Greatest Motorsports Experiences

As the title says, what are some of your greatest motorsports experiences?

As digital photography didn't exist at the time, I don't have any photos of the sole ALMS Grand Prix of DC on anything but 35mm, so I'll share a few pictures of my trip to the Pikes Peak Hillclimb museum. 

Feel free to chip in yours and share.

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My greatest motorsports  experience was winning at Bridgehampton. Scanned from 35mm slide taken by my mother in 1983.

I own a Honda CM200T TwinStar. All of 15hp. It's my fist bike and as close to a hot rod project I've ever had. 

My hotrod friends hosted a traditional hot rod show at Great Lakes Dragaway for 65 and older cars. Technically,  my bike is too new, but it looks old, and with so few bikes, they let it slide. 

Test and tune was for about 4 hours in the morning. One time, I lined up against a blown, fuel altered. The flag man looks at my tiny little bike, comes up to me, and apologetically asks, "Well...do you want to run him?"

"...berkeley, yeah! This will never happen again! " 

I snap the visor down on the helmet and set my revs. That altered was gone so fast. I didn't care. I wanted to see how fast I could go. The driver was stopped and already unbuckled by the time I showed up on the return road.

I still didn't care. I can safely say I'm the only guy on a 6 volt TwinStar to ever run against a blown altered down a drag strip. 

I could never be so lucky again.

I was station in Italy with my best friend.  We rode our motorcycles to Mugello Circuit and camped at the track during the whole weekend of Moto GP.  Valentino Rossi didn't win the race but you'd never know it by the celebrations and partying.  Once in a lifetime type of experience.

One time I ran a Lemons race weekend with no mechanical failures.

Getting into the under 7 minute club on the Brooklyn Tavern stage in my clapped out, lowest-powered car on the list, 323 gtx. The brakes were on fire, we barely made it through the last set of esses before the flying finish, it was awesome...

11 year old STM317 spent a summer hanging out/working with Kenny Berstein's Bud King Top Fuel team.

I spent many Saturday nights as a kid going to the local roundy-round races with my Dad.  My wife is a fan, too, so we've been to many more together.  One saturday night, I decided, "I'm gonna give this a try!"  Bought a local Neon:

Cleaned it up and prepped it some:

And won the first time out!

I've had a great time with it since then, but that first win was incredible!

Attending the Goodwood Festival of Speed back in 2011 was an amazing motorsports experience. There's just so much to see and do that it's overwhelming.

The adrenaline rush of my 'first time' motorsports experiences are also very memorable: going wide-open on an ATV as an 11 year old; learning to steer with the throttle as a 16 year old; karting for the first time; connecting corner-to-corner four wheel drifts in autocross; hooning a Ferrari; etc.

Goodwood is on my buclet list.

Sebring is a total bucket list track for me. Making that first lap, having memories of games and videos come back, eventually winning our class. I don't think LeMons will go back but I'm so glad we went. 

Getting my car in the intro of GRM Live?

Years ago my local autocross club had an event on a totally crappy day that ended up being lightly attended.  Me and another club member would have been the only ones running in our respective classes: Me in my Spec V (see the avatar) and he in his shiny new lightly modded CTS-V.  We are both roughly equivalent in driving skill, so the club chair said "Congratulations, you're both SM today".  Obviously, his car was significantly faster, but the course kind of favored the smaller/lighter SE-R.  That was the day I learned to rotate the car by throwing it into a corner, getting the back end to slide, then using the LSD to drag the car through the corner.  The course had a "hairpin turn" that was perfect for that maneuver and I made up a LOT of ground on the Caddy in that turn.  We traded the lead pretty much every run and ended up getting 6 or 7 runs in.  He nipped me by a tenth or two, but it was still the most fun I've ever had autocrossing.  

The greatest is always the last race that I most recently competed in

the more; the merrier :)

Running the Targa Newfoundland as #1. #2 would be being crew chief to four cars at the T25 - and winning. I like my events long :)

I’ve been to a bunch of big events as a spectator - Le Mans Classic, Mille Miglia, F1, Sebring 12h, Daytona 24, Daytona 500 - but it’s just not the same. 

My first season of autocross, I was running this in CP against a wicked 71 Camaro on Victoracers. I was in CP because my engine was balanced and had a cam. The 225k mile suspension had stock bushings and Ford Motorsport lowering springs. My tires were Cooper Cobras. He was in CP because his car was machined from a billet of pure Awesome.

