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Autocross:
Back in 1981 I bought my 1976 Volkswagen Scirocco.
At the time, it was a pretty hot ride on the autocross 
courses
in E Stock. When I got my first set of decent tires (Pirelli CN36
- anybody remember those?) I made my way to the next autocross. Just
before my first event, VW & Porsche magazine (anyone remember that?
It was a great magazine) ran a article by a pair of guys who won E Stock
the previous year in a '80 Scirocco. It was all about their preparation.
In addition to general set-up, they covered all of the little things they
would do to prepare for competition. Things like winding the windows
down to lower the center of gravity. Removing the radio. Going
to the bathroom to remove weight and distraction! I did as much as
I could. I didn't have the Phoenix Stahlflex tires (the hot
tire at the time) or the Bilstien struts. I also didn't move the
battery to the hatch or remove the radio... etc. Damn, they had a
long list.
Anyway, I went out and bought a cheap open face
helmet with a cool visor. I was ready. Yeah, right. I
set my tire pressures to around 45 psi front and 40 rear (hey, that's what
we had to do back then with 70 profile tires), 
emptied
the hatch, etc. Time to walk the course.
My first autocross was a doozie. By far the hardest I ever ran. OK, everyone thinks that of their first event. Seriously, this was the hardest course I've ever seen. Very complicated, high speed, and two laps. The speeds got over 60 mph. First time through the course, as I came around for my second lap, I saw a sea of cones. Where the hell does the course go???? What to do (in a split second)? I knew the course went one side or another of a particular cone. What to do?... Kill it of course! Aimed right for it :-). At least I didn't get DQ'd.
After that first event, they were all a lot easier. That's not to say they were easy.
One of the interesting things about the Scirocco
(as with most FWD cars) is that in very hard cornering, it lifted the the
inside rear wheel. I looks really wild. It feels even wilder.
It sure helped the rear end to come around some.
I autocrossed for a couple of years and then just stopped. It was fun, but it really didn't do a lot for me. I really wanted to race wheel to wheel against somebody (as many at once as possible). I also went back to school, the car was 8 years old, and I was nursing it to survive until I got out of college.
Update July 28, 1998: A couple of
weeks ago I ran my first autocross in over 15 years. What brought
me out of "retirement?" A night autocross! Yes,
that's right, a night autocross. The only illumination was from the
lights of the car on the course. It was a real blast. I really
recommend to anyone who has an interest in autocrossing to try one.
It's amazing how different it is to drive the course at night. We
did get two runs in the daylight so we could at least somewhat learn the
course. Several of the Houston SE-R drivers competed and a good time
was had by all. Just remember to bring food and drinks. And
plan on a late night. We didn't leave the facility until 1:15 a.m.
What a blast. Try it if you get the opportunity.
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Karting:
The Christmas after I graduated from college, my girlfriend at the time got me the book "Bob Bondurant on High Performance Driving" (this book is a must read!). When I mentioned that I'd like to go to the school someday, she asked "why don't you." I was about to give her a list of reasons and then asked myself the same question. After much encouragement to go to racing school I decided instead to take up karting. The cost to get started in karting was about the same, I would get to actually race, and if I didn't like it I could sell the stuff and not be out any money.
That decision turned out to be the right one (for
me anyway). There is a really good reason kart racing is the training
ground for professional racers in the rest of the world. Today's
racing karts are nothing like the kiddie go-karts that most people
are familiar with. They are highly engineered, fully adjustable racing
machines.
There are three basic categories of racing kart: Sprint, Roadrace, and Speedway. Speedway karts typically race on 1/8 to 1/2 mile dirt tracks. Roadrace karts are generally of the laydown variety and race on full size road racing tracks such as Watkins Glen and Laguna Seca. They are capable of speeds over 100 mph. Sprint karts are the most common and race on small road courses usually built specifically for kart racing. They are generally 1/4 to 1 mile in length. Their layout and terrain are just as varied as full sized road courses.
