A Racing Dream

As usual there's big changes for the upcoming season and things have been coming together. There was a change in circumstances so our team ultimately decided to sell the racecar and move on. It was disappointing to not get another chance in the car, but at the same time it also opens up opportunities for other things. I have to thank everyone that helped me with the car over the past two years. I learned a lot from the experience and ultimately I know it will help me down the road.

For this year, I'm looking to take things a little slower. I hope you don't mis-interpret that. I don't mean I've given up on racing. In the past few years I put a lot of pressure on myself to put to results fast with little knowledge, experience and a tight budget. This year I'm going to try to stick to things I can reasonably afford with my current situation and not rush into things. Then hopefully things come to me.

So after selling the car I picked up.... a kart! I got an old chassis for cheap and a new PRD Fireball engine to run in the TAG class. The idea is to have fun and learn by running mostly practice and races with local clubs. Then maybe next year I'll step up with a newer chassis to more serious regional and national races.

Some exciting things have been happening on the arrive and drive sport karting side of things. I won a free entry to the Sport Kart Grand Nationals from Volta Grand Prix. This is an exciting event which is expected to feature 120 of the country's best sport karters and a $5,000 prize purse! After dominating many local enduros last year, we're looking to branch out with our enduro team and travel to some bigger races. Arrive and drive karting is what got me started in racing and probably where I still have the most fun. It will be nice to have some time to focus on the leagues and enduros this year.

I'm definitely not looking to buy another race car this year, but would like to do some testing in different types of cars for the experience and to help me decide what direction I might want to go in the future. I've been looking into a bunch of things on both the road race and short track sides of things and looks like I might have some opportunities. Depending on how things go I might even try to rent for a few races, but that's all to be seen.

Finally, I've got another possible opportunity that might just throw a wrench in this all. It's too soon to go into any details, so you'll have to stay tuned!

In the past I posted certain things and noted that I'm wasn't calling out anyone I know because I wasn't. This time is different. I'm calling out about 90% of the people I race sport karts with.

The context here is regular sport karting (or arrive and drive, rental, recreational, “concessional”, whatever you want to call it) arrive and drive sessions. There are almost always new people in these sessions, and for even an average karter who participates in leagues or other competitive events, we are always way, way, way faster then the noobs! That's not surprising and it's not unlike any other sport.

I cannot count the number of times I've seen an experienced karter and friend take out a random noob. Like dude, why are you driving through/across that random noob after you dive bombed his ass instead of backing off and letting him straighten himself out? Why are you pushing that random chick straight off into a wall instead of letting her move herself (slowly) out of the way and driving around?

Yes, the noob did not have good situational awareness and probably should have seen you. Yes the noob was practically parked at the apex because the noob was not really taking the right line and did not understand kart control. But it doesn't really make it right for you to take them out right?

There are several downsides to taking out noobs. First, by leaving them stuck up sideways against a wall, they are getting in the way of my hotlaps! Second, you are beating up the equipment which hurts both the track and other racers. Finally, you are discouraging the noob from coming back and staying involved in karting, and thus hurting the growth and sustainability of the sport.

Taking out noobs doesn't mean you are a bad person or a bad racer. I've probably done it myself before and have certainly come close too often. We are all competitive and want give it hell 100% of the time, but sometimes might forget to respect others on the track too. I do my best to not take out noobs and you should too.

Here is an interesting piece about the current state of karting and where it is headed.

Karting and the ‘Stepping-Stone’ Dogma – Special Karting1 Feature

Here is my analysis on the main points of the article:

Karting has traditionally been a step on the ladder to car racing and this isn't necessarily a bad thing.

Racing simulators can, are and will replace Karting as a step to car racing to some extent.

Karting should also market itself to current car racers as an alternative form of motorsport.

Modern karting is unnecessarily complicated and expensive.

To me the article's pretty spot on. I can agree with all these points. I started out in karting (although mostly rental "sport" karts which are not the focus of the article) with the intent to move to car racing; however, I also used racing sims as a serious training tool. I feel both helped me a lot in cars. I'm also looking to do more karting and less car racing this year (more on that to come). I don't know who wouldn't agree with the last point unless your are a kart manufacturer or dealer...

