Track days are an extraordinary occasion for car and motorcycle enthusiasts. They offer the opportunity to legally push performance vehicles to their limit in a relatively safe environment. Relatively safe is the key phrase because crashes can and still happen. Along with the potential cost of repairing the crash damage to your own car and the circuit, injuries and deaths aren’t rare occurrences. Here are the worst idiots to put life and limb on the line at a public track day:
A driver was lucky that he and his passengers were unharmed after he lost control of his C7 Corvette Z06 last year at Willow Springs. The Corvette rolled and the roof caved in on the passenger side.
Another Corvette driver was able to walk away after plowing head-on into an Armco barrier at Virginia International Raceway in August. The driver lost control of their C8 Z06 on the curb at the exit of the final corner, then went across the track and pit entry into the barrier.
A father-son duo in Spain tried to lessen the financial blow of writing off their Renault Megane Coupe during a track day at Jarama by reporting the vehicle stolen. However, the track’s CCTV cameras recorded the dramatic crash that destroyed the hot hatch.
The CEO of an EV startup broke both his legs after running off the racing surface during a Keigwin’s At The Track at Laguna Seca in 2015. Daniel Kim went wide at turn five, rode over a sandbag and was thrown over the handlebars of his Ducati Panigale 1199.
A track day in Estonia had a crash that looked ripped straight from a NASCAR superspeedway race. Someone driving a Toyota GR Yaris was sliding through a corner. They couldn’t save the slide, the hatchback snapped back in the other direction and headed straight for a gravel trap. The Yaris barrel rolled through the gravel like a stock car down the backstretch at Daytona.
Multi-car collisions at track days are the worst because drivers aren’t supposed to be racing each other and no one wants to be the person who damages someone else’s car. In 2019, a Porsche 911 GT2 RS driver misjudged the tight first corner at Monza and broadsided a Pagani Huayra BC.
Despite Elon Musk’s dislike of organized motorsport, people do take Tesla vehicles out on track. One YouTuber decided to modify his Tesla Model S Plaid for even more performance, including replacing the front brakes. Those brakes faded during a track day and he went off the track into a tire barrier.
The longer straights at modern racing venues any mechanical problem at a high speed usually means massive incidents regardless of there being a gravel trap or paved runoff. A driver in Estoril found out the hard way after suffering a brake issue at the end of the pit straight. He was careening off into the barriers at over 120 miles per hour.
Driving fast on a racetrack is already difficult. Pushing a on wet track is asking for disaster. At Scotland’s Castle Combe, a driver behind the wheel of a Subaru Impreza WRX STi went for a trip after attempting to pass another car. Thankfully, no one was hurt after the crash. You would assume that anyone venturing out on a circuit under Scottish skies would be more cautious.
After all these crash, let’s take a look at someone who managed not to mangle their car on the world’s most dangerous road course, the Nürburgring. This Ford Focus driver lost control after going wide at corner exit. The Ford cut across the track, but the driver save the hatchback from slamming into the barrier.