road racing/autox/pdx etc.
 

So Im new to the whole autox scca thing but id love to get involved. Id like to get into road racing but dont know the right path to take. If nothing else Id like to just take my car out and tool around on the Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course with an instructor or something. What do I need to be doing?

Thanks

I highly recommend the book "Go Ahead Take The Wheel" by Dave Gran. This is a great book for the amateur road racer. Have you checked the SCCA and NASA websites yet?

Find a local club and get involved with Autocross. Definitely the best/easiest way to get your feet wet. If you're not very familiar with that form of racing, check out the link in my sig for some decent footage. Around here, you can pay 20 bucks, borrow a helmet, and dive right in. I highly recommend it! :)




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I will have to check out that book. When I went to the Western Ohio region of SCCA some of the links werent working correctly...ill try back later.

Don't go crazy modding your car off the bat, you can accomplish a lot and learn a lot on stock suspension and street tires. That said, make sure everything is in top shape, and it probably wouldn't hurt to have an alignment done. What model is your car?

if you're looking to go to Mid-Ohio but aren't sure if your car is quite ready for it....check out their website. Mid-Ohio offers their own schools where you can drive their TSX's. They're not cheap, but they're great schools taught by amazing drivers/instructors. Tommy Byrne is a crack-up and the one school I was at had Elliot Forbes Robinson teaching as well.

Log onto the western ohio regions website (worscca.org). There you can find out when the next meeting is. They usually are held at the chistopher club on south dixie drive in kettering. then you can find out all there is to know about joining scca and pdx events etc.

Ive got an 88 n/a with bolt ons and 17" ssr wheels with 215/45's. That is conveniant because I live in Kettering off of 48 (far hills)

Get involved with your local SCCA AutoX scene. It will give you the basic foundation of driving skills. Get one of the more experienced local guys to ride around with you while you are on the course and help you out. As far as road course stuff, NASA have a few HPDE's(high performance driving experience) at Mid Ohio. You can check out their site at www.nasaproracing.com Weekends normally cost somewhere around $300-$450 for driving(you will have an instructor every time you go out). Some companies that do track days are Track Daze, Chin Motorsports, Mazda Drivers, 10/10ths Motorsports, etc... The SCCA also have PDX(performance driving experience... also a track day). Plenty of ways to get out there, some ways are more cost effcient than others. As these guys have already said, spend your money on seat time if you are serious about it. I will be the first person to tell you the, by far, largest limiting factor on my car is the driver ;)

Also check out www.drivebluegrass.com because this is a new track in KY not too far from Cincy and I believe Dayton too. I am an avid autoxer seeking to get into club racing with my RX-7 so I beleive that I know your intentions. I agree with the others that chimed in that you should really try autoxing your FC. Fun stuff! In the off season I also do a little karting to keep the car control skills cobwebs from forming with.

I'm looking forward to hitting Bluegrass a bunch this year. 10/10ths is having a ton of track days there this year and I believe NASA has a couple scheduled. Putnam Park shouldn't be too far away either.

Autocross and road racing are two different things. I suggest you participate in both, as they both are a lot of fun and develop different but equally useful skills.

By road racing, I assume you mean wheel-to-wheel competition. The major organizations for that are SCCA and NASA, and both offer time trial as well as wheel-to-wheel racing. Since w2w racing is the highest level of involvement and driver training, plan to work up to it. Start with some HPDE events, which are instructed track time for beginners. Do as many as you can find time and money for, knowing that while it's essential to focus on the right things and book learning helps, that ultimately the seat time is most important and cannot be abbreviated.

So in the short term, participate in HPDEs and autocrosses. From there you will have no trouble finding the ladder and moving up to your ultimate road racing goals.

Dave

I am originally from Louisville and I had plans to trailer the RX-7 down from MD this summer to the new track while visiting Louisville but I have to relocate to Petersburg,VA this summer. At least I will be a little closer to VIR.

Oh yeah Millertime6009 I have more books to recommend for reading just need to bring them home from work and I will post them up for ya. Nothing like "hands on" but the reading also helps too.

Yes my ultimate goal is w2w racing. Im tired of playing Gran Turismo on playstation I wanna do that shit for real. What does HPDE stand for? Thanks on the books Mazda6. Good info everyone I really appreciate it.

:)

Another really good book to start with is Secrets of Solo Racing. It covers all the things you need to know to be a great autocrosser and solo time trialer. (Note, time trial and autocross are really useful at developing good qualifying performances, and anyone in club racing will tell you qualifying is critical in classes where the cars are well matched).

For HPDEs there are many organizations that run stuff. I've really enjoyed the Friday At The Track series at Summit Point, although that's probably far for you.

I forgot to mention EMRA, which does a lot of time trial events.

Great info thus far.

For HPDE stuff, try and fine an organization that focuses on the Education part. In my experience, BMW CCA is usually one of the better organizations for Education. I've run with NASA, EMRA (when I lived in NY) and BMW clubs.

Also look into karting. Start with some indoor karting and look for kart rentals near you. You really learn on karts.

Might want to search this section for past threads on this subject. This question gets asked a couple of times a year. :)

Start with HPDE type events, you've got pretty much everything you need already. You have the car. If you need a helmet, find out the requirements of the group you plan to run with, and get the appropriate helmet. A motorcycle helmet is usually not good enough, you'll need an SA rated helmet (www.bellracing.com is where I usually get mine cause I like the way Bell helmets fit, but places like Jegs and Summit carry suitable helmets as well. If you have a friend who has a similar head size who races, you may try to borrow his for the weekend, just to see if you're going to like this)

check out http://www.nasagreatlakes.com/ looks like they run Mid Ohio

Regards,

PaulC

great info guys thanks and keep it comin