My race car... in VR and RL

[aprilia4life]

In america does race car mean; road car with racing numbers on sides? Sure as hell doesn't here in oz... I am tempted to put racing numbers on the family car and post it up, would be the same...

 

[Sohcahtoa]

Well here's the thing about the Autocross...

It doesn't really interest me that much...not in my current car, at least. I don't think the suspension of my car is really up to the task. Besides, my rear tires have so much wear on them that they wouldn't allow me to use them. Hell, they're probably illegal to be using on the roads. But I really don't have the money to buy new ones.

I might do it eventually, but probably not for another month or two. It might be fun.

As for the drag racing...the website for the races doesn't say anything about car requirements, so they might let me use these old worn tires. My girlfriend still thinks "SUMTHIGN MITE HAPN OMG WTF!!!111" about the drag racing. I asked if she'd like to just spectate one night, but she really has absolutely zero interest in it.

I'd REALLY like to take my car for laps around Portland International Raceway, but from what I've seen, that's $400, but includes some instruction time, and is run by Pro Drive Racing School, which operates at the Raceway.

 

[Jetboy.]

Ha ha ha!

I thought that might make you panic! But maybe you aught to look up what a Porsche 912 actually is rather than worrying about the Porsche name.

It's a 90 horsepower car from the 1960's with a 0-60 time of about... 12 seconds.

Oh, the rebadged-VW-ugly-duckling-Porsche. For some really stupid reason, I thought of the 944. Believe me, I do know what I occasionally yap about in the car forums; this was just a blond moment poking through. At least that was cleared up. No mods? Damn, that would be fun! I need to retune the E-brake cable, buy some new fenders and I would be in! Sweet.

 

[Skant]

It doesn't really interest me that much...not in my current car, at least. I don't think the suspension of my car is really up to the task. Besides, my rear tires have so much wear on them that they wouldn't allow me to use them. Hell, they're probably illegal to be using on the roads. But I really don't have the money to buy new ones.

As long as they aren't showing cords, they'll let you race em. And the suspension doesn't have to be in top shape. When you're just starting, you'll lose much more time from lack of driver experience than anything having to do with the car.

In fact, it's not uncommon to put all of the newbies into a single beginner class regardless of what car they drive. In practice, they all end up getting around the same lap times anyway. The guys in the faster cars just overcook the corners that much more badly.

I'd REALLY like to take my car for laps around Portland International Raceway, but from what I've seen, that's $400, but includes some instruction time, and is run by Pro Drive Racing School, which operates at the Raceway.

$400 is pretty steep for just a track day... what you describe sounds like it includes instruction and such. There will be many other organizations that rent the track, too. And you'll find that there is a pretty wide range of prices for track days at the same track. Car clubs often have the best prices (and you usually don't have to be a member). It's also cheaper when they do the track day on a weekday rather than a weekend.

Nearly every track has a web site and posts the schedule of what organizations have made reservations to rent it. Look up those organizations and see how much they're charging and what their deal is.

By now I'm pretty sure that I'm just wasting my breath though. You seem to be one of those folks with a never ending list of excuses. Racing isn't convenient. If you're not a go getter, it's not gonna happen.

Oh, the rebadged-VW-ugly-duckling-Porsche. For some really stupid reason, I thought of the 944. Believe me, I do know what I occasionally yap about in the car forums; this was just a blond moment poking through. At least that was cleared up. No mods? Damn, that would be fun! I need to retune the E-brake cable, buy some new fenders and I would be in! Sweet.

The Porsches all have similar numbers for names, and I get confused as to which is which myself.

As for mods... of course, you _can_ do mods on your car. It will just put you up into a modified class. Of course, if you haven't done all of the mods allowed by that class, your car probably won't be competitive. But you know what? Like I said above, it barely matters when you're just starting out anyway. So my advice is to just 'run what you brung', and you'll discover through your own experiences and watching/talking to the experienced racers what path you want to take.

Getting some experience actually doing it will definately change whatever plans you have.

Besides that... hanging around racers is a great way to get good deals on fast cars, tires, and race apparatus. The guys with deep pockets regularly chuck barely used goods. You can often pick up a set of race tires on wheels for a fraction of what just the tires themselves would cost new... cuz these guys use them for one or two events and then chuck them while they still have a lot of life left. Granted, they're not quite as fast as brand new tires would be... which is why they're chucking them... but they're still good, and you can win competitions on them still.

And when racers switch up to a new race car, they usually chuck the old car for cheap. There's not a lot of market for race cars... and racers generally don't want to spend a lot of effort trying to get the most money they can out of it... so the deals are there. These cars are often less expensive than normal street cars! It's way less expensive to get into a race car this way than hacking up a street car and turning it into a race car yourself (or building up a formula car from a kit). In one shot, you've got a car with a roll cage, racing harness, and everything which is fully prepared and debugged for the class it was running in. You can just go race it.

- Skant