Tell Us About Your First Race Car

So expanding on Colin's thread.

Our 1972 Datsun 1200. We bought it as a $270 street car in 1984. In 1989 we started autocrossing it. Shortly thereafter we began prepping for road racing.

In 1992 I finally made it to SCCA drivers school, at that point we had $1800 in it. In 1994 it was actually pictured in a feature in Road & Track magazine about getting a race license.

Flash forward 30+ years and it's 12 seconds a lap faster and now represents a $9000 investment.

well "first" was a 73 VW squareback I got for $200.   I dont know why but I thought it would be fun to do some kind of vintage racing with it although I had no exposure to such prior to this.  I found my local SCCA autocross and took it out.   That set the hook, after that event I went out and found a clapped out but functional 83 GTI before the next event.     

First REAL car was the following season when I got my hands on a fully prepped 69 MG Midget from one of my new mentors in the local club and got a taste for properly prepped cars.  

In reply to Tom1200 :

Great story  

In 1962 A 1948 Buick Roadmaster   (320 cu in straight 8 ). Run in Hobby stock. ( 1/4 mile dirt circle track)  removed everything that unbolted. And cold chiseled out some sheet metal.  
      An old swing set donated tubing for a roll bar and I "learned" how to weld using an old Sears stick welder.  
  Um, chickens poop better than my welds. But everything stuck together when the tech inspector  gently pulled on it.   The tires were mostly bald except two recapped snow tires  we were told to put on the outside  leaving the two bald tires for the drivers side.  A fellow racer cut 3 coils off the left front spring almost dropping the car to the bump stop.  And heated up the rear spring until it sagged almost as much. 
          My helmet was an old football helmet with the front guard hacksawed off.  A greasy T shirt , jeans,  and  cloth tennis shoes were the rest of my "safety attire" 
   I was 14 years old but claimed I was 16.  Signed my name and paid my $2 entry fee and I was in.  
   I finished the 5 lap qualifier dead last and the same  racer who had helped me out earlier came and got the engine running on all 8  and told me to leave it in second gear once I got rolling, don't shift he said.  
     13 cars started with me but only 7 finished and I was 3rd.  3rd place paid $10.  So I broke even in only one race!!! 

As purchased in 2013 for $740, because my friend only had $20s on him. Talked the guy down because the A/C wasn't working. Raced from 2013 to 2016 on the stock engine and trans at CMP, Barber and Sebring. I love my 1979 300SD, Planet Express

I had been autocrossing my street car for two or three years already. I was doing a construction job, and the homeowner's son had a 1979 Civic 1200 sitting on the side of the road without plates on it. It was a little lumpy, but very solid. I asked him if he would sell it, and we settled on $275. I came back with a new battery and a plate and drove it home. 
 

I cleaned it up and got it running really nicely. I kept it stock at first, with the exception of a set of very early Accord rims, which were an inch taller and an inch wider than the later ones, along with some fat Yokohama A-008Rs. 
 

Eventually, I gutted it, making a feather light car even lighter, and added a bunch of crude racing parts from A-T Engineering.  I think I ran it in D-Mod. 

My first racecar is also my only racecar. I bought a bone stock 1990 Miata in 2014 with the intent of autocrossing, and first began autocrossing it in 2015. It had mystery springs on Tokico blues, 15x8 Jongbloed wheels and an exhaust. 

Now, almost 8 years later, it has a supercharged 1.8L that makes 250whp, 15x9" wheels with 245-width tires, Xida coilovers, a 6-speed, a Torsen swap with 3.63:1 gears and a whole bunch of other stuff.

B13 SE-R back when G Stock autocross was all about the MINIs and the R compounds.  Learned a lot, still think other fwd cars mostly drive like crap by comparison, have had a LOT of different stuff since:

frenchyd said:

