I track because it’s a place for me to get my need of speed. I see people drive fast and wirelessly in public roads. I used to be that guy.

You might think you are a good driver, if you drive fast in public. Driving the car in that manner makes the car more unpredictable, and the driver’s movements causes that. You also have the element of the unknown road conditions. You are posing a danger to yourself, and to the others around you. It only takes one wrong move to ruin your life. Do you really want to take that chance?

Trust me, you are not impressing anyone when you drive fast in public. No one cares, if anything it’s just being annoying. Just goes for the same for the take over meets. Doings donuts and crashing into people, cars, or curbs. Life isn’t a video game, where you hit reset if you mess up.

People might say “Oh its soo expensive to track”. All I hear is excuses. Most track events can range $150 and upwards of $1000. You can find a track event in your budget, just have to look around. I would find events with SCCA, NASA, motorsportreg.com, or even Facebook event post. Amature or grassroots track days are very affordable. The cost to go to an event is cheaper, then the cost of going to jail.

Track day offers an environment where you can drive over 100mph, and not worry about going to jail. Tracks layouts have plenty of run off, and yes, some more then others. Driving at that speed and near the limit will teach how be smooth with your car. Play with weight transfer, and understand the concept of car control.

That is why I always come back. I like to drive fast, and not worry about going to jail. When I got my race license that rush is something indescribable. I thought HPDE was fun, but doing wheel to wheel racing is an experience on its own.

I hope y’all drive safe in public. If you want to drive fast, please take it to the track.

I remember my first track day. I was nervous, and excited at the same time. My first thought was “Am I going to blow up the car?”. Eventually something will go wrong. That fear I had lingering, actually motivated me to go for it.

My thinking was, “I’ll try it once. Experience what it is like REALLY driving fast.” That first time was a great experience. The M3 did great, I didn’t crash, and had a great instructor guiding me. Nothing went wrong. I was hooked.

But I think there is another side to this too. What if my 1st track day experience was bad? Be it I blew up the motor, or crashed, or had an argument with another person. This might have put me off, and not want to track ever. I’ve seen that with other people, and had a terrible experience their first time. Would I want to go back?

To me, it would have probably motivated me to come back, because the joy and skills learned from track day is a talent that isn’t gained on the streets.

I’ve hit some are hard times with car stuff. Back in 2011, I had a 2009 VW GTI, and the timing chain tensioner broke. This is known issue from VW, and since I have warranty, I took it to VW dealer to get it fixed. Unfortunately, my claim was declined. The reason is because my GTI was modified. I was quoted $10,000USD to get a new motor and labor. This was terrible, because I owed money on the GTI, and now I need a new motor. Talk about ultimate fail. But I didn’t say “fuck it, I’ll just get it repo’d.”

You would think, because of what happened I would probably get out of the car scene. But I didn’t take that route. I saved up money, and after 1 year I was able to pay for the motor install. During that year, I was still making payments on my broken GTI, and driving my Miata with no AC. Living in a ghetto studio apartment paying $600 a month. It was hard, but my passion for cars never died down.

This brings me to this… It’s how you look at life experiences. You will have great times, and their will be times of doubt. During the low, you have two choices. You can abandon ship and do a 180. You’ll choose a different path. Or you can stick with it, and figure out a way to keep on doing what you think is very important to you. Both choices are not better then the other. Whatever you choose, you’ll want to make the decision that improves you as a person. Meaning you don’t become an resentful asshole.

Of course, you WILL have a bad experience at the track and say “this isn’t for me, I will never do it again.” That could be because, that hard time you felt was so discouraging it wasn’t worth it to come back. Or in the same situation you might think “track problems happens, and I’m going to figure out how to get ready for the next event.” That could be because, the enjoyment being at the track outweighs the disappointments.

I’m an optimistic guy. I’ve had tons of track issues: car catching on fire, blowing up a motor, body contact, or event spending 2x that amount on gas since last year. All things that discourage me from racing. But when I put the race suit on, and line up for grid, all those doubts disappear. I’m stress free, and this allows me to return to life as normal sane person. The car control skills, and finding the limit safely is a great outlet for me. Finding a hobby that you really enjoy is very important for work life balance.

The most valuable thing to learn is, figuring out what is most important to you. Figuring out that goal you want in life. When you hit the hard times, you get up, and stick to your goal.