jimbo1111

I contacted my insurance companies to see if they covered my vehicles when on a track. They told me that if they are timed events than the insurance wouldn't cover a loss. I have a EMRA and SCCA license and amateur raced for many years. My comments were directed to those that race and not to those who go to de events. I attended a DE event may years ago where the president of the BMW club backed into me when we were lining up for track time and his insurance company paid for the damages. I don't know if insurance companies are still that liberal but I would still want to have assurance before any DE event. So I would suggest that they call pryer to heading out.

Jay-S

I think there are two issues here: (1) what is in the policy document and (2) how are the claims processed.

For #1, my auto policy is very clear about excluding claims for timed events. I checked about a year ago and my insurance technically stops when I enter the event grounds (not just when I'm actually racing) and begins when I leave the event grounds.

On #2 there are a number of reasons why a claim would be paid even with the policy language: your insurance broker doesn't make note of the DE (or AX) or the insurance company isn't currently watching for it when a claim is filed. Those are just two off the top of my head.

Maybe a DE claim has never been denied but that doesn't mean one won't be. You have to make your own risk assessment. Mine is that I'm not willing to risk the denial on a track. For AX I'm comfortable assuming the risk.

mschuster

I think I understand better now why the kick-down switch up-shifts: In a stressful situation the driver might forget that they are in Manual mode.

Suppose you start a pass while in Manual mode, and a car then appears in front of you, you floor the pedal to complete the pass and the car redlines. The kick-down up-shifts the car allowing you to accelerate rather than bouncing off the rev-limiter.

In a manual car, of course you would up shift in this situation without question. But in a PDK car, where you might be driving in Auto mode some or most of the time, I imagine that a driver could forget what mode they are in under stress and not perform the shift. A car bouncing on the rev-limiter is not a good situation. So the car assumes you are under stress and forgot, and does the up-shift for you.

Of course I would like to believe I would never be so stupid as to forget which mode the car is in, but that is probably wishful thinking. Modes are a bad thing exactly for this reason. A solution might be a Manual mode only PDK option. I might well buy one of these.

Mike

Contadino

i have designed a replacement part for the kickdown button. As had been said it is mechanical only, no wires. Just pop out the existing button and replace it with the kickdown eliminator. You can easily return to stock, just takes 1 or 2 minutes.
Let me know if you are interested.