A road car goes into storage after a gentle drive. A track car often goes in straight after the hardest day of its year. That changes what storage has to do.
Most track cars spend far more time parked than running: a few days on circuit, then weeks or months standing, often right through the winter. The brakes have been hotter than they will ever get on the road and the tyres have been hard at work. Whatever state the car is left in that evening is the state it sits in until the next outing. Storing a track car well mostly means resetting it from the last session.
After a hard session the discs are very hot, and a pad held against a hot, stationary disc can leave friction material behind in its own shape. Brembo's disc guide describes what pad deposits do: they cause local overheating, which turns the cast iron underneath into a much harder form called cementite. That patch then grips differently from the rest of the disc, and the driver feels it as a vibration under braking.
Two habits avoid it. Once the car has stopped, don't sit holding it on the brake pedal. And on cars where the handbrake works on the main pads, leave it off until the brakes have cooled. Many modern performance cars have a separate parking brake, and some electric ones apply themselves when the car is switched off, so it's worth knowing how yours behaves. Either way, leave the car in gear or in park and always chock the wheels. Carbon-ceramic brakes have a related problem in storage, where pad and disc can bond in damp air, which our supercar storage guide covers.
Most brake fluid (DOT 3, DOT 4 and DOT 5.1) is glycol-based, and glycol absorbs water from the air. Water lowers the boiling point. That matters on track because boiling fluid turns to vapour, vapour compresses where liquid doesn't, and the pedal goes soft.
The US federal brake fluid standard, which is where the DOT grades come from, sets two minimum boiling points for each grade: one for new fluid, and a "wet" one for fluid holding about 3.7% water by weight.
For DOT 4, the legal minimum drops by 75 °C between the two. Racing fluids are made to beat these floors, but water moves every glycol fluid in the same direction.
The fluid keeps ageing while the car stands. A car laid up from October to March comes out with fluid five months older, without having done a mile. EBC, the brake maker, recommends bleeding the brakes before a race weekend and during it. For a car coming out of storage, that makes a bleed the first job before the first track day of the season, and it helps to know when the fluid last went in.
Tyre pressure falls as the air inside cools, and after a session the difference is big.
Say a tyre reads 2.2 bar on the gauge when it comes in, with the air inside at about 70 °C. A gauge reads on top of the atmosphere's 1 bar, so the air is really at 3.2 bar. At near enough constant volume, pressure falls in step with absolute temperature. Cooled to 15 °C, that's 3.2 × 288 ÷ 343, about 2.7 bar, or 1.7 on the gauge. Half a bar has gone, with no leak.
So a pressure read in the paddock won't be the pressure the next morning. And if the cold pressures were set lower for track use, so the tyres reach their target once hot, a car put away on them stands on softer tyres than it needs to. A tyre carries its load roughly as pressure times contact area, so lower pressure means a bigger, more flattened patch. Set pressures for standing, with the tyres cold, before the car goes into storage.
Competition tyres change chemically the first time they get hot. Tire Rack, the US tyre retailer, advises an easy first heat cycle and then at least 24 hours for the bonds in the rubber to settle before hard use. Overheating a tyre later can cost it performance for good. So the number of sessions a set has done belongs on the car's record, next to its pressures.
A car that stands still puts its whole weight through one small patch of each tyre. As our supercar storage guide explains, a flat spot can become permanent after around a month of standing. Track cars that only move for events are the classic case.
Many track cars also have a second set of wheels. Michelin's guidance is to keep tyres somewhere clean, dry, temperate and ventilated, out of direct sunlight, and away from heat, solvents and any source of ozone, such as electric motors, transformers and welding sets. Tyres on rims can stand upright, hang, or be stacked "two by two maximum". Tyres off their rims should stand upright, never stacked or hung.
Rubber also ages whether it's used or not. The last four digits of the DOT code on the sidewall give the week and year the tyre was made, so 4714 means week 47 of 2014.
Our winter storage guide gives the rule for oil: if it is anywhere near due, change it before storage rather than after. Used oil carries acidic by-products of combustion, and changing it first means they don't sit inside the engine all winter.
A battery cut-off switch stops the car drawing current, but the battery still loses charge slowly on its own, so it still needs looking after. Some track cars run lightweight lithium batteries. A conditioner built for lead-acid isn't automatically right for one, so check with the battery's maker which charger it needs.
The best time to note what a track car needs is the evening it comes off the circuit, while everyone still remembers. Per car:
Then, before the next track day:
Not while the brakes are hot, if the handbrake works on the main pads, because pad material can transfer onto a hot disc. Leave the car in gear or park and always chock the wheels.
Follow the car or tyre maker's storage advice, and at the very least the normal road pressure, set with the tyres cold. Lower track pressures leave a standing tyre softer than it needs to be.
Rubber ages with time, which is separate from wear or heat cycles. Keep spare sets away from sunlight, heat and ozone sources such as electric motors, and check the date code before trusting an old set on track.
Henry's Car Barn has been storing cars since 1984, at sites in Warwickshire, London, Hampshire and West Sussex, with a fifth at Thruxton from November 2026. Storage sits alongside collection management, transport across the UK and Europe, and on-site work including detailing and Liquid PPF installation.
If you use your car on track, the most useful first conversation is about the car and how you use it: how often it goes out, where, and what it needs between outings.
