I always wear a helmet. If any passengers don’t have one they don’t come in. I won’t risk my safety for anyone.
^^^This!^^^
I was involved in this a few years ago, there were fluids on the road at the corner, we came off at about 70mph but was fairly minor. No injuries, scraped the barrier and the bumper came off stopping us from driving. We got out and stood behind the barrier and this carnage happened in front of us, as many other cars lost traction at the same point. Some people got very badly hurt. It was quite traumatic tbh, as it was metres away from us, cars make a lot of noise when they collide with things at 100mph.
A BMW Z4M bounced off barriers each side of the road, and then rolled opposite us at very high speed, (after he'd already hit a motorcyclist), the passenger in the BMW was in a very bad way, they had helmets on too, but without a roll cage, it's very likely you're going to get injured in a roll. The motorcyclist as I understand it was paralysed from the legs down. The BMW driver had to go to court, I don't know what the outcome was, but he was in a lot of legal and financial hot water. I was contacted by a German court and asked to give evidence, at one point I was going to have to fly out there as a witness but ended up just having to put in writing.
This was a tourist day, so essentially it's considered a road and you can get done for dangerous driving. I don't think many people who go filming themselves being heroes realise this. This is another reason why I'd recommend doing a proper track day, because you're not open to any prosecution, it's just the cost of any damage you cause in the worst case.
We were very lucky in that regard, because the barrier we hit, had been hit the day before (hence the fluids on the road) and so we weren't charged anything, but the guy the day before had to pay 7.5k euros for the barriers to be replaced, plus costs of call out and clean up. From memory we were charged about 400 euros to get the car transported off the track and fluids cleaned. The costs should have been a lot higher for all the accident investigators, ambulance etc, but the guy in the BMW essentially got singled out and lumbered with most of the costs. We had to pay c£2k to get it transported back to UK as well, so it was a very expensive lap and a complete nightmare trying to sort out all the mess of getting car transported and getting home etc.
It was a good reminder that things can and do go wrong and at high speeds, the outcomes can be life changing or life threatening in worse case, not to mention bankrupting or at least savings destroying. It's always on my mind at track days, as it should be, safer to be a hero on a sim and be cautious on a track, especially the ring.