I personally raced Sprint karts. Most of
my racing was done at the Genesee Valley Kart Club in Avon, NY (about 30
minutes south of Rochester). I also raced some at the track in Batavia,
NY (about half way between Buffalo and Rochester). I have
also raced at Cherry Valley (south of Syracuse), Leamington, ONT, Canada,
and Goodwood, ONT, Canada. I highly recommend Goodwood to anyone
who can get there. It is (or was when I was there) an excellent race
track. It's long and very challenging with interesting elevation
changes. I have also participated in two street races. 
Street races you say? Absolutely. It's a really cool experience. The first event I went to was the last street race in Batavia, NY (which also has a permanent facility). The start/finish line was on Main St. Karting usually plays to a very small audience (made up mostly of family and friends). But street races are different. You cannot believe how cool it is to come onto the main straight and see people 4 and 5 deep, and that was just practice! Unfortunately for me, I only got two practice sessions and the event was rained out. Today they just race in the rain (I've also done that - on slicks!) The second street race I participated in was in Cohochton, NY through a residential neighborhood! That was pretty cool too. Again I had bad luck. First heat I crashed just after taking the lead (DOH). The second heat I got punted in a first lap mess. I just parked it for the day then.
Since that time, street racing has become much more popular. There was even a street racing series a few years ago (and there still may be). If you decide to get into karting, I highly recommend street racing. For one thing, there is no home track advantage. For another, you just can't beat the thrill of the huge (for karting) crowds.
OK, since you've read this far, you probably would
like to know more about the karts and how to get involved. As I said,
the karts are fully adjustable. You can change front and rear track
(width), ride height, caster, camber, and front toe. 
You can also do a great many things to tune the engine. In addition
to being able to adjust the high speed and low speed carb jets while on
the track, you have several other tuning adjustments you can do in the
pits. You can adjust the clutch stall speed (typical engagement is
around 10,000 rpm!), change expansion chambers (pipe), and adjust the length
of the exhaust (flex pipe). Add to that a myriad of gears available
and you have a lot to work with. It can easily overwhelm the beginner.
Don't despair though. Most clubs are full of helpful people who will
help the beginner get a good base set-up. If you buy from a shop
that races at the same track, or a person who races at the same track,
you should have a good base set-up before you get to the track. They
should also give you some basic ideas of adjustments to try to adjust the
handling and engine tuning. My recommendation is to get a basic engine
set-up and set the jets so the engine won't stick (seize the piston due
to being too lean), and work on the handling. If you buy a decent
kart, the kart will almost certainly be better than you. Just keep
working on the handling until you get it where you like it. Learn
the difference between oversteer and understeer. Most importantly,
learn to drive consistently. If you don't do that, you will never
be able to get your kart set up properly.
If you are interested in getting involved with karting, I recommend you check out various karting web sites. It is a great resource. You will find excellent information for beginner and experienced alike. You can find out about tracks, clubs, tips, even classifieds. If you are really interested in racing, and not just pretending, at least check out karting. It's a great place to learn and develop your skills. There is no other form of motorsports where you can get the track time you can in karting (unless you have a multi-million dollar budget).
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In May of 1989, I attended the Spenard-David Racing
School in Shannonville, Ontario, Canada. A few years ago the school
was sold and is now the Bridgestone
Racing School. They still run the same Reynard F2000 racing
cars complete with wings. 
When
I attended the school, one of my instructors was none other than David
Empringham. If the name doesn't ring a bell, he is a two-time (almost
three-time) Formula Atlantic Champion, and the 1996 Indy Lights Champion!
At the time I attended the school, your first day was spent in race prepared IROC-Z Camaros. We did wet skidpad work (basic car control instruction), heel and toe braking work, and some lapping. It was the only time in my life I have driven a standard gearbox V-8 engined car. I was quite surprised how well these cars handled. You could tell they were a very heavy car, but they got around pretty well. When we practiced heel and toe braking with those cars, I discovered that I could heel and toe just about anything! The pedal placement in those cars were atrocious to say the least.
