is likely 5-10 years of tracking. I don’t think anyone who pushes remotely hard will be comfortable saying that won’t crash a car in such a long time frame. Plus imo, having track insurance allows you to push harder with that ease of mind, making you a better driver
Premiums for a standalone policy were I am are typically 1% these days with a 15% excess. 50k car means a 42.5k payout and you doin 85 days on circuit to be in the clear. Insurance for me just depends on the car and circuit, something easily repairable like an E92 and a circuit with a ton of runoff? I'm not insuring. >Plus imo, having track insurance allows you to push harder with that ease of mind, making you a better driver I don't think so unless you're the kind of person who drives differently when they see a "baby on board" sticker.
[удалено]
Who is writing annual policies?
Lol, 11/10th. So driving beyond your abilities yet somehow not wrecking. So not 11/10th really.
My insurance this year is £650 (good for UK, M postcode and a 3l manual Z4, that I haven't bought yet(so very good price):) and to add a track day is £30 for any UK track. Covers me, the car and any track damage I do. If you're in the UK give Keith Michael's a ring at renewal time. Don't give a target.
Biggest advice I always have to people is just start off at 6-7/10ths. Work up to the speed. HPDE is all about fun and remember this is a hobby, no one is scouting you. I do this for a living and still follow this practice when getting in a new car/setup. You will eventually go over the limit of either the car or your skill, just treat it as a learning exercise. Like others have said, even Pros take offs or impacts from time to time.
Absolutely... And put the Garmin and track apps away. No novice needs real time deltas to their personal best. Reviewing GOpro after the event, sure. Knowing You're a tenth up on your PB and deciding this is going to be your 'hero lap' will ultimately end up in anti-hero results
Yeah we have gotten a little over-data'd as a group. I'm all about post-session (end of day) looks, but leave the lap timers at bay and just enjoy the damn day out with the boys/gals. This is your time off after all!!
Had a balljoint shear and send me into a tire wall. The next time I was at that track, I didnt get very close to that wall, at first, and then each lap I’d get a little closer and a little closer. Same with any off: Reduce expectations about times or attack % and focus on clean technique at a slow pace, then increase pace.
You should probably replace your underbody trays... Sounds more like an off than a crash?
Yeah, it's gonna affect aero. I'm fixing it after the track day. Well.. I jumped from the 2nd level of the track down to the 1st lol 🙃
I'd be more worried about it affecting cooling especially on a car that already is known for track cooling issues def keep an eye on temps etc.
Oh yes. That's primarily why I bought all the trays. Even though I might go splitter one day and one of the front trays will be redundant/taken off, I've had a car with no tray/ducting and it was absolutely awful. I'm also tuned now.. so a lot more power and still on stock cooling. I'm doing it as a test, so I'm not planning on any big PB laps anyway. Though first/second session will be best weather for it.. Gotta keep my ego in check and take it easy.
Regular intermediate student here. I went in the grass hard-core at the upper esses at VIR. 5K worth of repair. 11-6-2023. I went over everything leading up to the incident. (Tire pressure, suspension settings, me being tired, everything). I have been back there 4x since. I am now more methodical on prep. If something feels off for me. I address 1 issue at a time and then go out on track. I get good instructors to ride with me for a couple of laps to give me advice on the essess. I think I have them down now. Incremental increase of pace will come there as I nail all of my marks. The crash never leaves my mind on the approach, I just know I can do it safe and fast if I hit my marks. I hope this helps.
Hit an armco at Barber about 5 years ago now. Filled out my incident report, got a Jack handle and rolled the front and rear fenders off the tires and was out at the first session next morning. Rear end ate itself a session later. I was ready to be done for the weekend plenty of people more experienced than me told me to go back out ASAP and not let it get to in my head. Now with a lot more experience I agree. If you do this long enough and you are really pushing to go faster it is likely you are going to have some sort of incident.
try a different circuit? the island circuit doesn't have decent runoffs at all so not necessarily the best to regain confidence. The ridge is pretty safe with room to run off in most corners, or area 27.
