Re: Just want to race

[Richard Welty <rwelty@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

At 03:10 PM 6/9/99 -0400, st9453g6@domain.elided wrote:
>What does a BMW car club member have to do to race.  Should I attend a 
>driver school first or what.

>My car is stock.  Please someone give me some guidance.

i have seen some good comments, but here is a general piece based on my
experiences -- which are not in line with the mainstream of bmw cca club
racing for various reasons, which will become clear. as always, your
mileage may vary, but the variation may be greater because the path i
followed isn't the one followed by other bmw cca'ers. nonetheless, i offer
it to the list because there may be useful bits and pieces buried in what
follows:

1) do lots of bmw cca style drivers schools; work on your driving as
diligently as you can afford to. don't bother spending lots on the car (at
least, not initially), other than to put it into mechanically sound
condition and to keep good sticky tires on it. dollars expended on driver
education will have more long term value than dollars put into the car.

2) if you can't afford to push it off a cliff and walk away, you can't
afford to race it.

3) consider spending some time observing. when i decided to go racing, i
started by doing the driver school, and i also got an SCCA tech license and
put a lot of time in there, which got me very familiar with the cars and
how things worked. consider volunteering to help with tech at BMW CCA
events if tech works anything like SCCA tech.

4) i know that bmw cca'ers want to race bimmers. me, i wanted to race
another brand, and besides, when i started bmw cca racing didn't exist, so
i ended up building an SCCA IT car. that car has been sidelined for a few
years for various reasons, so i've been formula Vees to keep my license.
this, combined with years of tech experience (which includes post accident
writeups) leads me to an observation which you may consider or dismiss, as
you see fit, and which may offend some bmw lovers on the list (but perhaps
not):

racing sedans may be cheaper to start with, but low end formula cars like
Vs or F500s or Club Fords are cheaper to maintain and race in the long
haul, and harder to total. this is not something you'll hear about in a BMW
CCA Club racing context, because there are no formula cars that i'm aware
of racing there.

cheers,
   richard

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