For many of you, you’re either eyeing the calendar for the first track and autocross events of the year, or you’re still faced with the prospect of another few weeks of nothing while your world thaws out.
Here in Florida, the “season” pretty much goes on year-round, even if we do complain about showing up to the track on a day in the 50s. Look, when the heaviest thing you own is a thin hoodie with your favorite band’s logo on it, you have a little bit different frame of reference. Give me a break here.
Anyway, even though our schedule rarely lets up down here, winter still tends to be our reset season. Championships are over, rules are adjusting, and schedules are being set for the calendar flip. So even for us with our open tracks and our shorts, it’s a natural time for reflection.
The thing I’ve been reflecting on a bit this winter: We talk a lot about the “how” of speed in print and online, but I’m not sure we dwell enough on the “why.” This is a weird thing we do, this driving cars fast and the zooming and the squealing and the smelly brakes and whatnot. We’re all bound by the activity, but I feel like an examination of our attraction to the activity would reveal a far more broad tapestry of motivations.
Clearly there’s a certain subset of drivers for whom track performance is a validation of their skills as builders. Sure, the driving itself is fun and rewarding, but the real reward is feeling the capabilities of something that you took apart and put back together better–or at least better was the intent. Like the chefs who agonize over the placement of each flake of salt on a dish but are content to make themselves a PB&J after serving up a prime ribeye, the satisfaction comes from the process that got them to the track, not necessarily the track itself.
Some folks seem to relish the challenge of harnessing a piece of technology and bending it to their will in extreme situations. Our relationship to machines has always been complex. They’ve been viewed as our saviors, our oppressors or, in the case of French materialists like La Mettrie and Descartes, simply less complex versions of ourselves. Of course, La Mettrie was kind of a hedonistic troll who wrapped a lot of his philosophy in fancy language to basically justify that he just wanted to party, but is that really so different from some of our motivations for going to track days?
Whatever the case, it’s clear that some of us have a natural drive to dominate–or at least constructively cooperate–with our mechanical automotive cousins. And I’m certainly not going to argue that a guy like me, who once accidentally locked myself in the walk-in at Chili’s and lost like three tables’ worth of tips before I was rescued, pushing a 3500-pound metal, glass and plastic machine to its physical limit isn’t pretty rad.
For me, I think one of the prime motivators is competition. Or, at the very least, applying metrics to skill. Whenever I’m on track, if I’m not running data and timing to give myself a chance at making improvements or at least properly contextualizing my performance, then I’m just not having as much fun as I should be.
And sure, occasionally winning something is cool, too, but the real juice is that path to the win: the process of finding an opportunity to be a little better, figuring out a way to overcome it, and then executing that plan and seeing it move the arrow in the right direction. Oh yeah, baby, that’s the sweet, sweet stuff. Shoot that right into my brain.
Now, that said, I’ve also had some tremendously fun times at events like the SCCA’s Track Night in America, where it’s definitely not about competition and just about having fun with your car friends doing car stuff in a car place with cars. I mean, sure, I was running data, but shut up, I’m allowed to do that if I want and you can’t stop me.
Anyway, I’d love to hear what pushes you to push your car. Hit our message board or send me an email or just come up to me at an event and start screaming. You wouldn’t be the first.
Enjoy the rest of your offseason–or, for my lucky fellow mild-climate friends, the beginning of your 2025. Take some time on those long drives to your first events to reflect on why you do this goofy thing. Or maybe even take some time at one of your upcoming events to try and share the motivations of someone whose drive you currently don’t share. You may find more reasons than you already had for being part of this amazing community.
Comments
Tom1200
UltimaDork
5/7/25 5:00 p.m.
I'm good at it , would be the easy answer but that's not the real answer.
I have A.D.D. in spades; the plus side is driving at speed seems normal to me so my mind focuses well in that realm. The downside is the lack of impulse control.
Racing saved my life. There was a three year period between age 19-21 were I was doing some sketchy things, like near felony sketchy things. This was purely down to the lack of impulse control.
When I started racing it gave me an outlet and that behaviour vansihed.
Sure I like making a car better and driving on the edge but the end of the day racing gives me a healthy outlet for all the pent up energy that comes with the A.D.D.
Racing motivated me to seek a career where I could make a good enough living to go racing. It's touched my life in a way that no words could ever convey.
Low Sulfur #2 Diesel fuels my motorsport passions
Motorsport is the closest thing I've ever found to meditation. For upwards of 3 hours I am alone with my thoughts but very focused. It's similar to the feeling of riding my bicycle or mowing grass or surfing, but better because I have to maintain strict focus the entire time. Emotions can swing all over the board but it's just me in my head. I race a very non-competive car so I'm not really racing against anybody except my own best time. It's freeing
I've discovered that there's something oddly cathartic about driving at car at speed, whether it's a few autocross runs or a track day.
I think it has something to do with getting my frustrations/anger out.
I think the reason I play with racecars is that it brings me back to childhood. As a kid I played tons of racing video games, and always wanted to drive. Now I have the chance, so I have to do it for little me.
Might as well just call me Ricky Bobby cause, "I wanna go fast."
In all reality motorsports is fun and the challenge of always getting better fuels my lizard brain.
For me, the cars and speed are secondary. I have as much fun crawling around in 4 low off-road or getting a 100-year-old engine idling at 50 RPM as I do braking from 110 mph into turn 8 at CMP.
I'm here for the friendships. I'll always tinker with machines, but they are secondary to the people I do it with.
Tom1200
UltimaDork
5/8/25 2:21 p.m.
Toyman! said:
I'm here for the friendships. I'll always tinker with machines, but they are secondary to the people I do it with.
There were just over 100 people at my wedding 3/4 of them were SCCA members.
I like the musical quality of a good engine note, and operating a manual transmission is like playing an instrument.
Working on cars is cathartic. Racing them is zen. Time at the track with friends and family is priceless.
I wind down from work by checking something off the box on whatever car project I'm working on.
Getting behind the wheel at any event is an opportunity to drown out the world and focus on making that car the fastest it can be and seeing the fruits of my labor (and teams labor).
Being at the track getting to spend time with friends and family is one of the better parts of the hobby.
Cars are beautiful machines.
Not to pass over the other aspects, because I suspect that pretty much everything everyone says will be *part* of everyone else's answer.
I love them as art, as practical physics demonstrations, as expressions of the beauty of materials, as extensions of my own capabilities, as competitive outlet.
It's endlessly fascinating building, refining, and updating your mental models of how things work.
And a really good autocross run is a truly exhilarating thing. Especially when you win.
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