Change your brake oil after every track day-HPDE

Your car’s brakes are more than your lifeline and safety tool. As you progress in HPDE, you will learn to use your brakes more and more and in different ways too. 

Imagine stabbing the brakes to make the car turn into a corner, I bet you didn’t see that coming. With street car driving, we are trained to almost never think of changing anything but engine oil- More on that in another blog. This is perfectly normal for a street car, not a big deal. However, when it comes to the track, your car will cook the oil in the calipers. Making it useless and turning your brake pads into a sponge.

Why you may wonder. Well, your brake fluid does not circulate, it is force fed from the hydraulic pump inside the engine compartment by steel lines all the way to each caliper. The oil then stays in the caliper and is subjected to extreme heat on the track, to the point that all track events require you to have new brake oil before going on the track.  

After my first HPDE, the paint on my OEM wheels peeled off from the extreme heat it went through. Bleeding the oil may sound like a daunting task, but it is really easy to do yourself in your garage or flat driveway.

There are many tools to make this a one man job and pretty easy. The best option I found was an air compressor bleeder. You plug it in and press a button, can’t get easier than that. There are plenty of hand pump tools that replace the need for a compressor, but to each his own. 

Don’t forget to bleed your brakes before/after each event.