One day, the course had a left sweeper through an intersection, then a 100 or so foot straight, then another left through another intersection, then a right pin turn, back through the second intersection, slalom up the other side, back through the first intersection, then a short straight to two gates that were 40 feet apart, but 40 feet offset, to the finish. I had the radio on, and Beastie Boys "Fight For Your Right to Party" came on just as the starter waved the green flag at me. The powerslide began 60' before the left sweeper. I had to gather it up a little to make it through the intersection, then let it back out for the straight. I didn't even hit the brakes for the hard left through the intersection, just let off the throttle some and turned the wheel harder, and let the tires scrub off the speed, then flipped the tail around the pin. Slalomed back, and basically Scandinavian Flicked the offset gates before the finish. I was happy, the SSS was not. At the end of the day, I overheard a shifter kart driver telling his buddy, "The guy in that goddamn Fairmont should be driving a berkeleying stunt car on a berkeleying movie set!"  I was even more happy. Also, that run was 1.5 seconds faster than anything else I did that day. I lost to the Camaro. 

I had a memorable career when racing harness horses, some track records, season championships, and breaking the 16 race win streak of the best pacer in the country. 

For Motorsports, I did see Kenny Bernstein beat 300 mph for the first time in top fuel.

Number 2 would be last summer, when I ran my current Fairmont down the back straight of Summit Point Shenandoah attached firmly to the back of a C7 Corvette, only to find out later, when the driver came over to ask me about it, then let me know that it was not a Stingray, but a Z06, and yes, it did have the supercharger recall done. 

You never forget your first win. Dad and I raced karts together when I was 14-15.  We dominated by winning both heat races and the feature that day. I ended up winning the track championship for my division that year, but the first win was the most memorable.

I had 2. Both came from working races. Scary how many times I've been on TV doing that. 

1 was when I was working for SMI at Texas Motor Speedway. One of the cars got into the wall out of 2 and just dropped parts all down the back stretch. Worked down the back stretch picking up track trash and had to pause because the pack was coming up on me. So I'm standing there at the front drivers corner of the truck as the entire pack comes by. As a kid that grew up watching NASCAR....My whole body just tingled. The earth was just moving with the rumble of 35 stock cars passing by just 6 feet away. Incredible.

The second was working the turn at the top of the corkscrew at Laguna Seca. You are flagging from the the top of the wall with maybe 5 feet from the apex of the track there. It was the IMSA Conti race which that year was 4 hours. I was just in heaven the entire race.

The next day was a little more embarrassing. Was working turn three and Patrick Long broke a driveshaft and pulled into the gate there. Went down to check on him and he was fine but no one had the combination for the lock for the gate so it took forever to get the right people with the correct combination. I had to go up to him at Daytona the next year and apologize to him. He was really cool about it though. I still have his hero card that he signed from that weekend.

Most memorable would be getting up the nerve to go flat out in fourth gear through turn 1 at Mont Tremblant in my GTI. Woah.

Also memorable was flat out through turn 10 at Carolina Motorsports Park. Was a slight kink to the right over the curbing where the two shorter tracks came together. In my 81 Scirocco with ABA 2.0 conversion.

Non track related would be meeting and having dinner with Andy Pilgrim following a day of driver ed conferences.

snailmont5oh said:

My first season of autocross, I was running this in CP against a wicked 71 Camaro on Victoracers. I was in CP because my engine was balanced and had a cam. The 225k mile suspension had stock bushings and Ford Motorsport lowering springs. My tires were Cooper Cobras. He was in CP because his car was machined from a billet of pure Awesome.

 

 

Had to love the days before CAM classes when having an aftermarket camshaft (or even one from another car) put you all the way up in Cam Prison with the race cars.

In reply to JesseWolfe :

Racing with the great vintage cars of my era at my Navy base,North Island San Diego

I went to driver's school at Bridgehampton in my HP Honda S600, got licensed and won my first race. Lots of moments since, but that was really cool.

Attending the Indy 500 20x with the first six years watching my dad work as a fireman in the pits.  

Attending Road America races with my uncle/dad and cousin at the late 1960’s CanAm races.  Camping with my buddies in the early 1980’s.  Taking my girlfriend in the mid 1980’s.  Attending with my younger brothers in the late 1980’s. Going in my roadster in my 1990’s.  Taking my children in the 2000’s.  Even going by myself once in a while.  Going with my 5-year old nephew last year and someday taking my grandchildren in the future.   

Getting drunk on 3.2 beer at Gravelrama in 1981 in Cleves, Ohio.