If you haven't done this, give it a try - road racing is a blast! I've been taking "Street School" classes, as well as renting Thunderhill Park for open track events. In the classes, you can have an instructor full-time in the passenger's seat if you want (definitely advised for starting off), and you put in six sessions in a long day. They'll show you everything you need to learn, and you really get some good seat time in, learning the limits of your car and driving skills. Passing is only allowed on the front straight, and the chances for damage are minimized (though not zero).

In June, 2001, a  friend and I decided to form the Northern California Racing Club, to schedule open track events for folks like us that like to drive our cars on road tracks with great instruction. We're able to schedule tracks at about the same cost as the typical street school (about $200 for a day), but will have half the number of cars on the track. This has been a successful format, lots of folks are pretty happy with it. Please feel free to contact me if you've got any questions about the club.

View Dave's Save (about 9MB, use this one for modems) - well, not really much of a save, as I get off-track going over turn 5 at Thunderhill, clockwise direction.

Thunderhill

Caught in Traffic

I recently installed these pedals from MBA Products, so I can work on my heel-toe technique (which seems impossible with the stock pedals). So far, I'm just practicing on the street, I'm still pretty clumsy at it. But these pedals seem to work better, with the gas pedal extended closer to the brake. And besides, they look extremely cool!

You can get numbers made up pretty cheaply, out of vinyl, to get your car officially outfitted for a day at the track. For about $15 you can get two sets of "383".

I'm putting most of my road racing info on the NCRC site, so please hop over there for info you might not find here. I didn't see much use in duplicating it all.

Many tracks are sanctioned by the SCCA and your car must meet certain safety criteria before you can race.  See my Safety Equipment page for additional information on what I've done to be as safe as possible when racing.

Copyright © 1997-2004 David Mills, no part of this site (http://www.go-fast.org/) may be reproduced without permission of the author. The author makes no claims or guarantees as to the quality of the information on this site. I'm an enthusiast just like you, and while everything here is correct as I know it, I'm not responsible if your car breaks.