Rent a Racer

Roger Maeda
April 24, 2013

For many of us, owning and maintaining a track car is part of the fun of high-performance driving. There’s just a certain sense of accomplishment when you come home from the track and think about all of the fun you just had in your car.

Then there are those other days when it feels like everything is going wrong – Like those days when you pull into the paddock because there’s a misfire, only to find that one of your axle boots has exploded and there’s a big chunk missing from your left front tire. You won’t hate your car for it. It’s just part of owning a track car. But some days, you just want to wake up, go race, and not worry about doing anything on the car.

As an active club racer, I love owning my own racecar. And yet, I still rent a racecar for a handful of events every year. Why do I spend the money to drive a car I won’t get to keep? Well, there are a couple good reasons why:

• Sometimes it's Cheaper

  Yep. Sometimes it’s actually cheaper to rent. It sounds crazy, considering that renting a fully prepared racecar can cost upwards of $700 a day. But if you add up all of the incremental costs around getting your car to the track, you sometimes end up spending more. Take a moment and add up the dollars you spend on gas for the track car, those R compound tires, those racing brake pads that wear out so quickly, and that spare set of treaded tires that you brought just in case it rains.

  Don’t forget the costs of getting to and from the track. The 10mpg tow rig that hits your wallet at every toll booth could sleep at home, while you carpool to the track with your friends in a fuel sipping Honda Fit. All of those costs are things you don’t have to worry about when you rent a race car. If you sit down and add up the costs, sometimes it comes out a lot cheaper just to rent a race car.

• Arrive and Drive Really is Convenient

  When I go racing in my car, I spend my early morning unpacking, changing tires, and performing pre-flight checks. When I rent a racecar, I get an extra two hours of sleep. If something goes wrong with my car during the day, I have to spend time tending to the problem. If something happens with a rental racecar, the team mechanics are usually all over the problem before I even have a chance to take off my helmet. No stress, no worries, no wrenching. There’s a lot to be said for convenience.

• It Makes You Faster

  
  

  Changing tires at 6 AM - something you don't have to worry about when renting a racecar

  Getting seat time in a rental racecar gives you the opportunity to get a whole new perspective on your driving. During my very first session in a rental racecar at Summit Point, I found out that I wasn’t using enough of the road while turning into turn 1. I spent a session un-learning that bad habit then spent the rest of the day trying new things that I normally wouldn’t do. When I came back to Summit Point a few months later in my own car, I was almost a full second a lap faster.

  Not only do rental racecars give you the opportunity to learn new things about yourself, you can often pick up ideas to make your car faster as well. It’s easy to forget that rental racecars are well prepared and are generally well set-up cars. Every car is a bit different, but there are fundamental setup ideas that carry well from car to car. On more than one occasion I’ve borrowed an idea or a setup direction from a rental racecar and used it to make my car faster.

If you own and drive a track car you love, don’t get rid of it. But if you’ve never rented a racecar before, give it a try. You’ll learn new things, have a lot of fun, and it might even save you a few dollars.

Who do I rent from?

There’s a wide array of racecar rental shops across the Northeast, who rent everything from Spec Miatas to E30 BMW coupes to full-on sports racers. Personally, I would recommend these five rental shops, depending on the what kind of car you are looking for, and the track you are looking to drive at:

See you at the track.

< Back to Recent Articles