So for karting to be successful, it needs to appeal to entry level racers looking to move up, experienced club racers looking to have fun and everything in between. In the process karting should be simpler, more accessible and more affordable. Makes sense to me.

I started my blog here just about 3 years ago. I was just getting started with actively racing and felt I needed a website. However, I felt it would be a bit futile to post up a standard racing driver website with no experience or achievements, and I also wanted to write more frankly about racing, both my personal racing and general racing topics, and found that there were not many sites like this. So I figured why not and created whatever I have here now.

Over the past few years I have found several blogs that are more similar to mine, which offer real insight to a verity of aspects in racing or detailed personal racing accounts in a more traditional blogging style, not just a rehash of results that say "I'm awesome and I didn't win because this guy took me out!". So I've added a few links to my "blogroll" which is in the right menubar.

Here's a summary of a few:

Martin Galpin - Formula car racer based in the UK and current engineer on the Force India F1 team.
Chump to Champ - Karter, Skip Barber Shootout Attendee and current SCCA racer.
The Gearbox - Former Star Mazda racer currently in the UK looking to race in British Formula Ford.
Mork Racing - Another aspiring racer.

I love to read other people's racing blogs so if you have one post a comment and if I like it I might link to you. And I'd definitely encourage anyone who's actually reading this to create a blog, I certainly don't regret doing it.

So what does it take to “make it” in racing? Is there a formula for success? Can we quantitatively determine what it takes? I can certainly try. Here is my revolutionary new formula, based on years of experience!

Success in racing = 40% work, 30% money, 20% luck, 10% talent. Pretty simple. Let's set a 100 point scale, one point for each percentage point in the formula, and say you need over 70/100 points to make it to a professional level in racing.

40% work means 40 points are up for grabs based on your determination, passion, commitment, desire, persistence, grit and tenacity. How bad do you really want to race? Do you have good work ethic or do you sit back and think you deserve something because of your “talent”? Do you put in hours off the track learning the mechanical, engineering and business side of racing or do you just drive? Do you spend hours studying video and data or would you rather just rely on your talent? Are you willing to work a job that might not be what you really want to do so you can make money to race, or do you lack that willpower and end up just moping around with no focus when you're not racing? Or do you volunteer in racing off the track to learn and build connections or just sit back again? And what are you willing to sacrifice? Fancy street cars? Vacations? Your social life? There's no right or wrong answers to these questions. In fact it's probably better if you aren't willing to sacrifice everything for racing and prefer to lead a more balanced life. But the more you are willing to sacrifice and the harder you are willing to work, the greater your success in racing will be. You are 100% in control of these 40 points.

30% money is how much money you have to spend on racing, simple as that. There is an extremely wide range of racing budgets so we are talking about a logarithmic scale here. Is your yearly racing budget $1,000, $10,000, $100,000 or $1,000,000? Four digits might get you a few points. 5 figures may put you around 5-10 points, then a solid 6 figure budget gets you into the teens, and 7 puts you into the 20s. Depending on how you look at it you do have some ability to increase your budget through hard work. Still, if we talk about the context of making it as a professional racer, typically as your age increases your earning potential increases but your chances of making it as a pro decrease, so these points are still mostly out of your control. Let's say you're in your 20's, the ability to raise your budget yourself from $10,000 to $100,000 through hard work (either from a job or finding sponsorship) would be extremely rare. Working hard to double your budget from $10,000 to $20,000 might only yield you one point in the grand scheme of things.

20% luck is just that, what you have absolutely no control over, on and off the track. You could get lucky with meeting the right person at the right time or winning a race due to a mechanical failure of an opponent or hundreds of other things.

10% talent – yes talent is the smallest of the four major factors. Talent in a race car to me is a drivers “feel for it,” which allows that driver to drive the car as close to the limit as possible while remaining consistently in control. An average racer may have a talent level of, say 7/10 (no one perusing racing seriously has no talent). The most talented racer in the world, at 10/10 would only have a mere 3 more points on the grand scale of 100, 3 points that can be easily made up by working harder, having more money or being luckier. However, talent is certainly not irrelevant, and I do believe most championship winning drivers of major professional series are near the top on talent. At that level it is so competitive, those few points can make the difference between a solid, qualified driver who may win a race in the right circumstances, and a champion. Also, you could say it's definitely possible to cultivate and develop talent. I doubt anyone is born a 10 in talent, but I also think some people will never achieve that 10, no matter how hard they try.

