If you go to the track with your street driven car you can push the limits further and safer than anywhere on the street. The question that occasionally pops up however is what happens if you crash? While our first response will be don’t crash, there might come a time when you do and it’s really important you make sure you know what to do next so things don’t get worse. Unfortunately for one owner, they  found out the hard way that their crash at the track wasn’t covered so they tried to be sneaky and it came back to bite them.

Heading to the track one day, Corvette owner Robert Atlas probably didn’t think about much other than how quick his car was going to be. Unlucky for him, his car took a hard right while heading down the track and ended up straight into the wall. Knowing that his insurance didn’t cover racing, he decided to tell a little white lie; that the car was crashed on the interstate and NOT at the track.

Just like any other insurance claim for a regular accident, the vehicle was covered and Geico paid out over $61 thousand. All good, right? Nope. A video on youtube later surfaced and GEICO insurance officials finally connected the dots to the fraud and confronted Atlas. Pleading guilty to insurance fraud, Atlas was let off rather easy with repayment to GEICO, some fee’s, and probation. Rather surprising considering the amount of the payout.

What’s important here is that this was avoidable. First off the list is checking with your insurance about what’s covered and what isn’t when it comes to racing. Many insurance companies will cover driving education classes but not timed events, since they consider that “racing”. Calling up your insurance company won’t hurt, and then you’ll know for sure what is covered and what is not. After that, you can decide if you need additional coverage which is available from other insurance companies that specialize in coverage for race type events. Don’t put yourself in a position to be out of a car–or worse!