Even a slow roll on dirt or sand would crush it enough that it wouldn't be repairable...or only repairable at great cost.

 

Yea. That's how it works, right?


....

Go take a little trip around Sebring and check out some of the tirewalls and wall corners. If you have the balls to enter at 10/10ths with an OEM hardtop and trust you'll never tank slap or spin into any of those then by all means you have 101% of my internet respect. Wouldn't take much of a hit right forward of the rear tire on a concrete wall to completely fawk your hardtop.

...

I saw way too many things break while on board a ship to think I know it all anymore... The logical answer here for my situation is to remove the $4000 highly resellable body component from my race car, pocket some cash, reinvest the cash into safety items for racing, and replace the hardtop with a cheap replica. YMMV

 

With the fact that the hardtop itself is 20-30% of the total value of some of our cars, if you don't have to be THAT competitive, forget the hardtop or get a cheaper replica if you really have to.

 

Sebring is a poor excuse of a "street" course, don't ever go on there... All the unnecessary bumps from the crappy old pavement would just send you into walls, but aside from that track, I don't think the guy should worry about the hard top if he's planning tank slappers, the frame will be the higher cost damage. And I was assuming replica, who in their right mind 1 buys something that's 30% of the cars value, 2 tries to race with it.

 

Have you ever actually driven Sebring? It's really not as bumpy as you make it sound.

 

You're right, I tracked Sebring in my s2000, with an OEM hard top. Now I need a new frame, and I lost "2 tries to race with it"

 

So, so much dumb in one post.

Sebring is a fantastic track with two, maybe three "bumpy" sections. It is considered to be one of the premier tracks in the country. You clearly either haven't driven it, or you're a poor driver, because I've never heard anyone say they didn't like Sebring.

In regards to the hardtop, a lot of people drive their cars on the street (IE: OP) and would benefit from the added comfort a real OEM top provides, whilst also benefitting from the aerodynamic and safety properties created by running a hardtop on track. If you have the means, and if you track your car frequently, an OEM hardtop is the common sense choice. Clearly, you lack common sense.

Thank you for playing.

 

By way of personal experience running top up vs down.
On the straight at Road Atlanta I would have to modulate the throttle through 9 and ended up around 115 before the back end got light.
Top up I could go full throttle all the way down and ended up around 125 before the back end got light.

SO for track a hardtop will improve upon the soft top up results, and certainly improve on top down.

 

Have you tried any additional aero...rear spoiler, rear wing, front spliter...to add stability at speed? I haven't driven Road Atlanta (I did watch Espinosa's Spec E30 video!) but the idea of sailing into 10a/10b at 125+ with the tail light enough to cause the driver to lift for 9 doesn't seem very confidence inspiring. In this video a 2015 C7 Z06 takes 9 just under 150 at full throttle: https://www.youtube....h?v=VmrPPBrZZ7c

 

I've run Roebling in a cr with hardtop/cr wing and in an ap1 softtop with gt wing. I was faster in the ap1 softtop. There is probably a small aero penalty with the softtop (laminar flow separation), but it's too insignificant to justify the cost of a hardtop. You would be better off using the $3k on either seat time, 2 sets of hoosiers, coilovers, or aero parts.



Get a rollbar (or better yet, a cage), bucket seat, 6-point harness, and a hans. Your safety on track can't be overlooked. A man just died at Road Atlanta from a high speed crash, and he only had the oem seat and 3-point seat belt. After your safety stuff is squared away, get as much seat time as possible. I promise you the seat time will make you way more faster than a hard top will.