Race Cars for Road Racing / Club Racing with SCCA or NASA

You like Cars and speed? Chances are you are doing or you have done some kind of:

Street Racing: My opinion on this is very simple: It's dangerous, It's illegal and It doesn't allow you to reach the limits of your car, except for that one moment right before you go off the road and wreck the car (if you're lucky).

Have I ever done it? Of course, like everyone who is reading this page. Although it was a while ago (hey, not that long ago, ok?), let's say 20 years ago. Want to know how it was back then, in europe? If you're not interested, skip to the next "chapter" cause this is going to be pure memories of my early days and absolutely nothing reallly informative on how to pick the right car for the right race.

So here's the story: 20 years ago in Europe, Top Speed Driving was "Possible" in France. There were speed limits on the Highways, but with a good CB you could get the right information on time to avoid speed traps. Worst case, if you got arrested for speeding, you had a little fine and you had to spend some time with the "Gendarmes" talking about the performance of your car, how much faster you think you could have gone etc. (No BS, I swear it happened to me, you have to understand that on their BMW motorcycles, they were like us , they loved speed as much as we did).

The concept of street racing didn't even exist. people didn't meet at a specified location to race their cars. It was more "Gentleman Driving" oriented. People were travelling at hight speed and when 2 sports cars would meet during a trip (cause one got slowed down in traffic or stopped for gas or whatever reason), It would then be the start of an awesome journey. We would start to "show what our cars had" but kind of in respect with each other and with the traffic (although most of the time it would be done at night on mostly empty freeways). The goal wasn't to pass slower traffic as fast as possible or to make a suicidal move to get ahead of the each others. Most of the time the goal was more to show that your car had the fastest acceleration or top speed, we were comparing cars pretty much like car magazines still do today on tracks. It was an awesome way to get the trip done. Imagine 200-300 miles of car testing on open roads. The driving was competitive but fair. Opening the road for each other, moving traffic away for the guy behind, at night drive next to each other (like planes in formation) in order to double the power of lights which were needed for Hight speed travelling. In the fog, the car in front would do all the work, the driver would have to concentrate/focus intensively in order to open the road while the one far behind could rest. Then we would switch positions so the one in front could rest behind. Finally when one of the cars had to stop for gas, the other one would stop too. We would take a coffee, have a cigarette and talk cars. I've met a lot of good friends this way. Back then, Top speed Driving was kind of a way of life, with rules. Great memories!!! I hope I didn't bore too many people, it's kind of hard to explain the feeling of it in writing.

So back to the point on street racing. Would I do it here, today? Nope! Why? Because I don't want to go to jail, Because Nobody else is driving fast, so it means big difference of speed between overtakers and overtakens, Because nobody drives on the right lane anymore, because I need to reach the very limit of the cars I drive in every turn and least but not last is because I need the competition, the thrills and excitement of Club or Pro Racing. So let's talk about that in the next "Capsule" (that's how it's called here).

P.S: I have to admit that I am not totally "cured" with street racing. I will try to post a video of my last vacation in Europe where I enjoyed meeting my good all friend Sebastien (whom I met on the freeway about 15 years ago during our first "road race" together). We did it again last month in Germany. Corvette Z06 vs Viper SRT/10 Coupe. Interesting acceleration tests.

All right, let's get to the point. If you like race cars and speed, you need to do one of these. I am going to give a quick description of what they are what's good and bad about them.

Track Days: That's where you start. If you've never done that before. You've just been wasting time. I don't care how much people say street racing is exciting, it still has nothing to do with taking your car on a real racetrack. This is the only place where you can test and feel (safely) the limits of a car. I am going even further, if you don't go off the track, you still haven't found the limits of the car, unless you're an exceptional and competitive driver with years of experience, but if you're one of those, you know what I am talking about and you don't need my advices. Although if you're really good, then I'd like to race you :-) Sorry it's my competitive side that kicks in again, I always have to prove that I am faster than the others (We'll get back to that later). If you're a total beginner, don't even try to drive your car more than 80% of your capabilities (not the car's capabilities cause if you drive a Viper, 80% of its capabilities is way too much for a beginner) and don't put any pressure on yourself, you have nothing to prove, nobody is timing you and if you get passed by some little car with half the horsepower (it's going to happen), just say you were on the phone or loading a CD in the Radio, you'll look cooler. Of course I am kidding.

So here's the main point: Track Days will allow you to spend a day or 2 at a track and to safely test your abilities for a usually pretty small amount of money.

If you haven't done it before, just trust me, DO IT!!! It's 100% fun with no pressure.

Time Trials: That's when you start having to prove something.

When you thing you're getting pretty good at lapping the track cause you've been there a couple of times and you think you (or anyone else) will never go faster. Then remember what I am telling you now: You're wrong!!! You can lap it 10 thousand times and still not doing the right thing. But at that point it's time to start collecting some Data. Which one do you thing is the most important? Speed? RPM? None, speed doesn't matter and most importantly don't even think about looking at your speedometer while driving. It doesn't matter if people ask you what speed you're taking such or such turn, if someone comes up with a number, he's either lying or too slow. So don't get trapped with that. Looking at your speedometer will never help you going faster. When you'll be an expert driver you'll need a Data Acquisition system that will give you all you need about speed (on your PC, not on your dashboard. I'll have to write something about Data Acquisition someday). So, what is the most important Data to collect? Time, Actually Laptime. So if you want to improve YOU HAVE TO start doing Time Trials.

Time Trials are Track Days equiped with a timing system that records the time of all the participants and list them (usually in ascending orders) at the end of each sessions. The key is to look at who's in front of you. Once you've found the car, try to stick to him during the next session, you'll learn something, unless the guy can't drive but has so much power that he makes up time/speed in the straights (it'll happen to you, don't worry, don't get frustrated, that doesn't mean anything). Usually these guys drive Vipers, I know, I drive one too. Just kidding!!! Seriously, remember this: You will always learn more from following a faster car than in trying to keep him behind, so point them by, let them go by and try to follow them.

If you're good at this

Here are a couple of links to check out (mostly west coast):

www.nasaproracing.com

www.touringcarclub.net

www.speedventures.com

www.opentrackracing.com

www.greenflagdriving.com

www.redlinetimeattack.com

People should wonder why I didn't mention anything about Driving/Racing Schools... Coming soon...