In 1962 A 1948 Buick Roadmaster   (320 cu in straight 8 ). Run in Hobby stock. ( 1/4 mile dirt circle track)  removed everything that unbolted. And cold chiseled out some sheet metal.  
      An old swing set donated tubing for a roll bar and I "learned" how to weld using an old Sears stick welder.  
  Um, chickens poop better than my welds. But everything stuck together when the tech inspector  gently pulled on it.   The tires were mostly bald except two recapped snow tires  we were told to put on the outside  leaving the two bald tires for the drivers side.  A fellow racer cut 3 coils off the left front spring almost dropping the car to the bump stop.  And heated up the rear spring until it sagged almost as much. 
          My helmet was an old football helmet with the front guard hacksawed off.  A greasy T shirt , jeans,  and  cloth tennis shoes were the rest of my "safety attire" 
   I was 14 years old but claimed I was 16.  Signed my name and paid my $2 entry fee and I was in.  
   I finished the 5 lap qualifier dead last and the same  racer who had helped me out earlier came and got the engine running on all 8  and told me to leave it in second gear once I got rolling, don't shift he said.  
     13 cars started with me but only 7 finished and I was 3rd.  3rd place paid $10.  So I broke even in only one race!!! 

Did you sell your story to Peter Egan?  I swear he wrote one in R&T years ago that matches that nearly exactly.  

I think it looks like autocross cars might be included here, so I'll chime in. 
 

A little GRM, relevant background first. In January 2015 (verified on my user profile) I registered and started to get active on GRM. I started to consider that I would like to do some sort of motor sports, but had no budget and didn't really realize at that time how accessible auto cross was.

By the winter of 2018, I had gotten a bonus check for training some other doctors and had enough money for a cheap Miata. 
 

This isn't the order you're supposed to do this in, but I bought the Miata, a helmet, joined the SCCA, and went to my first event on April 1, 2018. It was at the Orange County convention center in Orlando. That place is massive and I drove around for 90 minutes before I found the correct parking lot, I missed the course walk, starting my long list of rookie mistakes. 
 

The car was a Miata. I thought I wanted to own since I'd had no clue. That was the first autocross that I ever went to, I didn't even know anything about classing. It was a 2001 sport with the big brakes, six speed, and some modifications that made it totally non-competitive.

The previous owner had it painted in Mazdaspeed lava orange and some Mazdaspeed body parts to make it look like one, a roll bar, aftermarket steering wheel, and a race seat. 

To make it even less useful for auto cross, it had the original suspension including original shocks and long rotted away bump stops. It fuel starved and shut off momentarily in the hard turns, turned out it had dead leaves in the fuel tank. 
 

I put quite a bit of work into the car, and once it got a set of Sensen shocks off eBay with bump stops it was a lot more drivable. I bought a set of used stock wheels with some three year old RE-71 R tires, and I was able to get a third place finish in one of the local events. To make it competitive in STR, I would've had to put a lot of money end of the suspension, plus a tune, at least. It actually wouldn't have been legal for the class then anyway, since it had a lightweight fly wheel.

A year later, I replaced it with my 99 sport, which is already totally sorted for E Street and has been a great car for me. 

It took me most of the summer of 2019 to sell the orange car, and I probably lost $5000 on it after sorting out all of the delayed maintenance. I was lucky to get $5400 for it, including the hardtop.

In reply to A 401 CJ :

No, he raced a straight 8 Buick Hobby stocker?  That's really cool.  I actually had him here once about 20 years ago looking at a chrome bumper MGB. 
  He was a nice guy but a bit younger than me.  

Started out autocrossing in 1970 with a '64 VW bug.  Ford wheels, redline recap tires...

Soon tired of that.  Built a car to win FTD.  Went on to win like 50 FTDs in the mid-70s.

Went roadracing in SCCA FC class when I was 48.

Its been a great run.

In reply to Purple Frog (Forum Supporter) :

My son is trying to talk me in a FC but I'd prefer an air-cooled Super Vee.

After the Daewoo Cielo I wrote about in the Worst Car thread became too much of an achey-breaky PITA, money from its sale went towards the AE92. I was really looking for something RWD and 1.8L or more, but the AE92 was the best I could find, and after thinking about it for a week or two I pulled the trigger on it. I can count the number of better cars I might've been able to afford over the next decade+ on my ears so I think it was a good decision.

It was kinda smoky from day one so I had an engine rebuild or swap pencilled in for the future early on, but it was a big step up in reliability from the Daewoo and worlds more fun plus far easier on the eyes. I would hypermile it to save up gas for some fun on the weekends. When I saw an opportunity to drive as fast as I could on track for money I could afford in an autocross, of course I was in. This led to participating in barely controlled unofficial 3rd-world track days and eventually the long list of performance mods it has now. Currently getting the body repaired and repainted.

