Adding Insult To Injury?

I learned something today. I wonder whether personal insurance is available? Replacing a safer barrier doesn't sound like a good way to spend my race budget.

I have had to pay for inadvertently damaging something with a vehicle at an autocross.

I organize with a club and at least in autocross club terms... we figure cones are part of the club's cost of doing business. (and yeah $5 each sounds about right for replacement cost for them! go price some! Then think about cold events that shatter cones...)

Beyond that; if we make a claim we risk losing our insurance. Most clubs will do just about anything to avoid filing a claim. Venues and Insurance are the lifeblood of any motorsports event, a club isnt left with much of a choice if they want to keep having events. Wish we could make everyone happy, but its the nature of the beast that you can't always do it. If a club loses its insurance, theres a good bet that the club will cease to be.

I would also bet that the combined bill for that corner isnt even close to the deductible. Most of these policies have total coverage in the millions of dollars and are planned to be a catastrophic coverage type of deal.

I would bet that the guy sending you the email isnt any happier to be sending it to you than you are to be getting it.

Huckleberry wrote: I own 6 really expensive bags of speedi-dry from blowing an engine under the bridge at NJMP and NOT crashing. I paid $350 for "tire wall reconstruction" for landing on one. I didn't break any tires... just messed them up a bit. It's all part of the game. You usually do not get any services for free along with your track time. HPDE and school events sometimes self-insure students up to a point but I've never been in a sanctioned race where we had a buffer. You spill, bend or smash it - you buy it from the track at track prices. That blue ARMCO at the Glen must be made of titanium.

Yep.

Last time I was at the Glen, a huge group of road cyclists showed up at 6 pm and proceeded to have themselves a five-lap crit race on the track. I'm a has-been crit roadie myself so I stayed to watch the action, even though it was strictly Upstate NY amateur night. In case you don't know, these things always come down to a sprint for the finish line on the final lap and there is a high risk of crashing.

The top Men's category had an epic pile-up and one man hit the Jersey wall on the main straight so hard the noise was like a shot from a .38. The next day the track had a work crew out in the morning for 30 minutes pressure-washing the blood and guts off the wall. I'm willing to bet they sent a bill to his hospital room the next day.

captdownshift wrote: If you knick the safer barrier at COTA it's over 60k. I'll dig up my 84k invoice...

Wait, what, you were on the hook for $84,000 USD???? What did you hit, how hard, how bad is (more likely was) your car? Did you pay the Eighty four THOUSAND US Dollars? Did you have insurance?

I know if I came home with an $84K bill and a totaled car I'd be done with cars as a hobby for good.

In reply to Adrian_Thompson:

IIRC the Capt'in organized with one of those fancy your-a-pee'in marque clubs. so it may be an overall bill for a larger incident and hes on the organizational side.

I can believe it though, COTA is one finely manicured track and that doesnt come cheap!

I guess I'll be reading what I sign even more closely than I already do. I've never noticed any 'damage to facilities' clause in anything I've signed up for. I would expect, within reason, that damage to the facilities would be risk assumed by the event organizer.

captdownshift wrote: If you knick the safer barrier at COTA it's over 60k. I'll dig up my 84k invoice...

That makes $2k/block for the ones at the entrance onto the main straight at the Glen seem like a bargain. I've never hit them but I know a few folks who should have got a quantity discount

It would be easy to buy $10k worth but for $60k you would have to be racing school buses.

We run at a local public high school. At one of my autocrosses a couple years ago, I had a guy spin and put his car backwards through the fence. The car was damaged of course, but he also took out 2 poles and maybe 40 feet of fence cloth.

The school had the fence repaired by their usual contractor and I told them to give the $500 bill to me, which I passed on to the driver without hesitation. To his credit, he paid it promptly even though I'm sure it wasn't easy. If he hadn't, we would have paid it out of Club funds. No way I'm going to submit a claim that small to our insurance company.

I figured I'd post up a map of the hill for anyone who's interested. 2.2 miles long, climbing 800 feet into the sky. Narrow, fast, and very real. Here's what a run looks like from inside a 20B-powered FD.

https://www.youtube.com/embed/Rli8dYOfwUU

If you can make it out, it's absolutely worth watching.

I'm with these guys in that I'm not surprised by it, especially in a hill climb environment. Racing tracks (especially roundy-round ones) are specifically built with these incidents in mind, which would allow the clubs to buy a known quantity of damage coverage if they want to pad in the fees, but you invoked the wrath of the DOT on a public road. I'm surprised it was that cheap to have someone inspect it, load out a truck with the required equipment to manage it, prep the ground to make sure it will still support the barrier and put it back in place.

WonkoTheSane wrote: I'm surprised it was that cheap to have someone inspect it, load out a truck with the required equipment to manage it, prep the ground to make sure it will still support the barrier and put it back in place.

I am in agreement one this one. Years and years ago I was hit by a drunk driver and driven into the center divide of the 55 freeway. The bill from the city of LA to the drunk driver who was found to be 100% responsible was in the 6 figures due to the repair time and man hours required. She was not amused.

It's not unusual to have to pay for damage to the venue. The only time you won't is if event insurance covers it.

BTW, someone on this board once told me that if you run your car into a barrier at COTA, it might save the car from any significant damage, but the barrier could easily cost $30k I'm sure most people on this board would wish their cars were totaled instead, I know I would!

I can't even rent a piece of equipment to move a concrete barrier for $450 once you include delivery, and I'm just a few miles from a place that rents this equipment out. For everyone jumping at the chance to charge those rates - look at what the equipment costs along with the truck and trailer to haul it and the time and manpower to get it to a remote mountain location. $450 is cheap.

In reply to dculberson:

Seems like the equipment would already be on site to place the temporary barriers before the event and then remove them after the event anyway. And it seems like those costs would have to be covered by entry fees in case nobody hit the barriers enough to move them right?

Based on what I've seen them do at local events (not specifically hill climbs), it takes just a couple of minutes to hook up, move, and unhook each piece of those concrete barriers. I'm not saying that the cost is unreasonable, because I frankly don't know. But I do understand the OP's frustration at having to pay that much on top of entry fees for what probably amounted to 10 minutes of work.

Apexcarver wrote: I have had to pay for inadvertently damaging something with a vehicle at an autocross. I organize with a club and at least in autocross club terms... we figure cones are part of the club's cost of doing business. (and yeah $5 each sounds about right for replacement cost for them! go price some! Then think about cold events that shatter cones...) Beyond that; if we make a claim we risk losing our insurance. Most clubs will do just about anything to avoid filing a claim. Venues and Insurance are the lifeblood of any motorsports event, a club isnt left with much of a choice if they want to keep having events. Wish we could make everyone happy, but its the nature of the beast that you can't always do it. If a club loses its insurance, theres a good bet that the club will cease to be. I would also bet that the combined bill for that corner isnt even close to the deductible. Most of these policies have total coverage in the millions of dollars and are planned to be a catastrophic coverage type of deal. I would bet that the guy sending you the email isnt any happier to be sending it to you than you are to be getting it.

See, that's why I drive slow and don't hit cones. I do it for the good of the club.

STM317 wrote: In reply to dculberson: Seems like the equipment would already be on site to place the temporary barriers before the event and then remove them after the event anyway. And it seems like those costs would have to be covered by entry fees in case nobody hit the barriers enough to move them right?

He didn't say anything about it being a temporary barrier. I don't know anything about the event so assumed they were permanent barriers.

G_Body_Man wrote: I figured I'd post up a map of the hill for anyone who's interested. 2.2 miles long, climbing 800 feet into the sky. Narrow, fast, and very real. Here's what a run looks like from inside a 20B-powered FD. https://www.youtube.com/embed/Rli8dYOfwUU

I claim the video is fake. No way is that a rotary, let alone a 20b, my ears aren't bleeding and I can still hear

That looks like a ton of fun.

My club administers a hillclimb. More than one person has had to pay for replacing a do not enter sign that was taken out. However the last person, turned the dead sign into a spoiler for his race car. This time the club replaced it with a socketed pole so we can take the sign down. We charged for timing lights, signs, and fence posts. When you are renting state property, this is often the draw back, and the price paid for admission.

In reply to dculberson:

I guess in my neck of the woods, a permanent concrete barrier is called a "wall", and pushing it back a foot would be pretty devastating vs just moving a temp barrier that can be repositioned. But you may be right.

Appleseed wrote: It doesn't sound like he broke the barrier, just moved it. Repositioning costs $464? Where can I get in on these lucrative repositioning gigs?

I have a tractor that can do that. I'm in the wrong business...

Adrian_Thompson wrote:

G_Body_Man wrote: I figured I'd post up a map of the hill for anyone who's interested. 2.2 miles long, climbing 800 feet into the sky. Narrow, fast, and very real. Here's what a run looks like from inside a 20B-powered FD. https://www.youtube.com/embed/Rli8dYOfwUU

I claim the video is fake. No way is that a rotary, let alone a 20b, my ears aren't bleeding and I can still hear That looks like a ton of fun.

He definitely made contact at 1:57 with the barrier. So you're not the only one mspeedP5. I also would have assumed that the costs were built in for moving and removing the barriers for the race since they all look like the temporary construction type. I guess I ought to read the fine print a bit better.

Looks like fun though.

In reply to Apexcarver:

Correct, the car in question was a 981 that ended up with less than 15k in damage, and the driver and their instructor walked away, without the safer barrier it would've been retub time and likely a helicopter ride.

The cost stinks for someone tracking on a budget and runoff is still of paramount importance, but if your speed potential always your vehicle to get to a barrier then there's no price too high for safety. Then again, I wouldn't HPDE without a head and neck restraint and think that everything that sees serious tracktime should have full containment halo seats. We only get one shot at this little thing called life, I wouldn't want to be known as the guy who was left in need of permanent life care due to wanting to have some fun turning some laps one Saturday as there's few things that come off as more selfish and self serving.

I'm guessing that many hillclimbs are run on public property, If that's the case, then there are specific groups of people who must be called in for a minimum time period to move a barrier, and others who must be called in if it needs repainting. It sucks, but I'm surprised that the bill was so small.

I try to make a habit of not hitting stuff.

$464 doesnt seem that expensive when you consider the overhead costs involved. Paying the staff to move the barrier being the least expensive, but what they get paid and what their hours are billed as to a client may be 2 very different things. Then theres the heavy equipment to move the barrier. Someone either owns that, or leases or rents it. Consumables such as fuel etc, did the barrier have to be repainted as a result of the impact?

It sounds like the crew was on site for multiple repairs, hence the comments about the other guy's bill and repairs. That's probably why the cost is less than you'd expect for a few man hours of DOT time.