vette6aut0x

Has nothing to do with talent. It has to do with a large sum of money.

John Shiels

Talent and money rarely come together.

jfaphoenix32

There really is no such thing as professional road racing... Its all a bunch of rich guys with money... A few get paid, but not many.

Go get a good education and find a good job that pays well and buy whatever you like...

sorry, but there is no answer to the riddle.

Charley Hoyt

In all seriousness...At 25 with little experience, your chances of making it to the top of F1, Indy, or even NASCAR are slim. Look up the Formula 1 site and look at the age of the drivers....Vettle won today's European Grand Prix at 22. At 30 you are considered very old in most forms of racing. If you question is serous (and I'm not sure it is), you should start autocrossing to get a good feel for car control. Then start doing all of the HPDEs you can afford. And all along the way take as many classes as you can and LISTEN to all of the experienced drivers....Their advice is usually very accurate and you will learn that you should listen despite not liking some of the answers. For example, when an earlier post said that you needed to start in carts at 10.....You may not like the answer....but, the advice you received is accurate. One of the experienced guys that I have learned a lot form gave me some great advice....Get LOTS of seat time. Because the only way to get good is through experience. The more seat time you get, the quicker you get experience.

With that said, once you are one of the fastest guys at you local HPDEs, go to a good school and get and SCCA license and start wheel to wheel racing. Keep in mind that this is not a cheep hobby. You have to decide how fast you can afford to be.

If you want to drive faster cars (if you have the money) Ferrari has a fantastic racing program called Corsa Cliente. Basically you buy a used Ferrari F1 car for somewhere between $1.5M and $2.5M and then pay Ferrari ~$0.5 to $1M for Ferrari to bring your car to all of the best tracks in the world. Ferrari also provides expert instruction from their staff test drivers.

In short...There is no short cut to anyplace worth going. The only way to get there is through hard work and large infusions of cash. You will also figure out that...the more you learn....the more you realize you don't know.

Best of luck in your quest

shakedown067

airspeed247

I'm sorry if it came across as not serious but I am 100% serious in asking. I was just trying to emphasis that an experienced racer could put some great input into this post to help anyone looking to do this into a reality.



I understand a great deal of racing is about money. Alot of you mentioned that its more about money then talent though. So why wouldn't the individuals with money and teams just scout out for fast drivers and beat all the "old guys with money"?

rfn026

Sports car racing is always about paying for your ride. You simply have to be able to write a very large check. Yes, I know a few people actually get paid to race sports cars, but most are buying rides.

You need to find a career that will allow you to make enough money to write that large check. You can be on a winning team in ALMS or Grand-AM if you can write that big check.

The real question here is what sort of job should I try to get so that I can buy a really cool ride next year at Sebring.

Richard Newton

BuckeyeZ06

Charley Hoyt

No offense intended. If you are serious...then get a LOT of seat time, Listen to those that have been there and accept their advice even when you don't like what you hear.

Enjoy the ride

Charley Hoyt

Great advice form a guy that really knows the business

mousecatcher

Well that's interesting because it's fundamentally different from your first question. The answer to your first question is

a) start with quite a lot of money and free time (ie, not money you have to work 60 hours a week for). seat time, seat time, seat time. I'd say a million bucks over 3 years would do it, just speaking roughly.
b) since you're somewhat old for this, make that QUITE a lot of money. (a million bucks is nothing these days.)

You can practice to see if you can join the club by literally wiping your *** with a hundred dollar bill. Or less colorfully, buy a beer with the $100 and leave all the change as a tip. If you're ready to do that without blinking you may be ready to go. Otherwise hang it up now.

You won't find a better value for the money as well as a better starting point than skip barber. But you will need to supplement that with karting and I'd do formula ford as well (regardless if you intend to do open wheel or tin tops).

Also, make sure you work out daily and are in top physical condition.

Sure there are guys who aren't super athletes and who aren't super drivers that are pro racers, but they know people and obviously you don't, so you will need to be at the top of your game. Pro racing is about the fans, not the drivers, so you need contacts but if you have the million+ to burn and can afford the leisure time you will find the connections.

efranzen

All the people saying you need money are not just poking fun at you. Racing is incredibly expensive, and there are only a very very small number of people who actually get paid to drive.

There are 2 ways you can aquire the money. Get a good career where you make the money yourself, or get sponsors to give you the money. But before you're going to get sponsors, you're going to have to prove yourself at some lower level of racing, which you will have to pay for yourself.

So to give everyone a better idea of what path you should take, you should give us a better idea of what you want and what your budget is.

What is it that you want to race? Open wheels? Sports cars? Stock Cars? Rally Cars? Karts? Vintage? The list is endless, but if we know where you want to eventually be a path can become more clear.

Also, how much money do you have to spend? A couple thousand a year? A few hundred thousand a year? A million or more? Knowing your budget can give us an idea of where you should get started.

