It’s been a while since I’ve been on a good rant. Lately I keep stumbling across news that the manual transmission is dying in the States. This has been an issue for a long, long time across many makes and models. And it has finally made it’s way to the last holdout in the full-size truck segment, the RAM 2500.
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...
Road Atlanta is a special place for me. It is a litmus test of sorts with lots of competitive drivers. The track is also very demanding and very rewarding to race. This is my second time as a racer at Road Atlanta and it is amazing the difference time and practice makes. I found the track exhilarating instead of scary this time and put some pressure on the local talent during the two, very...
Ah the annual pilgrimage to NOLA Motorsports Park. This year we did things a little different and brought the wives down early for a little race-cation. The trip was met with a few lows and many highs and the racetrack as well as the French Quarter did not disappoint. But if you want to get straight to the racing, skip below. The Road to new orleans The lows popped up before we even left town...
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.