TYSON

I've got a fair amount of links on how to get you and your car onto a racetrack, both in a competitive environment and just for fun.





Track locator



http://chasinracin.com/track-locator/





Racing / Lapping Associations in the US



SCCA

NASA

TCRA

ARC

Tracquest

Speed Ventures

OTC

Open Track Racing





Racing / Lapping Associations in Canada



CASC-OR

FSAQ

ARMS

CACC

WCMA

ASN Canada









This is barely a start. If you've got more to add, please do.

Feffman

Please visit MVP Track Time as well for fun track days!



Mark "Feff" Pfeffer

Kevin@TwinsTurbo

Nasa is a good group to run with

bryant

if i want to go pro what would be your suggestions??



i know i better have some money.. but what else besides going to a racing school.

and getting lucky.

Lynn E. Hanover

The facts are: Wanting to be a race car driver is a gene found in 96% of all males born. To be good enough at it to be noticed in any venue, you would have needed a trophy room full by the time you were 10 or 12 at the latest. This is just about the same thing you read about every famous driver there ever was, or will be.



You may have noticed that just about every formula one driver was in kart racing by 7 years old. And that might be a bit late. The car control these people have must be seen to be believed. Absolutely sensational. So unless your native skills are off the scale, its too late.



So let us set our sights down among the normal folks. As above, every open wheel

and many closed wheel teams have two or three carts hanging in the back of the shop. If there is an off weekend or time etween sessions if you have rented the track or out behind the shop, the drivers (Formula One, NASCAR, Trucks) you name it, the driver is getting seat time, all of the time. At Shanks outfit they ar on the karts all of the time.



http://www.michaelshankracing.com/



These are Datona Prototypes.



So one obvious way to build cheap seat time is to run a kart. The 125cc shifter karts are brutally fast, and you will feel like a mushroom the first time you do a lap on one. You will be so far behind the kart you will not believe it. So there is one avenue to develope some skills, have some fun and not have to sell the house.



Get into the club. Get involved in endurance racing. Once you have some skills.

Offer to co drive for half of the gas and half of the tires. This may be a lot of money for less than one forth of the available seat time. But be there with your suit and helmate anyway. Many times in the 24 hour stuff some of the guys find that it is more fun than they can stand and want to sit out a session. It happens more than you can think, usually in the early morning hours. At daytona by the end, every one is overcome by exhaust fumes. Buy a pit pass and stand around for 24 hours. Check it out. It is best to develope skills in all kinds of cars. Circle track cars work the same as formula fords. Learn to do some setup stuff and you will be a genius at the circle track. Never turn down a ride unless there is a safety question. Do off road, karts, circle track. Notice that those guys have moved into road racing? The Daytona Prototype series is owned by NASCAR. You have to make it your life. Think about it every waking hour.



Read everything about race cars. All of the stuff by Carroll Smith. Just the very best guy at explining how things work. Hes dead now but was the very bst at team managing, driver coaching, set up and maintianance. He was hired by everyone to fly here and do a circle track race. Just to watch and offer a few suggestions. Airplane tickets both ways and cash money.



Last fall Mike Shank brought in a hired gun to run one of his cars, to see if it a setup problem between the cars or a driver problem. This guy you know from CART, and he wrecks a lot of cars. After they worked with him for a few sessions, he bet Mike $500.00 he could go 2 seconds faster in the next session. Mike told him he would give him $500.00 not to go 2 seconds faster. He went 2 seconds faster and was on the outside pole for the start. He also ran with them for two weekends and never hurt the car. One of the regular totaled one of them at Mexico city. The sponsor gets real mad when their car is not in front of the TV cameras.



I went to Mid Ohio two weeks ago to help my drivers son run his car. The torch has been passed on. I am out of racing my own cars. The driver has retired, and the Pport car is gone, and the sideport car is available. Then I'm done. I will help other teams but no more of my money is going into racing. As soon as our big place sells, we will build a new house and shop in central florida. We will live there in winter and in Hebron Ohio in summer. Big shop here too. Now looking forward to rotary engines for airplanes.

Sorry about not seeing your question sooner.

Lynn E. Hanover



Phone 1-740-928-0908

jjolly

Kewl,



This answers my question from the other topic.

Keeble

well for you guys in the southwest us, look up Arroyo Seco Motorplex. It's a small i want to say 1.6 mile coarse. Not really under a sanctioning body, but they usually have monthly track days at $80 for the full day, and its usually not crowded so only 1 or 2 run groups so you could easily get in over 100 laps if you so please

Mr_Efficiency

I'm suprised more people looking to get into racing dont just build oval cars. If you get in at one of the lower divisions its easily the cheapest form of racing (costs me $40 a weekend). Once you have the car and all the saftey equipment its dirt cheap to keep it running. Plus you get the experience of building and maintaining the car.

I have raced the 4cyl division at my local track for the last 5 years now and I have no interest in the higher classes. Granted we are a little more extreme than most 4 cyl divisions (bumper to bumper tube frame, lexan windows all around, race wheels, spec tire, 5" off the ground, etc) But I have more fun in that division than any other and have learned more about bumpsteer, ackermann, and roll center than I ever want to know. It gives you a chance to play with suspension, engines and gearing and then take it to the track that very next week and test it out and see what happens.

My favorite part is building/working on the car more than anything always hunting for those extra few tenths and have been finding them. My first year we ran 18.5 second laps around our 1/3 mile oval and that was fast. Five years later (this year) I was pulling 16.7's and it continues to get faster and faster every year.

And the people you meet and get to talk to are just are crazy as you are, I've never met anyone else as into cars as I was away from the track.

thatpoorguy

do they have any kind of association? i only know of dirt oval tracks here other than nascar tracks.

Mr_Efficiency

Oval tracks are independantly run by the owners. Atleast around here. In the US there are a lot of flat dirt tracks. In Canada, more specifically southern Ontario, we have a lot of short (1/3mile, 3/8 mile) paved high banked ovals. There are 2 within 20 minutes of my house that I run every friday and saturday. If I was willing to drive two or 3 hours on an off night I have the choice of 5 paved tracks and 1 dirt track. We also have 2 road courses, one being Mosport.



So i guess it depends where you live, I've heard paved ovals arent as common in the US. Which is weird to me seeing how big nascar is down there. You would think people would be all over a small paved oval for weekly racing. I've never been a fan of dirt racing, I couldnt do that to my car, lol



www.Speednetdirect.com Has a very large listing of race tracks all over the world. If you go to "schedule" at the top it brings you to a page to search by race series, state or country. They are missing a few tracks up here that I know exist so I dont know how thorough it is, but there I'm sure they have the majority of them.