Welcome to my race blog. At 24 years old, this will be my first season racing and I have a feeling it's going to be one wild ride. I will be a new driver in a new car and new class, which should provide plenty of learning opportunities throughout the year. Hopefully this blog will chronicle what it takes to prepare and race a car, and serve as a guide for beginners looking to make the leap from DE to a race group. First, a little background....
A few years ago I got mixed up with NASA (no, not the aerospace guys) and was introduced to the world of club racing. Wow, what an experience. My first event was at the absolutely gorgeous VIR in Danville, Va. I signed up for HPDE 1 and borrowed a 1999 Miata, stock aside from a set of track pads. What an interesting weekend that was. Prior to that event, I had about 4 years of autoX experience and several drift days under my belt, but had never really been around a real track. After a weekend of passing a lot of slower drivers (in group 1), I was hopelessly addicted and completely broke.
Enter NASA and their work for credit program. I had met Jim Pantas at a drift event the year before, and ended up a volunteer for NASA-SE. For every two weekends I worked, I got one for free. The next thing I knew, I was the Chief of Grid of a relatively new organization in their second year of existence. The perk of the job was free track time when I was able to get away from grid. This allowed me to take a few sessions a day in Group 2 at several tracks instead of having to wait every three events to drive. Next thing I knew, I was back at VIR in group 3 (NASA's advanced group, open passing), and ohhhh Nelly! After that, things progressed like wildfire and the rest of my events were spent with the big boys. That next year NASA introduced a new class called Time Trials, and I was able to bounce between Group 3 and Group 4 (TT). Unfortunatly this whole time I had no car to drive. I literally spent 2 years borrowing cars from friends. My roommates D15 Civic,
Ken’s 1991 MR-2, an FC RX-7, 1991 Miata, and of course, the rental Cobalt. While there are tons of awesome stories to tell from those two years, the real focus of this blog is to chronicle my entrance into club racing, from a beginner’s perspective.
Over the last 2 years I’ve been building a
1985 RX7 with a Ford V8, Miata IRS, and FC3S front suspension. Figuring I could never race the car, I tried to sell the project a few times to get a Spec E30. Interestingly enough, this year brought the creation of a new class, Super Touring, and the RX7 is a perfect fit. So I invite you to follow the progress as the car turns into a track legal race car and I go to school to get my provisional. After that, we’ll be chronicling the progress over the season that will hopefully end at Nationals on my rookie year in motor sports. I welcome you all on the journey.
~Rob
