Tell us about your race number?

Since the username topic was such a hit - there always seems to be some mystery around the race number so tell us what is your race number and how did you get it? 

Mine is #74 

it wasn't the year i was born and I have no affinity to the numbers but when i started racing in autox and rallyx you need to apply numbers with tape. Well #1 and #11 were always taken and 3s and 6s and numbers with curves was not so fun so 74 was easy to do with tape. 

ON THE OTHER HAND!

sometimes if I had too much to drink and this topic comes up I say that 74 comes from a state a balance, in western cultures the #7 is lucky, whereas in eastern cultures the #4 is unlucky, it is how we have balance on the circuit that makes them compliment eachother as we balance our chi...

but in reality, the numbers were easy to do with tape...

Shouldn't really require much explanation in this crowd :)

#11

It's really easy to do with tape. 

Have also run #42 (because Miata) and #614 for my area code because I couldn't think of anything else. 

44, on the rare occasions it isn't already taken. I seem to spend a lot of events as 42, or 242, or 442... (EDIT: 42, the Answer to Life, the Universe, and Everything; 242 for Front 242; and then there's that Olds... I think it's the first of those three which initially caused me to order the 2 for my backup number selection)

The funny thing is, I can't tell you whether I picked 44 because I was a Willie McCovey fan when I was a kid in San Francisco, or whether I was a Willie McCovey fan because I'd already imprinted on the number 44 (I had a pretty strong symmetry thing going on as a kid, and I think this was related). Hey, I was about seven years old.

The Group 44 thing was a coincidence (and more questions about which was cause and which effect w/regard to imprinting on British cars).

My first tattoo was a flaming heart with racing stripes and 44.

I run 101 whenever I can. I picked it because it was easy to cut out of sheets of magnet and it gave me lots of options. 1, 10, 11, 110, 101, and adding in a flippable 9/6 gave me even more. Whenever I get to pick a number it's 101. I even run it on my motorcycle. 

15 has almost always been my number. My favorite driver way back was Michael Waltrip, who had #30 and then went to #15 when he started driving for DEI. This was when I got my license, so I chose 15 as my number. I knew it was a sealed deal when I got my permanently assigned drag racing number from Portland International Raceway and was randomly assigned 15C. So I've been 15 ever since.

41, because I could think of no famous race car driver who ever raced a 41.

Plus, its easy to make with tape.

40

Because when I was a kid my favorite Matchbox car was the Vauxhall Guildsman, which was model #40 for that series and had 40 on the bonnet.

I run number 27 because I'm Mr Oversteer and drive a red car (70's F1 fans will understand) 

Video evidence, I'm driving the squirrelley red Datsun coupe just in front of the camera car.

Generally i run #13. Because its my lucky number!

Started with 42 because of the Hitchhikers Guide.  But 30% of cars at any given event were using it.   Then tried 97 because the Miata at the time was a 1997.

On the last Miata (the NC) I went with 74 because I had 7s already but some of the other guys in my class were 70, 77, and 72.

Zoomboni is 59 already so I won't change that.   (It's a 1959)

168. Because it's my employee number at work, lol. It was the first thing that came to mind. I also never have to worry about anyone taking it, and it gives me plenty of fodder for co-drivers or the unlikely event that someone else is using 168. Usually co-drivers are 816, because it's easy to just move the 8 to the front. This year, I might try running just 1 because I realized I have never seen anyone run #1 in my region.

My favorite is watching the FR-S/GT-86/BRZ guys duke it out over #86. Or the Focus RS guys fighting over #43.

Since my wife and I both drive our NA, it's our anniversary... May 17th.

And we've never had a conflict with another car... 

#23. Came from my first few track days/autocrosses running my Z. In Japanese 2 = ni (pronounced like knee) and 3 = san. So 23 = Nis(s)an

Funny thing is I still use this number on my Corolla too.

When I was autocrossing my #was 4 because that was my overall points ranking. Then i started road racing and 4,14,24,34,41-2-3-4-5-6-7-8 were all taken. Thus I used 49 until I was late reserving my # one year and switched to 47. When I sold my Turner and bought the RX7 it had 47 on it. I took that as a sign and I've used 47 ever since.

In RallyX/AutoX  I used #19 because Bernie Kosar.

When we started Chumpcar we ended up with 616.  We picked it because it was available and also a palindrome like "Civic".  Once it was assigned to us as a permanent number it has been moved to all 3 cars.   Plus they said something cool like 80085 was too many digits. 

My number was 298 for the longest time because 298 in hexadecimal is 12A.

After a while, I downloaded the "make your own number" PDFs from the Detroit SCCA website and used them as patterns to cut numbers out of magnetic material.

My numbers got tattered after a while, and I lost some while driving on the road, and I ended up just using the 9.  So I have been running car 9 on the RX-7 for a long time.

I ran 54 on my S40 because 5 and 4 add up to 9.  Sort of like how Herbie's 53 was "Ocho" but one better.  Also, old TV show.

I think I first started using number 78 in NASCAR racing games on the PC that let you pick your own number and paint your car however you wanted, because it was a number not used by any real teams at the time. Shortly thereafter I switched to #89 for similar reasons because I just liked it better. I use 89 whenever possible, and I'll revert back to 78 if necessary, but I also like #97 because it was on the John Deere and then the Sharpie car in NASCAR, so I used that on my challenge car because it's a '97.

821

We have no kids. When we first got married we adopted a GSD/husky mix that was one of those rare 'perfect' dogs. She was simply awesome. She got cancer in her 7th year and died pretty quickly. Devastated us. Her last day was 8/21.

#96-

Because it;s the same up-side-up, up-side down, or spinning round and round.

Also the year the team acquired a name- Stupider than we Look Racing

And my wife wouldn't let me use the other one that has those characteristics

In our second year of Lemons we made a race car that was a Sea Sprite boat on an S10 chassis.  It was fun, it was #42, for the same reason the rest of you run 42.  We had a second car, a Honda, that previously had been 58, but that was awful to paint on the car.  So, once we had 42, the Honda became 41 as it was in order and easy to make with tape.  That number moved to our current Honda and it has had that number for 8 years now.
 

Sonic said:

 

In our second year of Lemone we made a race car that was a Sea Sprite boat on an S10 chassis.  It was fun, it was #42, for the same reason the rest of you run 42.  We had a second car, a Honda, that previously had been 58, but that was awful to paint on the car.  So, once we had 42, the Honda became 41 as it was in order and easy to make with tape.  That number moved to our current Honda and it has had that number for 8 years now.  

Lookng at that picture, the number is the last of my questions.

47, racing number of my hero Bruce McLaren

I'm attached to #29, since that's what came on my first go-kart.

But because I rarely run in the same car/sanctioning body/etc. my numbers are all over the place. Sometimes my friends at registration will have some fun when assigning numbers for me, too: