The Myth of Track Days Being Better Than Office Days

Every car person has heard it: “A bad day at the track beats a good day at the office.” Last Saturday at Barber Motorsports Park proved that’s not always true – but it reminded me why we show up anyway.

I went to Barber Motorsports Park with a generously borrowed 1998 Viper RT10 for the Ady’s Racers Autism Charity Event. It was meant to be a day full of children and their family members hopping in the right seat for a handful of high-speed laps. A big smile on everyone’s face is always the goal for this event and others like it. The plan was simple: three warm-up laps, torque the wheels, quick inspection, then start making memories with passengers. Sometimes, though, smiles turn to furrowed brows and frustration.

About halfway through lap one, the tires started to feel like they were at temp and performing well, so I leaned into the throttle and poured it into the last half dozen corners. Things felt great… but… there was a slight hint of burnt oil in the air. Nothing crazy, just a hint. The gauges showed everything was optimal and I decided to let the V10 do what V10s do best on the front stretch.

The sound from a Viper at full throttle is nothing short of miraculous! I exited turn 17 in the high 70 mph range and by the time I reached the 300 meter board in the braking zone for turn 1, the tach showed 5,000 rpm and the speedometer read a little over 120. I know, I know… we don’t pay attention to speed when on track. I caught a glimpse, so sue me.

Everything was right with the world. The sun was shining, it was 60 degrees in December. I’m pretty sure birds were chirping somewhere, but I couldn’t hear anything over that insanely badass exhaust note of the Viper. And right there, at the 300 meter board, is where the weekend went south.

I lifted off the throttle, brushed the brakes to get a little weight on the nose to point the car toward the blind downhill apex… and was greeted with a smoke screen the likes of which James Bond would have been proud. No warning. Just a cloud of white smoke so thick it was impossible to see through.

I’d put somewhere in the neighborhood of 150 miles on the car the day before just to get the fuel that had been sitting for a bit out of the tank and fresh fuel in. There was no sign of smoke during that drive. None at all. No odd smell of oil burning off in the exhaust. Just blissful noises and one of the most intoxicating views you will ever see looking out of a windshield. Yet, here we are. Ready for a day of memory-making with an unforeseen problem threatening to ruin it.

I gave the gauges another glance. Temp was fine. Oil pressure was perfect. The car pulled like a freight train down the front stretch as Vipers do. This was possibly the tightest chassis I have ever experienced in an RT10. I know the owner well enough to know it has been maintained at a very high standard. So, what do you do in this situation?

Well, you carry on down the hill through turn 1 and bury the throttle again to climb the hill to turn 2! I was met with another blinding cloud of white smoke as I lifted for 2. Obviously, it just needs to clear itself out. It’s been sitting for a couple months. Surely by the time I get through turns 3 and 4 and head down the hill to turn 5, all will be right with the world.

Um… nope!

Three consecutive throttle lifts, three blinding clouds of white smoke. By turn 5, I knew this wasn’t burning off – something was genuinely wrong. At this point, it’s not my car. I pulled off line and slowed down just to make sure I didn’t leave any unwanted fluids on the driving line if there was a leak somewhere. I gave the gauges another look and everything still showed optimal readings. The car still ran like a rocket ship and sounded equally as incredible. But, it was time to do some serious adulting.

After crawling through the next 12 corners and into the pits, I pulled it behind the wall. Popped the hood and started the detective work. Was it the PCV? Well, I learned something new that day – ’98 Vipers don’t have a PCV valve. They have an orifice-controlled hose system to prevent oil from reaching the intake. Were the hoses clogged? Nope. Everything looked clean and properly routed.

We decided to let the car cool down and recheck things in an hour or so. The waiting game at the track is its own special kind of torture – watching other cars go out, hearing the engines echo off the hillsides, knowing you should be out there making those memories with excited kids experiencing their first proper track laps.

When we fired it back up and let things come up to temp, I gave her a rev. There it was again. No smoke as the revs climbed, but a slight puff as I came off the throttle. The frustration of not finding an obvious culprit – no loose hoses, no obvious leaks, nothing screaming “fix me” – made the decision harder. But the decision was made to park it for the day.

Adulting sucks. But so does not knowing the actual problem, ignoring the signs and damaging something even worse than it may already be. Especially when the car belongs to someone who trusted you with it.

There would be no smiling kids and parents talking about their experience in the gorgeous Red Viper that day. I wasn’t going to leave with the memories of giving those kids a glimpse into the world I’ve been fortunate enough to work and play in for the last 50 years. Days like that mean everything to me. I love passing the passion so many of us have for cars and racing on to folks who may only get one chance to live it.

So, you see… not every day is a great day at the track. But… the fact we get to be there at all is pretty damn amazing.

I don’t take this hobby, career and life for granted. Cars have given me the best friends, family and career I could have ever hoped for. And sitting in the paddock that afternoon, watching other instructors take their passengers out, I was reminded of exactly that. The owner of the Viper showed up not long after I’d parked it. He wasn’t angry. He wasn’t disappointed. He was concerned about whether I was okay and whether we’d figured out what was wrong. That’s the kind of people this world attracts.

I drove the Viper an hour back to the shop I’d picked it up from two days before. I tried to reproduce the white-out I’d seen on track a few times on the drive. Nothing. A friend who followed me on that drive noticed a little puff on deceleration a handful of times, but nothing like what I’d experienced under the hard throttle applications and aggressive lift-offs on track. It’s probably valve stem seals leaking under the high vacuum pull from chopping off the throttle, I thought to myself. At least I hope that’s all it is!

The moral of this story? Last Saturday at the track was NOT better than a good day at the office. It was, however, a solid reminder of the friends I’ve made throughout my life and how cars have brought us all together. I can see that as I sit here writing this. The borrowed Viper. The friend who followed me home without hesitation. The shop owner who welcomed us back with tools and expertise. The understanding car owner who prioritized the machine’s health over one missed event. The other instructors who covered the passengers I couldn’t take out.

Take a look around and you will see the friends and family that being involved with cars have brought into our lives. I think it’s worth some bad days at the track. Don’t you?