Motorsport - Geometry People Chat

[Ricardo]

A strange link to where I'm going but bare with..... Reading the Guy Martin autobiography and he's all about grass roots level and doing everything either by himself or friends in the trade that spanner for him. His dad raced and spannered all his own engines and setup his own bikes too and Guy picked it up.

Ok so there's probably quite a few people in this motorsport trade that make it to the top like F1, touring cars etc but imagine there's 100s of people through England that pit their wits in saloon Racing, take Dave Clarke in the R5. He's wielding the spanners and maybe setting up his own car if not probably knows someone who can do it from a local unit not a big company who has the extensive knowledge. Take @CRM who worked for Renault full time but sprinted as a hobby and also did all manner of work on selected cars he chose.

Point is there must be a few of these people here that we could benefit from before going to companies. I'd be much happy to give someone my hard earned cash for them to do whatever they choose, it could pay for an entry to a sprint, a part for their race car or put food on the table.

Just a thought

 

[NJH]

Ricardo the two companies I used to build/repair/maintain my Porsche 944 S2 race car are both basically doing the business as a means of going racing (EMC Motorsport in Birmingham and NineX in Maidenhead). It was a strange thing probably 40% of the racers I met older company director types, the next 30 to 40% people in the trade (such as the 2 companies above) and the rest guys like me who struggled like mad with money and time, or kids being paid for by their wealthy fathers. Back in 2011 I had the strange realisation that at an age under 40 I was the youngest self funded racer I raced against in either the Porsche Club Championship or the CSCC races I entered. In my case it was the free time that was the bigger problem, finances always difficult but I never have had enough free time. I think most people don't realise this but if you have a proper full time job and other commitments like family its highly likely you will never have enough free time to compete, its stuff like when the car had a problem and you need to take it somewhere during the middle of the week and can't wait till a free weekend as your on track again in a week's time. Or if not taking it somewhere you really need to take a day off work and work on the car.