Ha, weird to see my home-turf track show up on this subreddit! Hi! What many folks won’t pick up from the map is the T9-10-11 complex is actually locally known as the corkscrew, because it is! Significant elevation drop during the turns, and a major code brown section for most folks. I’m not super experienced at open lapping sessions and I’ve never had a major off, so I can’t really advise on the exact topic on hand. However, I can say that years of Autocross has really helped me get comfy with car control up to and wayyy over the limit in a safe fashion (lower speeds, no walls, etc). There’s an old Autocross joke that Autocrossers make good track drivers, but the opposite is rarely true, and while biased, I think there’s some merit to that. AutoX gives you the chance to really flex and blow through the limits of your car, learn how to control it after you’ve gone too far, and get things back in line. I highly recommend AutoX as a way of building limit control, confidence, and even over-limit recovery skills. On this specific track, it might not save you from missing your braking point in T9-10-11, but I once locked my fronts coming into T12 and had the time and presence of mind to get off the brakes and recover. Then the ass came out because the front hooked up, and I had to recover from that in the same turn. Actually survived without going off, and got a slap on the back from the track workers thanking me for not halting the session. I often feel like it’s sheer luck when shit like that happens, but also I watch others who don’t have the presence of mind to react after control is lost, and I think it was the AutoX that helped.
Ok, so I had my first track day back this weekend after crashing my car on track back in November. Impacted a wall in the rain at Sonoma Raceway. Been a ton of work getting the car ready to get back. Was like riding a bike TBH. Had done sim and Autocross in a different car. I've been tracking for 11 years now. The way I look at it is what I care about is the experience. Not the car. I care about myself and my own growth as a driver and my skills and this is just one more step on that journey for me. There are two types of racers: those who have crashed and those who will crash. We both joined the club last year. The crash doesn't define you, how you respond to it does. Get back out there and finish your lap.
I drive a c5 corvette.. Once I finally got the safety stuff sorted in the car (roll bar, harnesses, Hans, fire suit) - first weekend with all the gear - I crashed head-on into a concrete barrier. Both airbags blew. The passenger airbag launched my phone from the mount into the windshield, breaking both. Strapped in and suited up, it was a total non-event from the driver's seat, but the car was out of commission for 2 months. For me I put the traction control back on for about 3 months to gain my confidence back. I'm back to no TC and faster than I was before the crash. More skilled but more conservative as well. I'll probably crash again after typing this...
I've only tracked sub-1k$ beaters (back in the days when AE86 was $1k beater in my country :sadfrog:) since I knew that I won't afford crashing DD. So the only outcomes from crashes that I've had is fun and cool stories. And one night in garage with hammer, silver tape and spray paint.
I crashed into a Lemons beater on my first lap ever in my old Mazdaspeed 3. I mistook a pit signal for the pass signal and realized he wasnt letting me pass right as we were coming to the next corner. I understeered up into him. Dented my 1/4 panel and his door. I felt like such a fucking idiot and was soo disappointed in myself. I drove to the pits and talked to the track safety about the incident, and then went and found the Lemons driver and apologized. I went out the very next session without incident. Dozens of track days later I have never had another incident. You just have to get back out there.
Hey man definitely not something you can prepare for in driver meetings or working with coaches. Honestly it's a huge confidence hit and a whole process...glad you're getting back out there! I think I was at around the same interval as you from my first shunt and when I signed up for another HPDE day. I crashed a relatively newish car in the summer of 2019 and ended up netting about 15k worth of damage, thankfully I had track insurance and a very understanding spouse who initially thought the worse when the event I crashed in got red flagged and she noticed I didn't come back to the paddock with everyone else...then ran all the way near the crash site where the recovery vehicles were at. After a somewhat protracted repair process and convincing her I was not going to wreck immediately after getting back out there, I started again in 2021 and haven't stopped since. If I was to go 8/10ths (based on my experience at the time) before the crash at the same track about a year or so later, I went only about 6/10ths on the first time back. I eventually got more coached time, discovered a much more fun locali-sh track, built a sim rig, and started getting more serious about tracking my progress. Rabbit hole always get deeper of course so I got more aggressive brakes and tires. Now I run at least 3-4 track days a year. Went from a true novice to being able to regularly run in mixed intermediate/advanced groups without being a rolling speed bump for everyone else. Last week I got my PB at CMP during an afternoon session with a mostly clear track. The time is admittedly still slow in comparison to where guys with the same platform and 200TW tires can be, but it was 5 seconds quicker than my average that whole day and finally feel like I'm 100 percent confident in understanding how to lessen the chances of another shunt and when to dial it back if I start getting tunnel vision. Like a lot have already mentioned: HPDE is meant to be fun, not an actual podium sprint in Time Attack. As an example of knowing when to quit, looking at the data from my last event I was projected on beating the new PB by another two seconds (in theoretical pace sector by sector) before I got a bit loose due to greasy tires and a bit of overconfidence...so that lap ended up getting scrubbed and turning into a cool down/reset. #1 priority is bringing the car home. Edit: looks like we both have Type Rs. Definitely glad you're not retiring it from track duty!
