Is/Was Motorsports in your retirement budget?

[KiwiBobs]

Autocross and Track Days are my hobby so it is in my retirement budget. Currently in my expenses, I eliminate that at age 85. I am now thinking how realistic that is - will I be in good enough health and have the energy to do this at 85? Maybe I should lower the age and it would make more sense to phase it out/down over a few years rather than go to zero budget dollars for it in one year.

Curious what others are doing and really curious if it was once your hobby and no longer, why and at what age did you stop?

[il0kin]

I don’t think it’s responsible or safe to be wheel to wheel racing in your 70s or 80s. Phase out the racing, phase in the sunny day cruising. Plenty of ways to enjoy motor sports that don’t endanger others.

[moral_hazard]

I also do track days. I do my financial independence / retirement tracking by exporting detailed mint data (expense/income) and vanguard monthly detailed breakdowns (market gains, purchases/withdrawals, etc) and mashing them together in Google sheets. So track days are sort of inherently factored in to my expenses (and models for the future).

Making it to 85 with track days seems unlikely to me. I've never seen someone that old running at an event. Usually it tops out in the 60-70 range. I have multiple sclerosis and am already (at age 35) thinking about hanging up my helmet given how much harder things get as neurological breakdown occurs.

The life expectancy in the US is 79 for women and 73 for men, so even living to 85 (let alone ripping a sports car around a track) is not a given.

With all things uncertain or that I might "lose" I try to have contingency plans. RE track stuff, I enjoy my car for now but am comfortable giving it up and swapping to a plugin hybrid or cheap econo-box if I suddenly get laid off, decide to retire early, lose my ability to drive a stick, whatever else. On the flipside, if I plan well and build a big nest egg, hopefully I'll be living well beneath my means and still able to fit track fun and car projects in.

HTH and have fun at the track!

[z0r]

I don’t think it’s responsible or safe to be wheel to wheel racing in your 70s or 80s. Phase out the racing, phase in the sunny day cruising. Plenty of ways to enjoy motor sports that don’t endanger others.

autocross and "track days" as the terms are usually used aren't wheel to wheel. you can definitely take out spectators in a parking lot autocross, they rarely have safe margins from what I've seen, but you'd only hurt yourself at a sensible road course with big runoff areas. so I guess it depends

last I looked the only two deaths in the 24 hours of lemons (wheel to wheel) have been older people having heart attacks and then crashing... it seems like a decent way to go

[Jack FFR1846]

It depends on what you're doing, what you're spending and what condition you're in.

After years of autocross and track, I became an instructor with 3 track clubs and 2 autocross clubs. For track, this meant the practice day was free. And I'd get a long sleeve shirt of cooler or sweatshirt or something as a gift. This reduced my costs greatly. So if you've competed for a while, and are willing to teach others, approach the head instructor.

Autocross is a very short time out there compared with track, but I found that it was both more exhausting after a run and wore tires far more even with road legal tires. Plus the clubs I ran with, you'd run, then you'd flag for an hour.

Paul Newman won GT-1 class at Lime Rock on the old pavement at the age of 81 in his Newman/Haas Corvette. At 83, he was dead. That's certainly not everyone and I think you can figure it out when it's time to give it up.

How many days a year you do it matters too. Plenty of people do lapping days 2 or 3 times a year. When I was taking home trophies, I was doing 14 weekends a year on the track and maybe 8 autocrosses.

What you're driving also matters a lot. If you must go wicked fast, you're going to spend more money on brakes and tires for sure. You could certainly drive the car that is driven by more racers than any other. Of course, that's a Miata. After going into a full bore, trailered, fully prepared racecar in SSA, a 4 cylinder, I looked back and thought that having a streetable Miata with a small tire trailer would have been the cheapest, funest and most practical track car. As an example, 2 days with an Audi S4 went through a set of brakes. 5 years in a fully prepared Honda CRX with integra brakes, Hoosiers, 1600 pounds went 5 years on Carbotechs and when I sold it, it was good for probably 50 more days.

[randomguy]

Autocross and Track Days are my hobby so it is in my retirement budget. Currently in my expenses, I eliminate that at age 85. I am now thinking how realistic that is - will I be in good enough health and have the energy to do this at 85? Maybe I should lower the age and it would make more sense to phase it out/down over a few years rather than go to zero budget dollars for it in one year.

Curious what others are doing and really curious if it was once your hobby and no longer, why and at what age did you stop?

I would just budget for a hobby and not worry about what one it is. Trying for more accuracy than that seems pretty futile. I am not going to guess if I give up golf at 75 or 95. Or if I will still be able/want to run a marathon at 80. Or when idea of flying to australia goes from exciting to a chore.

