r/CarTrackDays 10h ago

Five years ago, I survived this race-car fire. This is the full in-car footage and the track response that saved my life.

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327 Upvotes

On May 23, 2021, this crash left me with 35% third- and fourth-degree burns, four months in the burn ICU, 27 surgeries, and three years of therapy.

Five years later, I’m finally comfortable sharing the complete footage—from the initial crash through the response that ultimately got me out of the car alive.

There are important lessons here about fire suppression, driver extraction, track response, and what happens when every safety plan suddenly becomes real. The footage and audio are intense, but I hope people watch through the end.

YouTube version for easier sharing: https://youtu.be/pikTnIMFlME


r/CarTrackDays 2h ago

I request admiration from internet strangers whose opinion I value.

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174 Upvotes

Found a solution to my “I can’t lift the tires onto my fancy tire rack” problem. God bless America and harbor freight.

Tomorrow’s problem will be managing the tongue weight. Today is not tomorrow.


r/CarTrackDays 12h ago

SCCA Time Attack at Pocono

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16 Upvotes

Pocono was an interesting track and I certainly left some time on the table trying to learn it but I had a great weekend, hit some new top speeds, and took 3rd in the Max 4 class!


r/CarTrackDays 6h ago

Pocono, North/South Option 2 for the SCCA Time Attack Challenge day 1, 2015 VW GTI S (non-PP)

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6 Upvotes

A lot of fun on a new track to me, running on new Falken 660+s on the fronts and a worn set on the rears, playing with new coilovers and figuring out softness/stiffness as I went. New tune, still having some PCV issues, so a lot of blowby when pushing, sorting that out before the next track weekend. Was figuring out braking points as I went, a bit wide here and there, I know I have homework to do but any pointers, happy to take them. Also, the rest of the competition running on the Bridgestone RZs in the wet were proving this new compound is able to handle the wet and keep it on track without concern, love to see it for my next season!


r/CarTrackDays 11h ago

992.1 GTS 7MT - Ridge Motorsports Park 1:47.03

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13 Upvotes

Tires filed a formal complaint after this lap


r/CarTrackDays 8h ago

VIR north with r53 mini

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5 Upvotes

ViR north last weekend with my r53 mini

Unfortunately it might be the last because of attendance. Everybody wants to run full. I don't think they know what they're missing..

Car has all the bolt ons and hoosier sm7.5. I did break cords in 3 tires, all were takoffs I got from a local scca team

https://youtu.be/ro8xmLvv-bk?is=aYB1sBXpGEXhGUdE


r/CarTrackDays 5h ago

Think this pad was too far gone ?

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2 Upvotes

I replaced a cracked rotor , and when I was trying to bed in the new rotors with the new pad , I saw I was not getting the outer edge of the rotor, I saw the pad had a chunk missing , I don't think it would of ever fixed itself with enough bedding , I swapped in fresh pads and got full contact ...


r/CarTrackDays 11h ago

RaceRender alternatives? Struggling with GoPro 12 + H.265 footage

4 Upvotes

Hey everyone,

I've been using RaceRender for overlays but recently upgraded to a GoPro Hero 12 and realized RaceRender can't handle H.265/HEVC footage without manual codec hacks. Plus it hasn't been updated in years and doesn't officially support Windows 11.

Before I switch tools, I'm curious about your current workflow:

  1. What are you using for telemetry overlays?

  2. How painful is the sync process between video and GPS data?

  3. Are you exporting to vertical format (9:16) for TikTok/Reels/Shorts?

  4. What's your post-processing workflow? (Do you chroma key in Premiere/Final Cut or use the output directly?)

I'm considering building a modern web-based alternative if there's enough pain, but I want to understand the real problems before committing to anything.

Would love to hear what's working and what's broken in your setup.

Thanks!


r/CarTrackDays 14h ago

Rain tires

5 Upvotes

I bought a set of Continental ExtremeContact Sport 02 for rain tires. 245/40 r17

Will be doing some destination events over the next few years and if I’m going to haul my ass (and my car) 12 hours I’m getting on track rain or shine.

