What motorsports moment are you most proud of?

Winning the first and only ever workplace fundraiser go-kart race in our (then) newly epoxied floor integration bay.  Idea for the fundraiser was to buy a cheap go-kart, setup a temporary track in the work bays, and sell chances to make a run.  All proceeds get added to the pot of other company and employee donations that went to various local charities.  

After the fact, the new floor looked a bit worse for wear, and a number of contestants came perilously close to hitting various unmovable objects - like roof support columns - so this extravaganza was never repeated.  

The winner's trophy is still on display in my house, and is still regularly talked about as a reminder of "the good old days".  

In reply to pkingham (Forum Supporter) :

Kingham is very modest.   He has been a dominate racer in Club Ford all over the Eastern U.S. in his Zink, with more wins than most of us could ever dream of.

I will toss out attending the challenge in 2004, 15, and 17. 

Getting Al Uncer Jr. to be my driving coach for 30 minutes in 15 Challenge.

Selling GRM a copy of one of my Challenge photos one year.

Causing family to buy lots of races cars for the dirt track I do not race at was fun.

My first dirt track main event win. 20 years prior ran a different class regularly finished 2nd or 3rd regularly.  The big W alluded me. But I finally won a ministock main in 2019 in only my second start in one. Tow vehicle broke down on the way. Got to the track late. Got a flat in the heat and qualified dead last. My family from out of state even came out to watch. I told my brother before I rolled out I was gonna put on a show.  I Ended up passing 26 cars and took the lead with two to go and held on to the lead for the win. I couldn't even breath by the time I got  out of the car for the victory interview 

I've been on tracks very few times, so not much to choose from, but my first and only autocross was in a FWD 90 Bonneville SE (series 1, 165 hp) back in like 1999. Though it may sound like it, I'm not trying to brag about this, because I really did drive very unsafely and risked a lot of people's lives and safety for those first few years there behind the wheel BUT by driving so maniacally, I really got to know how the car handled. Among some other small cars, I recall i ended up besting a Civic. I was pretty proud of that.

Funny to me: Partway through my second run, the guy they put in there to coach me suggested, "We usually drive with both hands on the wheel." I had one arm hanging out the window, as always. And a friend who came along commented later that riding along on the course was less exciting than the drive to get there. 

Mont Tremblant with COMSCC in 98. It was my first time at the track. I had been to other weekend events with COM but had never done the time tials on Sunday. I was a novice so I had an instructor who would show me the ropes and if I improved would sign me off to solo. He did so halfway thru Saturday. I learned two things that weekend. First, when the shift linkage is not perfect you can push the forks in the trans too far and get stuck in third gear coming out from under the bridge heading to Namero. (VW 020 trans do not take kindly to short shift kits). Normally I'd shift to fourth then back down to third. But I couldn't. So the engine touched 7000 rpm for just a moment. I pulled into the pits and my brother was like, what did you do? Why? Cause you were over a second faster. Turns out I was losing time with all the shifting. Mechanical lesson learned. Sometimes you need to stay in gear. During the last run group of the day I managed to get onto track behind another MK1 GTi like mine which would be in the same TT class. On the pit straight there's a light bend to the left into 1 that also goes over a rise. I was told if you get too far left you'll be off the left side of the track so I stayed three feet from the edge as instructed. My instructor had me lightly touch the brakes on the way into 1. He also mentioned that some folks only lift. And some can go flat out in fourth here. I was lightly braking on the way into 1. On the first lap behind the GTi he pulled away from me on that part of the track. Okay, no brake lights. Maybe he's lifting momentarily? Next lap I don't touch the brakes but lift slightly. He still gaps me. Damnit, he's not lifting. (Sidebar: later in life mountain bike friends would tell me my headstone would read too stupid to know better). So I decide on the next lap, I don't care, I wouldn't lift. I learned a bit about myself that weekend. I finished second in class in the time trial. Behind the other GTi. By 1 tenth of a second. But to talk to me on the ride home and you'd have thought I came in first. I love time trialing. I've been trying to get back to it for a long time. My new 16v 2.0 Scirocco that I built will get me there. I can't wait.

15 hours of wheel to wheel racing in a $350 Hyundai Elantra at the Champ Car 8+7 at VIR North. Add in actually finishing both days and coming in 2nd place in class? Nothing else comes close.

I saw this thread before hopping in my truck for a 12 hour fun fest trek down I95s...Pardon me for picking two, but I had too much time to ponder.  

