Egezzy

iTrader: (2)

Well, you can drop out now. You have learned everything that you need to know. Most never took that evaluative course. Keep up the good work!

JW racing

amen

RR98ITR

So we all agree you (Rico) should aim for happiness. Beyond that it's hard to know where dis and agreement lie exactly.

Tell us about your dreams Rico. The better we should not **** all over them.

Scott, who remembers James Hunt because he was so fuggin happy driving a race car?

ricoisme26

so i'll probably autocross this summer a little, maybe in a year or two pick it up seriously now its just for fun and to learn, gain experience behind the wheel

unfortunately there are no indoor/serious karting tracks near me and i work 50mins away so im forced to drive my car though i do car pool to keep the milage down

RR98ITR

Well then it looks like your opportunities make your choices for you somewhat. Autocross is just such an inefficient way to learn - very little action time per event which makes it a bad value as well - unless you have no other choice. You didn't resume mention of dreams, so then you might be assumed to either demurring or your dreams are of motorsport as a Sport, which would be very healthy.

If you follow a chronological progression in your readings you'll go from Puhn to Smith. Carroll Smith's "________to win" series is an excellent accompaniment to an engineering curriculum. You'll find his last two books to be very hard on the prospective racer. That kind of cruel to be kind approach can rankle some readers. The burden is literally on you to prove that you're above average. It is rare for that not to matter.

Which brings me to "racing is a social activity". Let's say you're above average, or respecable at the very least. You want, you need, that to be recognized. By those you'll recognize as your peers and betters. Driving around a closed course as fast as you can can mean incredibly little without a social context. I pay attention to who passes in and out of the local context - it's fascinating, and after a while predictable. What keeps it from becoming boring and irrelevant is the connection with your friends. Racers who romance themselves into roleplaying as the totally commited racer - the kind that emulate their professional heros - are usually ******* and wannabes and a cruel fate usually catches up with them.

So you're in the beginning stages of involvment with a Sport. And you're an ME. That's Great. The Driver/Engineer is a declining species in club racing. Few build their own GT cars anymore. The smart money rents arrive & drives. But for the fools who want to do it all it's just as good as it ever was. I feel sorry for the kids who go thru the FSAE thing and make their way into pro motorsports doomed to a successful career of playing a small part inside a huge organization. Surely most of them dream of being a Chapman or a Murray or a Newey. They could be all of that in a smaller world. Do they detect the alternative? Do they view it as too small ball?

These are some of the choices that face you. And everything depends on how bad a case of this disease you develop. And for it to develop you have to do what you can do. So enjoy your autocross, and find the friends you find along the way, and may they be keepers. Watch out for the sack swingers and the alpha-males - they're poison to the social context.

Scott, who is going to go work on his kaa for a while...

ricoisme26

thanks for all the advice, i will definetly look into those books by smith after i finish this one. unfortunately im not a ME rather a civil engineer, and so far i've met some great people at the few autocrosses i've been to and can't wait to meet more attending other regions events

ricoisme26

so i know this thread went downhill just saying im getting 10 front 12k rear coils and i have switched to ME after a civil engineering internship over the past summer