Julian

I can't resist a good topic.

so is this a cut-and-paste effort or is this you own work?

I would say that on any level you can have any level of participant from gomers to super-men. It all depends on fate, talent and economics.

Street/Highway Racers

Let's first discuss the entry level. I would lump street and freeway racers together, they are one and the same. To illustrate my point on multiple skill levels at every level let me tell the story of an old friend of mine, who will be given an alias to protect the guilty.

John had a '69 Chevelle with a built up big block with 12 to 1's, aviation fuel, and a lot of guts or craziness depending how you look at it. One time on a dare and a bet he participated in a race against another muscle car. It was 120 miles from Albuquerque to Taos. If you aren't familiar it's about half long and hilly straight sections and half tightly curving canyon roads where it follows the rio grande, it has a lot of steep hills and also goes through several towns with stoplights. They did it very late at night about 2:00 am on a tuesday night. On the straights they were going in excess of 140mph. It was neck and neck most of the way, passing back and forth but John pulled ahead near the end. There's a long steep hill just before you get to Taos and the other guy overheated. John had a dump truck radiator installed so he went on to win.

Don't try this at home now, this was in the late 70's and law enforcement is a little bit different now.

Another time John impressed me was at Malibu Grand Prix. Are they still around? It was/is a national franchise rental go-kart track where you race against the clock. After about 5 times around the track John broke the fastest lap time by a considerable margin. His record stood for at least a year. Although John never participated in any sanctioned racing, for several reasons, I don't doubt he would have done well if he had.

John ended up flipping and totaling his Chevelle at high speed, but that's a whole 'nother story. Well ok... John was making a run out to the gorge bridge (Taos) a long straight-away at night at over 140mph of course. So at night he's overdriving his headlights to say the least. He hits a rock with the left front, the tire blows and the CAST allow mag shreds. (big lesson here). He says he saw chunks of the mag go spitting past the window before the brake rotor dug in and the car flipped and rolled about 5 times ending up on the roof. So here he is in the middle of nowhere, on a back road late at night, on the roof with it smashed down to the tops of the seats, needless to say the doors won't open and the back shelf is dripping lot's of av gas down into the headliner. He was a lucky guy that night a 4x4 happened by, he had a chain and he hooks it up to one of the door handles. The car is still on the pavement so there's justifiably some concern about sparks. The 4x4 driver is sort of tentative at first and the door isn't going anywhere although the metal roof is dragging down the road. I can just see the sparks. John tells the guy give it all you've got, he hangs on to the arm rest and the guy guns it, tearing the door completely off and away from the car and John along with it. By some miracle the wreck never catches fire. If he was a cat he used up one of his lives that night I would say. NOT even wearing his seat belt, he walked away with just bruises and minor cuts. He said the worst thing was the shifter beating him about the rib cage.

needless to say... don't try this at home.

So even though not sanctioned you could call street racing "wheel to wheel" and the competition can be fierce.

Drag Racers.

Agreed that going in a straight line might not be as exciting as having some turns but the participants aren't necessarily less because of it, just maybe more focused on narrower aspects of speed, the standing start and all out acceleration. If you've never felt top fuel dragsters shake the ground from the far side of the giant parking lot, or seen a fuel altered do an 1/8th mile burnout, then you've missed out. I haven't seen it but I can just imagine breaking the 5 second barrier, these guys are top notch racers, it IS wheel to wheel, and the competition is fierce.

My closest experience to drag racing was with an econo-rail. A friend of mine bought it as a fixer-upper, it was previously a sand rail and the frame had some cracks, which my friend had me weld for him. This thing was amazing. A chevy small block with aluminum heads cranking out about 500 HP, on a spindly frame, the whole car weighing less than 1000 pounds total. That tubing was small and thin. By the time he was done with the thing he only had about $3,500.00 in it. I went with him to the drags and first time out he ran about an 8.5 sec. quarter-mile. Amazing for 3,500, no wonder they call them "econo" rails. But I would have NEVER got in the driver seat, man. That thing was so long and steering so funky, it had bicycle wheels on the front, if it ever got out of shape at 150mph plus you'd have been done. Total guts or absolute craziness here for sure.