Remember that just about everything your spending on racing is basically being flushed down the drain, unless you're spending it to promote yourself or your company. The ongoing costs of racing escalate dramatically as you go up the ranks. And even a cheap series like karting can cost thousands of dollars a year. Not to mention it doesn't matter if you're spending $5000 on a used Spec-Miata or $200,000 on a car and $80,000 on an engine; you have to be prepared to just throw that money away if you put it into the wall or grenade the motor.

As the old adage goes, if you want to make a small fortune in racing, start with a large one.

airspeed247

[QUOTE=efranzen;1574530582]

So to give everyone a better idea of what path you should take, you should give us a better idea of what you want and what your budget is.

What is it that you want to race? Open wheels? Sports cars? Stock Cars? Rally Cars? Karts? Vintage? The list is endless, but if we know where you want to eventually be a path can become more clear.

Also, how much money do you have to spend? A couple thousand a year? A few hundred thousand a year? A million or more? Knowing your budget can give us an idea of where you should get started.
QUOTE]


I did notice an instant trend towards needing alot of money right from the beginning and I should have counted on that answer coming.

I'd like to race Sports cars, vettes specifically, with an original plan of getting my car using the time while I paid it off to do autocross and HPDE's then after I had some years of seat time and it was paid off I coulld then begin to convert it into a race car. and go from there. This is all with the understanding and reality that I have thousands a year to spend rather then millions.

When I put professional in my question I see that the answers went straight towards "you have to be rich" and "you have to know people" when what I was really shooting for was this:

BESIDES HAVING TONS OF MONEY, what classes/schools are REQUIRED for you to go from my position to be in the pro class's racing wheel to wheel? What route did YOU take to get where you are?


Thanks again for all the input thus far.

ScaryFast

I think you need to define "pro racing". The answers you're getting about having deep pockets pertain to televised race series, such as ALMS or Rolex type series. And of course NASCAR, Indy, etc. However, you said you want to race 'vettes, so I assume you're not talking about stock cars or open wheel.

So.....if you are talking about competing in a 'vette you paid for and built (or paid to build), there are lots of options. You can either go up the HPDE chain with car clubs like NASA, or you can simply pay for a competition licensing school like Spring Mountain or Skip Barber and get your racing license in a weekend. It's just that simple.

If you really did mean you want to get paid to drive, well, all of the above responses apply and you have little chance of success. I'm not saying don't try, just that your chances are better of making it pro in the PGA. That's not a snide comment, that's the truth.

Earlier you asked why rich people don't just pay all of us young, talented drivers to win races for them. Well, because they want to drive themselves! Isn't that obvious? Isn't that what you want? The big guys like Ganassi and such that run teams used to drive but aren't able to do so anymore. Those are the few that pay drivers.

Rent a ride in a televised series like Continental Tire (formerly Koni challenge). For about $10 - 15k a weekend you can race against the pros. If you win some races, perhaps your options open up. That's the best advice you'll get.

mousecatcher

nothing is REQUIRED. it used to be (way back) you could "graduate" from SCCA to the pro classes but that is not the case any longer, largely just because of the decline in road racing in general. Still, SCCA T-1 is not a bad place to be to get started as it will humble you.

as for classes/schools, any of them will do. i'd do ALL of them if you want to make pro in a short time. the more folks you learn from the better you'll be.

honestly though, if you're actually making payments on your car you will never be able to achieve pro status or that caliber of driving skill. you just don't have the finances to get there at 25 yo. it's a very expensive sport, even to "train".

mousecatcher

lol that's peanuts. the very top kids are spending $100k.

95jersey

The responses to this thread are the very reason, I won't even attempt amatuer Miata racing. If I were single, had no plans for family or a future savings, I would have given it a shot. But your chances are probably HIGHER going on American Idol, winning and getting a record contract. That would probably be much easier than making a career at road racing (or maybe becoming a rock start, still probably easier).

I went to a Porsche PCA club race and could not beleive (at an amatuer level) the amount of money and high competition required to run in a no name series with absolutely no chance of getting anywhere. I remember getting all excited when I first started winning TT's...several years later it means absolutely nothing, no one cares, no money in road racing.

Heck if a guy like Hein rocket can't make it past T1, what is the point??

mousecatcher

oh, don't waste your time with autocross or HPDE. my advice is: do the schools (all of them). get a spec miata (yes, even if your goal is to race vettes). go racing as soon as you can. you will realize you suck ... do a school or 2 again. hire a private coach and do every track day and more importantly every race you can. after a year, you can think about maybe getting on track with the vette. don't be discouraged if you don't win spec miata, it takes quite a lot of money even in that so-called "cheap" class, to actually put together a winning car. the important thing will be if you are maximizing what your car is capable of.

unfortunately, it's really a fantasy approach since you don't have the budget even for that discount approach.

Bink

In my mind a "pro racer" is one whose profession is racing. E.G - Factory drivers, F1, Nascar.

The best path is to start in Karts at age 3-5. Most (if not all) of the greats of the past 30 years started in Karts. Age 10 is a little late.

It's all about reflexes and muscle memory. Refexes start to demonstrably deteriorate after age 29.

mousecatcher

Said with a slight grin, but true. For performing artists, if you are actually good you can get deals. Not true for road racing at the pro level.