So what does this all mean? All the money in the world (30), combined with great talent (9) and good luck (15) won't set you over the threshold of 70 if you don't have any desire to work for it. Hard work (35), good budget (20) and great talent (9) is not a guarantee for success and luck is still a factor. An important distinction is that with max work (40), max talent (10) and max luck (20), it is theoretically possible to make it with just a tiny bit of money to put you over the edge. Obviously this would be extremely rare, and I don't even know if a real life example of this exists in modern racing.

So in the end you do have a decent amount of control over your own destiny in racing, but hard work is certainly no guarantee, not even close! Make sense? Feel free to post a comment if you agree or disagree.

Here's an interesting interview with Daniel Harrington, part time Indy Lights driver over the last few years. Freakonomics Radio did a show about the upsides of quitting, and Harrington talks about weighing the upsides of quitting racing.

No doubt there's a lot of upsides to quitting racing. However, what the economists don't consider (not surprisingly) and what Harrington only seems to touch on, is that racing is a sport driven on passion, which is not measurable. If my passion for racing wasn't there I wouldn't have even bothered starting racing. Humans are emotional beings and can't always just follow the most logical and rational paths. That applies to racing and many other things as well.

Here's a promotional video for McCullochs “revolutionary” 1961 kart chassis that I found pretty entertaining. It shows the construction of the kart and explains the principles of it's design. Interesting how the front (spindles, steering, etc) is pretty similar to a modern kart but the rear (removable axle assembly, engine mounted directly behind the driver instead of offset to the side) is totally different. Other notible differences include the seemingly pointless front roll bar thing near the steering wheel and the seat integrated into the chassis, with padding of course! The emphasis on comfort as a selling point in addition to performance is another thing I haven't exactly seen in modern karting.

I've had my GoPro HERO 960 camera for a while now and posted many in car and helmet cam videos here recorded from it that you can view in previous posts.

The 960 package comes with several mounts, including a flat adhesive mount, curved adhesive mount and a helmet strap mount. It also comes with a waterproof housing, a non-waterproof housing door for certain applications, USB cable and component and composite video cables. It records in several modes - 960p and 720p at 30 fps, and 480p at 60fps. There is also a 5MP still camera mode. The 960 version does not have the expansion port which allows several advanced accessories such as an LCD screen to be plugged in. There are additional mount and accessories that are available; I use a suction cup mount for my helmet.

In terms of size and weight, It's probably not the smallest or the lightest camera, especially considering the durable case and the suction cup mount I use. When I have it on my helmet, I can definitely feel it a bit. For karting, the extra weight on the helmet means more force on the neck, mainly in cornering. I don't have a problem with neck fatigue using the camera in short sprint races in rental karts, but I think it could become an issue for long stints in an enduro or when running racing karts with gripper tires. I've avoided using the camera for long stints due to this, and would probably try to mount it somewhere on the kart body for a racing kart.

I like the wideangle lens on the camera and think it works well for racing applications. It allows the cockpit to be visible in an incar shot, and also makes it easier to aim the camera at the right angle, since there is obviously no viewfinder or LCD to view the shot that is recording.

The video quality is overall good. The quality is sufficient to see inputs from the feet and hands in the kart or car, and see the line and important reference points on the track. The HERO 960 is also able to deal well with light contrast such as when it is mounted in the interior of a car, which is much dimmer then view out of the windshield. The video shows the interior clearly, so I can see my work on the wheel and pedals, but the view of the track is not washed out either. The camera is also decent in low light conditions. In short the versatility is awesome, I've used it at night, in the rain, on my helmet and in the car, and it's always recorded quality video.

I have used some older versions of the GoPro cameras that had mediocre sound quality, but the current cameras including the 960 are much improved in this regard. With the enclosed case, wind noise is not an issue even with the camera exposed at high speeds. There is case door with exposed windows in it for higher sound pickup in lower speed and non water applications but I haven't used this.