Time Trial and Auto Cross

Again I would lump these two categories together as they both represent racing against the clock. I don't have much to say about this aspect having never participated or been a spectator. I wouldn't discount their skill or competitiveness though, but would consider it a viable stepping stone to all out racing.

Wheel to Wheel

Of course wheel to wheel as in "road course" racing is the culmination of the sport. IF you have the time and the big bucks. Of course karting can almost be called affordable, but if your going to be competitive it's a full time occupation and it's a money pit no matter which way you look at it. You could probably break this category into 2 or more, especially with oval and stock cars but I won't speculate.

I raced go-karts on and off for 5 years starting with sprints and ending up with road-racing, enduros or "lay-downs" as their called. I have to admit this was some exciting times. Starting in sprints gets you really familiar with sliding sideways and dicy passing, skills you can take into other venues and really intimidate people with. I remember sliding sideways on a wet track during practice, getting it slideways and holding it that way down the entire straight-away, that small a wheel-base gives a very fine level of control. Sprint was fun but there were a lot of gomers and a lot of cheating and intentional crashing, which I guess can be found at any level. I raced a season in Texas sprints and ended up one point out of first place in my class, if I had even known there was a state championship I might have won. Frustrated with the short race times of sprint heats of a few minutes only, I graduated to road-racing. Lots of fun but more expensive and further driving distances to good tracks. I raced at Henderson, Hallett, Daytona, Willow Springs, and Laguna Seca. Same as sprints, some gomers and cheating but not as much bash-em-up. I was always proud of the fact that I was a one man operation, funding, building , wrenching, and driving. I also would appreciate beating someone that just threw money at the sport without working their way up from the bottom. You'd see these guys with the latest, best of everything that money would buy, but with little experience, and then you'd see them mowing the weeds.

But karting, in the IKF anyway, got to a point were it just wasn't worth it to me. They changed the rules for the Yamaha motor and turned it from a 15 hour bullet to a one hour bomb, it got more expensive and that's when I got out.

For a while I raced 10th scale battery RC cars, off road at a couple indoor tracks. This is a whole 'nother story that I won't bore you with but on the stand in the middle of a heat the adrenaline pump was surprisingly close to that of kart racing. To be competitive also takes a lot of time and more money than you would think. And surprise surprise they cheat and the smash-em-up aspect is RAMPANT!

And now the culmination of my racing... bicycles.. yes bicycles. Road racing in the entry level, in the US that's Category 4. Of all the racing I've done or seen this was far and away the best, and not just because I won the state championship (NM '86). Bike racing has everything and then some. For one thing money is a negligible factor compared to other racing, it's all talent and training. All the money in the world won't even get you in the pack.

It's hard to describe you would have to try it to know. Tactics are far more numerous and convoluted. You've got the wind, and wind directional echelons, team tactics, the break away, pack tactics, sand bagging, drafting(different wind direction changes everything), final sprint positioning and roll out, and the final sprint. In a good criterium if you had 10 different races you could have 10 different finishers out of the same 10 racers. Everyone usually has something they specialize in be it hills (short-long , gradual-steep) or endurance, time trial, or the final sprint. I was a sprinter, they never wanted to see me still with the pack near the end. In one season I rode 7,000 miles total (training and racing) and won more than half the races I participated in. The absolute greatest event was a century tour (100 miles) in Taos, not officially a race but very competitive anyway. It goes through steep winding river canyons across flat valleys and over two 9,000' passes. You can hit over 50 mph coming down from a steep pass on two, less than 1sq inch, tire contact patches. Throw in some hairpin turns and this can be either exhilarating or insane depending on your viewpoint. Sometimes racing criteriums with really tight turns on smooth asphalt, if you get your weight really low and inside, you can achieve a two wheel drift. Sadly it all ended with that one season as my previously injured knee (motorcycle) couldn't take the abuse.

My racing days are over, although I might get my 40 out on the track to see what it will do (if I EVER finish it), maybe even an occasional event if I can find one that's half way sane. I'm near SIR so we'll see.

And like hemingway sez " the only true sports are bullfighting, mountaineering and motor racing, the rest are merely games." It's off topic but I'm doing one of the others now and it ain't bull fighting.

Regards