Question about road racing

[plainzwalker]

Just curious, I've been reading the SCCA site, and I can't seem to find what I'm looking for. Where do I find the information for road racing the normal cars? I found auto-x, but racing against the clock around a cone course isn't exactly why I'm looking for. I'm just looking for a point in the right direction.

Thanks

[sr20goofus]

the only place for 240's in SCCA is IT classes... And for NASA its the PT/ST and SU classes, all depending on mods and power. for good info. do a google search for "SCCA IT Rules" or "NASA PT ST SU Rules" those key words should get you to what your looking for.

[Bubba1]

Just curious, I've been reading the SCCA site, and I can't seem to find what I'm looking for. Where do I find the information for road racing the normal cars? I found auto-x, but racing against the clock around a cone course isn't exactly why I'm looking for. I'm just looking for a point in the right direction.

Thanks

Good morning. You're going to find most racing organizations, like SCCA or NASA, will require specific safety equipment and specs, (like approved roll bars, harnesses, fire extinguishers, etc), in order for you to participate, plus you need a competition license. No organization is going to simply let you drive like a Dukes of Hazzard episode on a race track, cold off the street. You'd be a major safefy/insurance hazard.

If you want competition immediately with a bone stock car with zero experience, autocross is a great choice, but as you said, it's against the clock, not fender to fender. It's held in a parking lot where the danger level is lower. You would more likely want to choose an autocross hosted by a car club instead of SCCA, as the car clubs tend to have less stringent requirements.

If road racing is your goal, I think you should look closely at HPDE (high performance driver education) as your first step, as it gives you an opportunity for you to drive own car on a real race track without any special equipment or experience. It's not real racing so there's no rubbing fenders, but you will hit triple digit speeds, and take your car to its limits. HPDE's emphasis is on improving your skills, learning the rules of the track and the learning track itself. Taking just one course will make you realize how little you know, trust me. But it's also quite addicting as natural adrenaline is a great drug, and there's plenty of it in HPDE.

There are many different organizations that offer HPDE whose emphasis is racing. Skip Barber, NASA, SCCA,Panoz, Derek Daly are all excellent schools, and all have programs specifically designed toward getting your competition license. It's not going to be cheap. It'll take a significant investment in time and money to get your competition license. I personally went thru Skip Barber. It cost me several thousand dollars to get my competition license, but was extremely fun to do and very comprehensive. I felt it was worth it. I'm strictly an amateur.

Some schools teach you in the school's own cars, which are naturally more expensive, Some schools teach you in your own car. There are a lot of choices and price ranges.

There are also car clubs, like Audi, VW, Mercedes, Miata, Porsche, BMW who offer HPDE. Many of those clubs do not require you to own the make). Some of the clubs, like porsche, offer club racing for it's members, where the requirements to participate are a bit lower than SCCA.

I personally do Audi Club HPDE's (www.audicarclubna.org) where the emphasis is on sharpening skills and having fun. Plus you don't need an Audi to participate, (I've always run Nissans) . It's more of a general enthusiasts club. But please note, there are plenty of great car clubs and organizations out there that offer HPDE. Check out my threads farthur down in this board recapping some recent VIR and Summit Point HPDE's I've done. I also created a thread in the Gen Chat section called "drive your nissan on a real racetrack", which might give you a flavor for what HPDE is about. I hope that helps....