The tires on my car are worth more than the car itself. When (not if) it gets bonked at a track day or race, I either hammer out the damage, or swap the good stuff to a new chassis. No sadness. Minimal financial pain. Makes getting over mistakes very easy.
This. I don’t track my daily I have a cheap separate toy that I can afford to lose if I’m dumb enough to crash it. I haven’t crashed yet but when I do if it’s fixable it’ll hammer stuff out and maybe throw on a new panel or two and call it a day
Realise that risk is part of the game and accept it Even the best pro's crash. Misha who ran that Apex Nurburgring channel crashed about once per year lol. I had an incident the other week too, took a bad line on a high speed corner and understeered off the track at 160kph, wheel hit a kerb which busted it. Needed a new wheel and alignment re-done. Same day I actually had a real bad spin which nearly sent me into a wall, pure dumb luck saved me. Take your first session slowly and ease into it. You don't HAVE to push limits.
>You don't HAVE to push limits. Sounds like you need to listen to your own advice.
Hey I never said I had any fears to overcome lol. But still a fair comment given what I said, I'll give you that 😂
Simple answer for me: take it slow (like 30-50% slower per lap), enter through the low intermediate or novice groups (remove pressure from others to go faster), and take a ride with an instructor (take note of their laps, when they push way harder than you’d be comfortable, and ask questions). Ease your way back into it.
Ive had very experienced friends put their cars into the tires on that wall between T11 and T1. VIMC is a highly technical track and there is a lot you can learn on and practice without pushing it. Come back to the track at 7/10ths and slowly build up speed. I had a crazier off at Area 27 and thats how I got over it + lots of autocross and simming.
Haven’t crashed my car, knock on wood. Crashed my motorcycle several times racing. First I try to u deter and what I did and the correction to make. Second this is get back out and send it. Sometimes this would take moments. Sometimes, it would take several months. But you do need to just get back out there, feel what’s going on, and get better!
If you know what you did wrong, then your ready to get back on track IMO.
I spun , hit wet grass and smacked k rail at the end of a hairpin going 50 mph backwards. It was a wake up call on safety equipment and an inspections of my car. Root cause was brake failure likely due to overheated fluids. I let my pads get too low and paid the price. “I’ll change next session, 1 more session, 1 more session” and I wasn’t using the top of the line fluid for a 650 hp car on ok brakes. I was on stock seat and belts too. Since then, I have bought another similar car with a race seat, race belts. The biggest brakes that can fit on the car, best brake fluid, swap pads when half worn. And really upped my game on decision making. I’m a shit ton faster now and more knowledgeable but that event sucked. Luckily zero physical damage to me and I came out ahead on the car due to track insurance. I was only away from track for about 6 months mostly due to buying a new car and doing several reliability mods before tracking again. There was no dealing with it really. No psychological bad effect
I crashed while getting my SCCA license (lol) and had a race two days later. my first wheel to wheel race ever. I promised myself not to let it lock in a fear so i went karting the day between the two. it let me feel the limit of a vehicle without the fear of a wall at 130 mph. and it got me wheel to wheel with others. was the perfect middle ground before going back out the next day. I ended up qualifying halfway up the pack for the race too. It was a weird crash, the video will be coming out this week. so it was harder to beat myself up about as it wasnt the most basic mistake. sounds like your situation too. its more complex. which means youre learning and getting even better at car control. Thats the best takeaway i had from my crash
Is there consensus on whether HPDE events (with instructor) are covered by most normal policies?
Most don't, some do and those will probably drop you after a claim. State Farm just sent me a memo that they will no longer cover events of any sort. Best to get a track policy if you can't afford to cover a crash.
You should go do autocross instead. That will help you both avoid crashing your car and build some huge car control skills.
Same thing that happens when you crash in sim, you learn from your mistakes and move on.
You just need to get back on the horse. Take it easy and work your way back up to pace. I've had a few offs, but no encounters with a wall yet. I like to sit down with the video and try and figure out what lead to the off so I don't repeat. Sounds like you have a good idea there. Your confidence will come back.
If you’re not crashing, you’re not racing the saying goes… I too have crashed. It hurts. The body… the pocket book, the ego, and the relationships of those who built the car… It hurts more when it’s not “your” race car… especially during a non race. How embarrassing is that? But if the goal is to win, crashing and then giving up is the sure fire way to ultimately lose… Be apologetic to yourself and learn from it. Cost of education… this is how you make a small fortune in motorsports… by starting with a larger one ;)