The car (track prepped ND2) won’t see much street use. That means these tires are going to age out long before they wear out. Do I simply not worry about it? Or do I maybe get three years out of them and then sell them used to somebody who would street drive them for a few years and actually use them? Thoughts! TIA.


r/CarTrackDays 1d ago

Trackday at Bilster Berg Germany with my cayman

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68 Upvotes

r/CarTrackDays 1d ago

Clio RS is Still Undoubtedly the best sub 5k Track Car (UK)

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41 Upvotes

Made a post a while ago after I’d bought by 1st Track Day Car, a well sorted Clio 182 Cup. I’ve since acquired my 2nd car that I’ve been building myself since January and got its first track day outing yesterday.
My Clio 197. My idea with this is to make it more ‘clubsport’ and enjoyable on the road, which it has been, it took me all the way to LeMans 24 and back with no dramas.
I’ve done the usual, coilovers, uprated brakes and pads, braided lines, a proper seat, a steering wheel, good tyres (AR1’s for Track ofc) and a good alignment but kind of left it there. So I can get a good baseline of where it’s at. No half cage or stripping, outside of the rear seats. Safe to say. Car absolutely rips. Not as fast out of the box but so much more capable than the previous Gen Clio. And very easy to work on yourself. Now Hondas of the same Gen have their floors falling out and good ones reaching towards 8-10k. You’d be hard pressed to find anything that you can go to and from the track in and kick its head in all day for the same money as an RS197.


r/CarTrackDays 1d ago

Tire storage

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140 Upvotes

Gut check. My sense is that leaving tires on a trailer tire rack for storage is a bad idea. Reason I ask - (1) I’m lazy (b) I have physical limitations and getting tires up and down is a challenge (IV) I’m lazy. I’d love to load up my rain tires and my spare 200tw’s and leave them there. Ideally, for a whole season. I could easily cover them, but I still think having them sit in summer heat with their weight resting on two bars is going to damage them. Comments? TIA.


r/CarTrackDays 12h ago

Android pyrometer & tpms & scale app

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1 Upvotes

My first android app is live on the app store.

A combination of things that I did at the track manually and I'd prefer to automate so I did and others might find it useful.

Tire temps — OUT / MID / IN across all four corners from my custom open source PyroTC BLE pyrometer, turned into camber and pressure advice from the spread, the code is public along with the STL.

Tire pressures — cold and hot PSI from cheap BLE TPMS sensors (Zeepin and DJTPMS), plus an all-day background monitor that logs pressure and temperature and auto-counts heat cycles.

Corner balance — cross-weight from ProForm wireless scale pads streamed live over Bluetooth, with “move this much onto the diagonal” recommendations.

Tire inventory with heat-cycle tracking, resettable packing checklists, CSV export, and full JSON backup. Everything is on-device — no accounts, no cloud.

Now I have no excuses on tracking tire cycles, I still need to make a screen to manage tires and track how long they last with the data it collects

https://mrblahhhh.github.io/car/tech/2026/07/22/trackday-pyrometer-helper-play-store.html


r/CarTrackDays 13h ago

Update on HEL oil cooler + Ansix hoot vent

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0 Upvotes

r/CarTrackDays 1d ago

2022 GR Supra - Lime Rock Park - 58:72

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23 Upvotes

We did SCCA's Targa Northeast event last week, driving Palmer, Lime Rock Park, Canaan, and Pocono. We drove my 2022 Supra up from North Carolina, and I managed to cut ~1.6 seconds off my previous best at Lime Rock Park. Pretty happy with this lap, and definitely still time out there. Cheers.


r/CarTrackDays 1d ago

3rd person view track guide of Laguna Seca

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10 Upvotes

This was recorded during my first time at laguna on my first session with my instructor next to me. Not my best laps but I hope this view will help you see the track differently.


r/CarTrackDays 9h ago

Realistically, where do you think the ceiling for my car sits on?