The next two glorious days were spent in the cockpit of the Reynard F2000. Well, actually, half our time was spent in the classroom too (all racing schools do this). To make it even more special, it rained both days! Since the cars were running on shaved Yokohama A008's, I figured that we would be running on fully treaded tires for the rain. Wrong! We ran on tires with about 1/32" of tread! It was amazing how much traction we had. I only locked a brake once. When I did, all it took was just relieving a little pressure on the brake pedal and it was rolling again. It was all pretty cool to experience.
The classroom time was spent covering the theory of what we were doing out on the track: heel and toe, lines, turn-in, clipping points (apex), and exit points. If you've already taken my advice and read Bob Bonderant's book, this will all be quite familiar to you. If you have further taken my advice and done some karting, this will be old hat (except the heel and toe). One of the really cool things they did (maybe I'm sick to call it cool) was have one of the instructors take us around the course and explain the line, what gear we should be in, braking points, etc. in their "course cars." These were regular road cars - 4 door family sedans. With four of us in the car, the instructors wouldn't take it easy when taking us around the course. They'd take us down the straights, stand the things on their nose under braking, and damn near roll the thing (or at least it felt that way) in the corners, then accelerate hard down the next straight. All the time the instructors would be talking with us and answering questions just like it was a ride in the country.
Each session we had on track, they would raise our rev limits by 500. I believe the Bridgestone School does not impose artificial rev limits. This is even better since you get to run at higher speeds and acceleration immediately. Anyway, we would get our lap times and be debriefed by an instructor after each session. During your session, they are out on the course in various places observing your driving (by the way, they can tell if you are cheating on the rev limit). During the debriefing, they go over what you are doing well and what you are not. The lap charts also tell you how consistent you are.
When our last session was done, a few of us were
standing around discussing whether or not it was worth it. Only you
can answer this question. The jury was still out for some in my class.
For me, the answer is a resounding YES! While I learned very little
in terms of new concepts or techniques, the experience was worth more than
the money spent. You can read all you like about how to build a Grandfather
Clock. You can know every step intimately. But you can never
have the joy of building one until you actually do it. I personally
fulfilled one life long dream by attending the school.
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I believe in Santa Claus. His name is Grover Pickering. Grover is a good friend I met through the Nissan SE-R community (for more info about the SE-R, go to my SE-R page). Grover owns and campaigns a 1991 Nissan Sentra SE-R in SCCA regional club racing in ITS. He knows and understands my passion for racing and began working on getting me to get my SCCA regional competition license.
Finally, on January 20, 2001 I attended my first SCCA driver school at Texas World Speedway where we ran the 1.8 mile course counter clockwise. My plan for the day was simply to get the seat time and stay out of trouble. I've heard too many accounts of race cars balled up at driver schools. I didn't want to have to replace Grover's car, so handing it back to him the way it was handed to me was my number one priority. My second priority was to receive a waiver on my second school (the SCCA requires two successfully completed schools before allowing you to actually race).
I'm very happy to say that I accomplished goal number one very nicely. I kept telling Grover I was not going to mix it up with people and he kept telling me to go for it and that my natural instincts would take over. He was right. As it turns out his car was one of the fastest on the track that day. The Sentra SE-R makes a wonderful race car. It is fast and it is easy to drive fast. It's quite forgiving. So, Grover was right, my instincts took over and I was mixing it up all day passing many many cars. I finally decided that the safest course of action was to pass all the squirrels out there. That plan actually served me quite well when I passed a large group of cars whose drivers seemed awfully confused when a car pulled off the track. I passed them all and left all the incidents to happen behind me.
As for my second goal, I can honestly say I morally accomplished this goal. I was cleared for a waiver if I were to race the next day. Before our session with practice starts my instructor gave me some advice about the following day and I told him I wasn't racing. Bad idea. He said "So what do you need a waiver for?" DOH. So, they cleared me to race only if I raced the next day. Since Grover jumped through hoops to get the car to the track and left his wife with a sick (less than a year old) daughter at home, there was no way I was going to ask him for the ride. So, I had to do another school before racing.