[stoptothink]

Making it to 85 with track days seems unlikely to me. I've never seen someone that old running at an event. Usually it tops out in the 60-70 range. I have multiple sclerosis and am already (at age 35) thinking about hanging up my helmet given how much harder things get as neurological breakdown occurs.

I spent a lot of time in my late teens and early 20's doing track days on motorcycles. Today, I can't financially justify getting a performance vehicle and don't really see the point driving them on public roads anyway, so I scratch my itch by doing 1 or 2 exotic car track days a year. My last one was in June, driving a Porsche GT3RS at Miller Motorsports Park in Grantsville, Utah. I'm barely 42, but have had multiple athletic-related back injuries and still compete in sports that are risky for the back. The track day was ROUGH. I felt worse than I do after doing 2-a-days while training for a BJJ competition.

I had long thought that getting a fun little track car (ie. miata) would be something I probably would do in retirement (currently planning on age 50), but I probably will hang up my helmet as well before then.

[Normchad]

I’m thinking more along the lines of a mobility chair.

[Tracker968]

I stopped feeling confident doing track days around age 65. I decided it was just a matter of time before I made a major mistake and didn't want to be a rolling roadblock either. But I'm glad I did it for as long as I did!

[sailaway]

I stopped feeling confident doing track days around age 65. I decided it was just a matter of time before I made a major mistake and didn't want to be a rolling roadblock either. But I'm glad I did it for as long as I did!

Interesting. FIL did wheel to wheel into his 70s, but is considering selling the car just a few years later.

[ktdintex]

I also autocross, track, and race W2W. As you've probably observed, I rarely see anyone older than 70 at these types of events & races, so I think 85 is an unrealistic age for your budgeting.

Personally, I don't specifically include motorsports in my retirement budget. I just lump it in as entertainment, and I plan to use a street drivable car for autox and track days. I probably won't race W2W in retirement, but if I do it'll be arrive and drive. My days of big truck, trailer, and hauling all over the country are behind me.

[Wanderingwheelz]

My dad gave up sports car driving about 5 or 6 years ago and he’s 82 now. But…

A couple of days ago I invited on a hiking trip my wife and I were loosely planning. I wasn’t sure how he’s feel about it so I just drove over to his house and said, hey if you’re interested we’re going hiking for a couple of weeks next month and we’d like for you to come with us. He said, I just want you to know I may not be able to do the type of hiking we did a couple of year age when we last did this, but yeah I think I’d like to go too.

That’s fine with us. It doesn’t matter really if you’re driving cars fast or going up mountains slow, it’s that you’re doing something you enjoy hopefully with people you love. That’s what it all about.

[er999]

Maybe have a generous hobby budget and if you find yourself unsafe to still do motor sports on the track shift the money to something else, maybe luxury traveling to see the Grand Prix circuit? Probably more important to pin down exactly if you are thinking about working longer to add those expenses to your budget.

You may have seen this in the news a few months ago about a billionaire dying in a crash on the racetrack at 70:

https://amp.cnn.com/cnn/2023/06/26/busi ... index.html

Hard to say how old is too old to be safe, but I suspect at 85 for sure, likely 80 reaction time is decreased. You don’t want to end your track time with a disaster, but also don’t want to prematurely end your hobby either.

[snackdog]

I don’t think it’s responsible or safe to be wheel to wheel racing in your 70s or 80s. Phase out the racing, phase in the sunny day cruising. Plenty of ways to enjoy motor sports that don’t endanger others.

Paul Newman did the 24 Hours of Daytona endurance race in his 70s. I think his team even won!

[White Coat Investor]

The life expectancy in the US is 79 for women and 73 for men, so even living to 85 (let alone ripping a sports car around a track) is not a given.

That seems 4-10 years too low. Especially if you're still alive at 40 or 50 and reading this message.

The average 65 year old can expect to live to 83-86.

[randomguy]

The life expectancy in the US is 79 for women and 73 for men, so even living to 85 (let alone ripping a sports car around a track) is not a given.

That seems 4-10 years too low. Especially if you're still alive at 40 or 50 and reading this message.

The average 65 year old can expect to live to 83-86.

A US male at birth has a 77 year life expectancy. At 65 it is 82. Now if you put in some info like nonsmoker, college educated, no major health issues it is pretty easy to get up just under 90 for a 65 year old male. As to how active you will be? Who knows and your definition of ripping around the track might change. Or if you end up replacing track racing with something else, who knows if it will be cheaper.

How do your actionable items change if you go from retiring from racing at 65, 75, or 85? How much more are you saving or years spend working?