CategoryCompetition

2019 was a great season that solidified an upward trend in my racing and building on that momentum is the goal of the 2020 season. Looking at the results from the season opener with NASA Mid South at Memphis International Raceway, things are off to a great start.

I’d be kidding myself if I didn’t recognize 2019 as one of the most stressful years of my life.

Most of my goals revolve around racing in some fashion and I’m always looking for new ways to push myself. And since I secured the 944spec Regional Championship back in August, I needed something new to focus on. I started by maintaining my intensity while the pressure was off. I’m very happy with the progress in this department. Going almost undefeated the last half of the season...

As much as I love racing, any time you race back to back weekends can be a little exhausting.  And with the National Championships just behind me, the temptation was there to skip the NASA Midsouth event the following weekend. But to skip an event in my own backyard, no matter what else is going on, is something that I find hard to stomach.

That title is a mouthful. But after replacing my steering rack, tie rods and realigning the racecar after my previous venture at Mid-Ohio, I was once again on the ten hour trek to Ohio. This time to take a shot at a national title.

Mid-ohio, my first virgin track this year. Taking what I learned at Autobahn last year, I made sure to spend some time in iRacing turning laps before embarking on the 10 hour trek. The purpose of this trip was to learn the track and start building speed for the championships in one months time.

The events called the Clumsy Cow and last year I was a guinea pig of sorts and formulated an attack plan to good effect. I was pretty excited for another round at Autobahn Country Club with the NASA Great Lakes region. I’m not sure what type of voodoo was performed before my arrival but this year I’m calling it ‘The Cursed Cow.’

Winter in July is traditionally hosted by NASA Mid South at Barber Motorsports Park. But this year, due to scheduling and construction at Barber, it was held in my backyard at Memphis Motorsports Park. It was hot, humid and about what you would expect in the south during July.

This season I have become quite a bit more serious with my racing. In the pursuit to see how fast I can go, I made lots of changes to my race weekends. I get to the track the day before and have the paddock setup well before sun down. In bed no later than 10, no alcohol, eat healthy etc… And overall I can say that these changes along with several other things I’m doing different are...

This was a unique experience and I put a lot more thought and effort into this than I originally planned. What does it take to learn a new race track? What about learning a track with effectively zero prep? These are two questions I was faced with recently when I had the opportunity to drive Autobahn Country Club in August of 2018, sight unseen. And as I said in the race article, this was not a...