With the recent activity on the site, more than a few of you have clued in on my new year’s resolution. In the spirit of keeping that resolution, and perhaps helping my sanity during the off-season, let’s keep this thing rolling and discuss the 2020 season, plans, goals, etc…
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...
So I had this crazy idea to get some last minute seat time before nationals next month. Seeing as the Mid South region is on summer break and the Southeast was racing at CMP I set my sight’s North to find something a little closer. Luckily, I found a race with the Great Lakes Region with some very competitive 944 Spec drivers only 8 hours away. Thus the trek to Autobahn Country Club...
Barber Motorsports Park should be on every driver’s checklist. It is a world class facility and is always one of the highlight events of the season. This year was no exception with a lightning field consisting of double digit entries for 944 Spec, Spec E30 and Spec Miata. With a 3 stage start, out of class racing was minimized with lots of very close in class battles. And unlike the last...
Chris Simmons is a race car driver, instructor, business owner and all around gearhead. His passion for motorsport started in the drifting community and progressed into wheel to wheel racing of all kinds. When off track Chris can be found training and working on a myriad of projects. After a hiatus from writing, he is back to share his passion, knowledge and experience in regard to motorsports on and off the track.