Below are some photos of me driving Grover's car at my first school.
I attended my second SCCA driver school on April 7, 2001, again at Texas World Speedway running the 1.8 mile course counter clockwise. This time around was bit more stressful. I rented an F250 pickup in Houston, drove 4 hours to Dallas, picked up the car, dealt with wiring issues for trailering, and drove 3 hours to College Station where the track is located. What fun. We had some bodywork that had to be signed off on in the car's log book before we could take the track. The tech inspector decided to essentially do another annual tech on the car (it had its annual the last time out). He dinged us for battery tie-down (relatively easy to fix) and how the window net attached (via holes in the roll cage). This was not so easy to fix, but not impossible. He allowed us to take the track for the school, but these things needed to be fixed before qualifying the next morning. Oh boy. Stress.
Bruce Hearn, another SE-R owner and crew chief (actually entire crew) for the weekend, thankfully got some minor things sorted out and got the car through tech for me so we could get out on the track. The school went very much like the last one. I learned a new line or two from my new instructor and they helped a bunch. We had just installed Ground Control coilovers on the car and they made it much nicer to drive. The first, second, and eighth turns were dramatically easier to navigate. We got faster as the day went on and I was just getting over the stress of the tech items that still needed to be dealt with when I started hearing a slight knocking noise from the right front. At first I wasn't sure if I was just hearing things or not (it very surely happens when you are out on the track and worried about the car or worried about just about anything). Eventually this noise was accompanied by a clear vibration. Just as I was about to pull into the pits the session was red flagged. When we came into the pits, Bruce and I could not find anything wrong. I went out the next session only to know by the second corner that my day was done. We blew an inner CV joint. It sounded like rocks in a grinder and when we checked it out in the pits we found it had about 30 degrees of play. YIKES! So, we went into town to find a halfshaft. No joy. We went to a NAPA where the counterman was quite helpful and called every store in town. He found someone who would rebuild our halfshaft, but at this point it was 5:00 p.m. Since I had to leave on a business trip early Monday morning I decided if my instructor would sign me off on my school I'd pack it in. Thankfully he did and we started packing up. There was just too much to do to make the race on Sunday. So, next time out will actually be a race.
Since it's now (06/03/01) and Texas is getting hotter than hell, it looks like my first race will be in September or October. Let me assure you that Nomex (or Proban in my case) is hot to wear. There's no way I'm racing in Texas in the middle of summer. So, stop back in the fall for an update.
Update:
On Novemver 17, 2000 Grover, Greg Amy from Milford, CT, and I competed in a 6 hour regional endurance race at Texas World Speedway . Greg was very nearly the national champion in SSB in an NX2000 in 1992. He came within a couple of corners and but for a bumping incident, he would have been champion. After selling his NX2000 and eventually getting out of racing, he decided to get back in. After considerable search, he found his old car sitting behind a garage and in need of some TLC. He has repurchased the car and is now in the process of building it into an ITS cars. You can read about it here.
The weekend didn't start well. Grover's tow dolly broke as he was leaving for the track. This required him to borrow a flat bed trailer and something to tow it with. He arrived in College Station at 4 am and badly in need of sleep. Greg and I took care of the morning preparations and getting the car through tech (to get a sign-off on some things we got dinged for last time out). That done, we decided Greg should take the car out first for qualifying since I was already familiar with the car (and I was pretty certain Greg would out qualify me). When he came if for me to qualify and practice, the car was quite comfortable (as usual), but at the end of my warm-up lap the exhaust disconnected in the middle, so I then only got a cool-down lap. By the time we got it fixed, qualifying was over. At least Greg got us a time (and a good time at that).
Originally we intended for Grover to take the first stint. Since race starts can be crazy, we thought the car owner should be in the car. Well, since Grover was sleeping, we decided Greg should take the first stint since at least had some time in the car that day. During Greg's stint Grover arrived at the track and asked if he could take the second stint since his daughter Allison (and thus also his wife Joy) would need to leave the track for Allison to take a nap soon. So of course Grover took the next stint.