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0 Upvotes

So, this was my third track day. I went from 1:49.3 to 1:46.9 between my first and most recent track day. The car's a 100% stock 2017 Camaro 2SS with MagneRide, running two-year-old Yokohama Advan Apex V601s.

I'm wondering: if I keep improving and upgrade my tires, what can I realistically expect?


r/CarTrackDays 1d ago

Bilster berg little hot lap, and sorry for the angle from my cam 😵‍💫

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7 Upvotes

r/CarTrackDays 1d ago

Battery for a track prepped ND Miata

2 Upvotes

This is definitely not going to be the most interesting thing we talked about all week, but I thought I’d ask real quick. My ND Miata, which is track prepped, needs a battery and before I go out and buy one is there anything I should be thinking about?

I haven’t even started looking, but I’m assuming that there’s lightweight batteries out there I just don’t know if they’re worth the premium price for a intermediate HPDE driver who isn’t chasing lap times. TIA


r/CarTrackDays 2d ago

Here's a new one... my instructor threw up in my car

94 Upvotes

Never knew this was something that could happen. One minute everything was fine, then they tell me to pit the next lap because they were getting queasy, and halfway round that lap they start puking.

It got all over my car, which is a daily driver - I have the passenger seat out and I'm still trying to get the smell out of the carpets. I know my instructor feels bad, and they now have to deal with the smell in their own helmet which also sucks.

Has this happened to anyone else? What would you do in future to avoid this? And for future reference, what should I do if this happens again on track? Seems to me like the options are (i) drive off the track so they can get out of the car and/or puke out the window, incurring a black/red flag, or (ii) pit ASAP but risk them vomiting all over the car.


r/CarTrackDays 19h ago

My son won the "Battle of the Buckle" this weekend at Tri-Valley Quarter Midget Association — would love any driving feedback for a young quarter midget racer

0 Upvotes

My son races quarter midgets here in Northern California, and this weekend was the Battle of the Buckle at Tri-Valley Quarter Midget Association in Livermore - a two-day event that went about as well as we could have hoped.

Day 1 was two heats, with the second heat gridded in inverted order from the first. He won heat 1 and drove back to P2 in the inverted heat 2.

Then came the fun part: the main event grid is set by spinning the "wheel of misfortune." Full field inversion was on the wheel, but he got away with only the top two positions flipping. So he started P2, on the outside line, which is a tough place to start in quarter midgets.

The 9-car field took a while to get going with a few failed double-file starts (think NASCAR style) before they finally went green in single file. He battled into the lead and held it to the end to win.

What made it extra satisfying: we'd put a lot of time into the setup leading up to this one, and it finally all came together after a few frustrating races.

I trimmed the video to the 7 minutes that matter for the race. Full onboard video with telemetry (it's a touch out of sync on this video because of a bug that I've now fixed) is here if anyone wants to take a look to help inform any advice they'd have:

https://www.racingpace.com/s/a4608fde-385e-4b9c-a9ce-65b80dca1148

If anyone has observations to share on his racing he'd (we'd) love to hear it. Thanks!

https://reddit.com/link/1v36eqd/video/4ddpi08zrpeh1/player


r/CarTrackDays 1d ago

One More Day on These Tires

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22 Upvotes

Do you think these tires have one more day at VIR? I'm going to switch sides so the one with a bit more rubber is on the left side.


r/CarTrackDays 1d ago

OEM cooling system adequate for Thunderhill Raceway in August?

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0 Upvotes

r/CarTrackDays 2d ago

Tried some new *bonus* camera angles

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52 Upvotes

Apart from the usual Gopro angle's I wanted to try something different to cut with. I'll be documenting my whole racing journey so might as well to try and make it looks interesting while i'm still slow hehe. What do you think?


r/CarTrackDays 2d ago

Still needs some work had a blast at my first Zandvoort day!

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70 Upvotes

Only rented a Honda Civic for a few session and immediately brought this e46. Had my first track day last week and it was a blast so much fun!