[jyl]

I'm surprised you were tracking a leased car, if I'm interpreting your post correctly.

If you crash the car on the track, will your insurance cover? Probably not, I realize you can argue it was merely DE not "racing" but not great odds of winning that argument. So if it is a leased or financed car, won't you end up making payments on a destroyed car?

I think the general rule is that you don't track a car that you can't afford to lose.

Another rule, maybe not so generally agreed but to me it is a clear rule, is that any car beyond basic transportation are a luxury toy. Nice to have, but first you have to have the important stuff covered. Like a savings/investment program and an emergency cash cushion in case of unexpected unemployment or other bad thing.

So, which option depends on your financial situation and whether you intend to keep tracking the car.

From what you've said, I would look for something cheap enough that you can buy it for cash, or little enough financing to be able to pay it off quickly. But also fun enough to track.

A used Miata sounds like it would be the perfect ticket. I drove a friend's Miata for a few days, it was a really nice, fun, good-handling car. Perfectly practical, unless you have to carry a lot. Good-looking. Plenty of performance mods available. I think these should usually be reliable cars too.