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...
Car prepped a week early. Check √ Rain tires mounted. Check √ Driver mentally prepared for another battle in the rain. Check √ Event cancelled 5 days before race. Wait What! Disappointment would be an understatement. There is a lot of mental and physical energy that goes into racing and this energy needs to go somewhere. So I kept my mouth shut about the decision for a few days. I had an idea of...
The Bourbon Barrel is the second event of the NASA Midsouth season. Taking place March 24th to 25th at the National Corvette Museum (NCM) in Bowling Green, Kentucky. This is a crossover event with the NASA Great Lakes region and always pulls large fields for 944spec. Saturday/Race 1 Rain is becoming thematic this season and Saturday did not disappoint. Warm-up, Qualifying and Race 1 all took...
What a weekend! After what seemed like an extra lengthy off season, I was getting so antsy I would have raced in a blizzard; so the torrential downpour wasn’t an issue. This was the season opener for the Mid-South region at our local track located in Millington, TN. Pretty much constant rain on Saturday made the 944spec class especially interesting. At Memphis...
Background This last year I spent countless track days pushing project Lotus Elise as much as possible; and as much as the Lotus shines on the track I have yearned for something more raw, more simplistic and as anyone with a Lotus knows, easier to work on and more importantly, less fragile. At first I thought of building another dedicated track car in the same manner as project 240sx but as I...
The Obituary of Project 240sx was supposed to be the last iteration of Project 240sx on the site but I came up with a little something extra. What we have here is a basic teardown of the bare ca18det that was found in Project 240sx in a quick photo journal style. You can read the comment below each picture to get an idea of what you are looking at. This may give those that follow a little insight...
The Larini decat and club sport exhaust serves two purposes on project Lotus Elise. For starters, this combo along with the rear panel delete can easily yield weight reduction values approaching 25 lbs. The other purpose is to wake up the exhaust on the Elise because frankly, a car like this needs to be heard. Now what you won’t hear me talking about is power gains because the Lotus...
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.