When Grover came in we refueled the car. I finally got strapped in and the last thing Grover told me was "no brakes." Well that wasn't quite a big a concern as you might think since it was an endurance race and it is possible to get around TWS reasonably well without good brakes. He also told me "Granny the shifter." Well I immediately found out what he was talking about. The shift pattern was about 18 inches wide. When I tried to shift into third on pit road, I got first, but since I was taking it easy, there was no over rev before catching it. I tried again for third with no luck. I tried fourth and got second agan, an then I couldn't get it in or out of gear. So, I drove around for 2.9 miles on a hot race track in second gear at 40 mph. Not the most fun I've had on a race track. Turns out as I left the pits, they found the shift linkage bolt and were expecting my return. As we jacked up the front, someone took off the left front wheel where we discovered brake fluid everywhere an a ruptured line. It has rubbed against the wheel and wore through. We were done, or so we thought. We pushed the car behind the pit wall and Greg said we should check the Nissan dealer down the road for the part since we had 4 hours left.
To make a very long story very short, we had a former Nissan dealer parts manager with us when we went to the dealer. We couldn't find the correct part, but found one that was close but needed modification. The banjo fitting was too tall. After modifying it we couldn't get it to seal. We eventually got one new crush washer and that was all it took. We looked at the clock and found there were five minutes left. Not enough time to get the car on the track and warmed up. We would only pose a danger so we just sat back enjoying the fact that at least the car was ready for the sprint race the next day.
So, for all that, in qualifying and the 6 hour race, I got three slow laps. That's racing.
Update:
In November, 2000 I found a straight and complete
Porsche 944
in a small salvage yard that I bought to build into an ITS race car.
Follow the link for information about this car.
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Gallery Page
1 - My favorite photographs I've taken of open wheeled racing cars
Gallery Page
2 - My favorite photographs I've taken of racing cars with roofs.
Cliff Kent Motorspors Images - An excellent site full of professional motorsports images. Check it out.
Daily F1
- Daily Formula One news (duh)
Autosport - Daily new
of major race series around the world
Cart Online
- News and stories in the world of the real Indy Cars
These are my favorites. Can you tell
I'm a big open wheel fan?
If you are seriously involved with motorsports and need
instrumentation and/or data acquisition equipment or software, you should
visit a couple of sites of good friends of mine.
Epic Technologies is owned by my good friend Mark Niedzielski. Epic Technologies is the world's largest distributor of Stack Instruments. Unknown to many people is that fact that Stack also is a major player in the data acquisition field. Epic Technologies can custom engineer solutions for all of your instrumentation and data acquisition needs. They can also make custom mil-spec wiring harnesses for your applications as well as supply a number of other racing goods. Please visit Epic Technologies for your instumentatioin and data acquisition needs. You might be surprised how inexpensively you can buy professional data acquisition for.
Mark races Formula A karts with Stack instrumentation and full data acquisition. For those of you unfamiliar with karts, Formula A is the class that is contested for the world championship. Mark has raced with Jarno Trulli, a current Formula One driver.
Group Green Development is owned by my good friend Doug Gerard. Group Green Development creates software for a number of different racing data acquisition applications. This is all custom programming and I cannot divulge who he is working for. If you need data acquisition software, send Doug an e-mail. He can write it for you or hook you up with some off the self products, including some he has created.
I got Doug into kart racing a number of years ago. He used to
race a 125 shifter kart with full data aquisition! He now
has an SCCA ITA 1st generation RX-7. I will be driving this car with
Doug during endurance races. He has worked with Formula Atlantic
and NASCAR Winston Cup teams. I have seen real data from a Formula
Atlantic at Long Beach replayed over a couple of laps. This stuff
is very cool. Please visit Group
Green Development.
Text copyright George D. Roffe
1998, 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002
Photos (except the Reynard F2000
photos) copyright George D. Roffe 1998