The interface on the camera is limited which means it can be a little confusing to use until you are used to it. For example, when I first started using it I was confused about when it was recording and if it was in the right mode, especially if you are trying to turn it on after it is already mounted on your helmet. However I feel once you get used to it the process is pretty simple and usually not an issue.

Battery life is solid. I typically only record up to around an hour of video a day, but the camera can record 2.5 hours from the lithium ion battery pack. The pack can be recharged through USB on the camera.

I'm very impressed with the durability of the camera. All the GoPro HERO cameras have a clear acrylic housing which is waterproof and shock resistant. I've used it on very bumpy tracks with no problem. I have actually had the camera fall off my helmet (due to poorly mounted suction) and hit asphalt at 30MPH. I thought the thing might be done, but the camera was perfectly fine, and the main case only had minor scratches.

However, shortly after I noticed a small crack forming on the case buckle where it was most heavily scuffed from the impact. Worried about the clamp failing and the camera falling from it, I attempted to buy a replacement clamp, but found only the whole casing assembly for sale from GoPro. Somewhat disappointed, I emailed GoPro about buying a replacement buckle. After emailing a photo of the damaged one, they mailed a new buckle to my door within days for free! I'm very, very impressed with this level of customer service!

Finally the ease of mounting the camera is really a strength of the GoPro. There is one knob to detach the camera from the various mounts. I can quickly change from using the flat adhesive mount in my car to the suction cup mount from my helmet when karting.

Overall, I would highly recommend this camera. Its affordable, durable, easy to use, versatile and the customer service I received really set it over the top.

I previously compiled some tips on indoor karting here and here, which proved to be pretty popular. Since I've been recording a lot of my recent races on my awesome GoPro Hero 960 (review coming soon), I thought I'd try and put together a tutorial of a breakdown of a lap. This is at Allsports Grand Prix on the standard track configuration in the regular, 6.5 HP Sodi Karts.



Note that track grip can vary significantly which may effect the line, braking and turn in points somewhat. Kart differences can also have some effect. Driver weight can have an effect too.

If you want more tips or coaching, let me know!

As a big fan of Indycar racing, no doubt the crash last Sunday that claimed the life of Dan Wheldon has made an impact on me. I was watching live on TV, as I was when I saw the fatal crashes of Jeff Krosnoff as a pretty young kid, and Dale Earnhardt several years later. I think this one may have had the biggest impact on me though, as it's the first time since I've been racing myself that a driver in a series I follow closely has died in a crash.

That said I can't say it changes my desire to race one bit. If I somehow got the opportunity to race something like an IndyCar, you better beleive I would be there in a heartbeat. I'm sure there are many out there that feel the same as me. I already realized and accepted the risks before I even started racing.

Still, that doesn't mean we should ignore driver safety. I never quite understand why oftentimes it takes a tragedy to improve safety. To me it's pretty obvious that racing in a huge pack of 34 open wheel cars at 225 MPH is a pretty risky proposition. Then again, it was one that all 34 drivers were willing to take.

I usually follow all the forums and blogs closely to keep up with the latest news, but I've learned from the past and avoided them for a while, because I don't always want to read everyone's opinions after something like this. People seem quick to make judgments like if this driver had done this and that driver had done that, then this and that would or wouldn't have happened, etc. etc. People also seem quick to pass judgment on the officials and the series, claiming that one or two simple rule changes will "fix" everything, like create some perfectly safe, exciting, sustainable and financially successful racing.

I watched the replays several times and personally I beleive the actions taken by all drivers were relatively reasonable, and everything that happened was mostly just the function of the situation the drivers were put in. I do beleive the Indycar series does a pretty good job overall, and if fixing everything was so easy, it would have already been done.

What I do think we saw is one guy run out of luck. Three drivers went flying in similar fashion in that crash, just like I've seen maybe half or more of the veteran drivers do at some point in their IndyCar careers. Sometimes (as was the case with two of the three drivers on Sunday) drivers walk away, sometimes they don't.

By all accounts, Dan Wheldon was a good man and a great racer, and I wish his family the best.