The first would be my first win back in the 944 Cup days at Summit Point.  I was in P2 or P3 much of the race. On the last lap, P1 and P2 start really beating on each other. We came around turn 10 at Summit Point and p2 got a little out of sorts and banged into p1 pretty good...lots of spinning, dust and confusion and p1 ended up perfectly on top of p2 and I strolled by for my first win.  I'm proud because I was patient enough to wait for the oppotunity instead of becoming one of the casualties. 

The second memory is a little more abstract...stay with me, I will try to be concise. 
I have 6 kids who all basically grew up at the track. My now 19 yo, William,  has Down Syndrome and does not speak. Now rewind about 15 years. 
It was lunch break, again at Summit Point, and he was in my trailer with my youngest watching a Veggie Tale movie. Marie and I were sitting outside the door eating lunch while the track was cold. My youngest comes toddling out and I checked on William. He was not there. A quick sprint around my car/trailer/truck...not there. I was paddocked amongst friends...nobody saw him. I went to the tower and they made announcements. A friend had his dog and they dove into the woods.  The track was about to go hot and I knew that would make all sorts of things more difficult and more dangerous. A friend had a dirt bike and I hopped on it and just started moving as fast as I could. 
A group of little girls were walking around and I stopped and asked if they had seen a little guy. They said yes...they had seen a kid walking over the bridge toward the gate. I flew over the bridge and there he was...happy as a clam playing in a mud puddle. He was completely calm but happy to see me. I lost it and pretty much fell apart then put him on the bike and motored him back. I was not sure that I would race as my event was very soon, but my wife encouraged me...I credit the massive endorphin rush for the win. 
The whole thing probably lasted about 30 minutes but it seemed like hours.  He had to have traveled through 7-8 paddocks to get out and nobody saw him...including me. 

I have about 4 really awesome moments I'm super proud of.

1) Running our first Champcar race with my best friends for the first time in 2015 at Daytona and finishing. 

2) Getting our first class win at the Champcar Sebring 14 Hours in 2019. 

3) Finishing the Sebring WRL 24 Hour Race with the only issue being a blown fuse that took us off track for a few laps. We finished dead last of the running cars because we were in a 1994 Honda Accord vs. TCR and GT4 cars but it was def an awesome accomplishment and something to be very proud of. 

4) I love RWD muscle cars but I'm terrible at driving them hard in motorsports because I just want to be sideways. I bought an 8th gen Civic Si brand new from the dealer I worked at in 2009 and took it to an autocross right after the break in period. I immediately found my driving niche. I think I would do very well after all these years going back to RWD and being much more controlled. It was def a cool feeling when you start competing for TTD either raw or pax in a platform you weren't familiar with. 

Beating Travis Pastrana in the wet and dry skid pad 2018 One Lap.

Second comes in as winning the local STF year end trophy in a Kia and finishing mid-pack in that years Solo Nationals. 

3rd is all of 2021 in the Rio. Grid Life Sundae Cup, SCCA Time Trials at Putnam, 10k miles of driving and just fun.

I'm a solid mid-pack road racer. I'll never run at the front unless all the really good guys crash spectacularly on the first lap. I had maybe two good battles in my brief career. I still think my proudest moment was just getting my comp license. 

It was a long journey to get there since I (stupidly) built my own car. A stressful weekend, but ended with success.  I got to take those red 'R' stickers off a few weekends later. 

But...my favorite memory of the time with my E30 was a weekend at Pocono for a Mpact event. I volunteered as an instructor and got to play with one of my old students who is well known by this magazine. 

We had a mock race during an instructor session and I was laughing the entire time. Trust me, we were both trying. Video here:  https://youtu.be/zzjko-0tRQY  Of course, today she could hand me my arse...

I have little time and less skill driving, I am pretty much always the help..Probably my biggest accomplishment was our worst finish.  1995 I was on a Busch North team.  We put together a car to run the Busch Race in Daytona that February.  Due to the point structure at the time they counted our north series point so we were pretty much guaranteed a starting spot.  We were clearly out of place with the last Lumina, last V6, and an open trailer behind a cube van, but for some reason we were there and my dumb 19 year old ass walked around like I knew what I was doing  We ran fairly well in January testing, but blew an engine in practice, started 41st, blew another engine right at the start and finished 45th.  Still it was an ungodly amount of fun on and off the track, probably the most fun I've had at an event.  
 

When I finally made #1 qualifier in one of my classes when dragracing. Raced with the AHDRA (All Harley (and Buell) Drags) for several years and at my 'home' track I was on point that weekend...until I ran out of gas during an elimination run lol I was trying to keep the weigh low and should have tossed a bit of fuel in. Sort of choked a bit on accelleration. Whatever, I was still stoked on the weekend, was so glad my parents could be there to see me up there during the opening 'ceremony'

I won second place for season points for xsb for my region! Just found out yesterday.