I always loved to drive anything I could get my hands on. I started shifting my dad’s manual 1970-era Toyota sedan while he worked the pedals and steering wheel when I was 6 or 7 years old. From there I jumped at any chance to get in a go-kart or arcade driving game. Unfortunately, the rest of my family and friends weren’t excited about driving or racing like I was so I didn’t have mentors or peers to help me get into motorsports when I was young. I’d often organize go-kart outings with a few friends for birthdays and other special events but didn’t have the funds or support to pursue racing beyond that.
As my wife and I moved up in our careers and became more financially secure, I started saving as much as I could to buy myself entries to performance driving “experiences.” I attended a few BMW M-Schools, the AMG Driving Academy, a Rusty Wallace NASCAR experience, and even a dirt oval lapping day in a Sprint Car. All of these schools teach the fundamentals of performance driving but they don’t give enough seat time to drive the cars at their limits and there’s no open passing or actual racing allowed. Most of the time you’re following instructors and have limits on top speed and overall pace.
I found that the racing “experiences” I was doing once or twice a year were not enough to satisfy my appetite for real competition. While all the instruction was good, I was essentially learning the same fundamentals every outing and not getting experience with race craft, advanced wheel-to-wheel racing instruction, or extended time behind the wheel. I still didn’t know how to get into actual racing, but my tech background meant that I could easily build a racing simulator at home. I built my first simulator in early 2020 and immersed myself in the iRacing community. I started out racing Miatas in the rookie class, moved into Skip Barber, then Porsche Cup, IndyCar, F3, Super Formula Lights, and GT3 multiclass racing. At the peak, I was probably racing four hours or more every day. As I moved up the rankings, I was racing side-by-side with talented simracers as well as a few real-life professional drivers.
As exciting as simracing was (and still is) for me, I continued researching how to get into racing on actual rather than virtual tarmac. In early 2023, I found PoleCat Training Center which is less than an hour away from my home in Franklin, TN. PoleCat offers advanced courses in Skip Barber open-wheel cars (just like what I drove in iRacing) and access to racing drivers and coaches that might be able to connect me with the road racing community in my area. I loved driving the Skip Barber open-wheel, open cockpit cars and quickly improved my lap times during advanced racing courses and a few lapping days with PoleCat coaches. I finally asked one of the PoleCat coaches about local opportunities to get into actual racing and he pointed me to Cliff White at B2 Motorsports.
I connected with Cliff at B2 and he helped me get the SCCA credentials and safety gear I needed to participate in a Time Trial at Barber Motorsports park in August, 2023. Cliff was also generous with his time answering all of my “newbie” questions about SCCA club racing. After a lot of discussion, I decided to rent one of B2’s Spec Racer Ford, Gen 3 race cars (SRF3) for the event. Time Trials are competitive, but only against the clock. Open passing is allowed and drivers are sharing the course with many other classes of cars. Some cars are slower than SRF3, others are significantly faster.
While I had plenty of track experience in controlled, school-like environments in various cars, this would be a weekend of “firsts” for me. This was my first event at Barber Motorsports Park (although I’d driven hundreds of laps in iRacing), my first time in an SRF3, my first time on track with 30 other racecars of various speeds, and my first SCCA event. Even though I wasn’t actually “racing” yet, the experience was more intense and overwhelming than I had expected. 100% of my brainpower was dedicated to getting familiar with the SRF3, wrangling my safety gear that I was wearing for the first time, and managing race traffic on course most of which were faster and more experienced than me.
After a few sessions nervously making my way around the track and gripping the wheel like a vice, I started to develop a routine which helped me relax and focus on improving my lap times. My routine has evolved over the few years I’ve been racing but it always starts in the paddock before I get in the car. Sometimes I’m in a rush and some steps will be more “optional” than others, but the general progression is always the same. As long as I focus on these steps, I know my car is ready, my gear is ready, and my mind is clear enough to perform on track.
I had a permanent smile on my face after my first experience in an SRF3 during my weekend at Barber but there was so much I needed to improve. My previous track experience and simracing had helped me develop some basic skills and gave me some of the confidence I needed but I didn’t realize how much more track time I’d need to be competitive. There was only one option for me: find the next race and get out there again!
More from B2 Motorsports
Read more on the B2 Motorsports blog, see how an SRF3 weekend works on Race With Us, or learn about the Driver Development Program. Questions? Contact us, call or text 256-910-0658, or email info@b2motorsports.com.