Here's me trying out my new Gen1 GoPro I got as a birthday gift (alongside my old rigged-up digicam setup between the headrests) in an autocross way back when:

Waaay back in the mid 1980's I AutoX'd my 280Z a few times, so I guess that was the first.... 'race' car.

It had springs, shocks, swaybars, exhaust and a big cam, and that was when I learned that most popular street mods are counterproductive to AutoX classing.  It was eventually stolen and stripped, so life moved on...

Next was the first car I was pretty serious about racing, my '89 LX Mustang, and it was the first car that entered any official 'races'... on the dragstrip.  But it was always a street/strip car, and I drove it every day for 100k miles.

I went from drag racing cars to drag racing bikes, then to road racing bikes, then to road racing cars... with our NA Miata.  The Miata is what I consider to be my first 'real' race car, because it's my first car to give up any pretensions of being a 'street' car even though it's registered and insured.  One seat, full cage, fire system, etc.  

Technically this was my first race car. When I posted this I was thinking wheel to wheel racing but since we are included autocross this was the first race car. I only got to autocross it 2-3 times and did one test day. The motor gave up the ghost and I really couldn't afford to fix it. On the plus side being a vintage car I actually made a small profit on it.

In reply to Tom1200 :

Why?  Your F600 (yeah, the class gets a name change next year) can be almost as fast as an FC for a lot less $$.

My first race car never saw any real competition. 1971 BMW 2002 bought in 1991 when I got out of grad school. Had a bolt-in cage put into it and did a bunch of track days in it.

I was crewing for a guy who raced Showroom Stock in SCCA, and I wanted to race, so I figured I'd take the winter and prep the thing for Improved Touring. Four years later, I finally got the car done-ish and went to my competition school. Totaled the car on the last session of the 2nd day of a three day school. Found a car to rent to finish the school and got signed off, but didn't have a car.

Bought an '87 CRX Si from a co-worker for $200 with a seized cam. Had a new top end put on, street-drove it for a bit, then had a real cage built for it and went racing in ITA (with 150k miles on the bottom end of the motor)

Eventually I had the thing dialed-in pretty good, but it was hopelessly outclassed in ITA.

Sold it just before it was re-classed into ITB and would have become one of the cars to have in class...

It warms my heart to read Tom1200's story, because my first race car was a Datsun 1200, too! I bought my '72 1200 in high school and autocrossed it for a few years. I actually set top stock time of day at one of the autocrosses, which gave me lots of confidence.

After high school I moved to the big city (Seattle) from eastern Washington. I autocrossed it a few times, but really wanted to go road racing. I did a few driver's training events with the International Conference of Sports Car Clubs (ICSCC), and got my Novice license. Over a few years I slowly built it into a race car (cage and safety equipment), and finally started racing in 1984. It turns out that the 1200 was a very competitive car in it's class (I Production, the slowest production class, which is roughly equivalent to SCCA's IT class). I learned a lot about car preparation and driving, and won several class championships before moving on to a faster car. In the early days I'd drive the car to and from the races, but eventually I joined the big leagues and got a tow car (Chevy Townsman station wagon) and trailer which made the whole endevour less stressful.

The 1200 was a ton of fun to race, because it was so light - 1560 lbs minimum race weight if I recall. But it only got 72 horsepower, so it was slow down the straights.That was frustrating because in a mixed class grid you ended up stuck behind cars that would blast away down the straights, but then hold you up in the turns. A familiar tune to anyone who has driven a Miata at the track!

Look at the cars in the background! 510, Fiero, Scirocco, LeCar, Mini, third generation Civic, and a Rabbit. This was taken in 1984 or 85.

In reply to RacerBoy75 :

I drove my car on the street for the first little bit as well. 1200s are such fun cars.

triumph7 said:

In reply to Tom1200 :

Why?  Your F600 (yeah, the class gets a name change next year) can be almost as fast as an FC for a lot less $$.

That is exactly where I'm at right now. We'll see how it goes with the upgrade to the Rotax motor. The extra 20hp should cut several seconds of the lap times.

I've owned it for 8 years now and that is the longest I've owned any single seat car. It's pretty low maintenance.

This is how I found the car at the purchase of what has been an saga.  The car has been a classic example of "when you buy a used race car"..

But one thing that I would recommend, spend some seat time in the car at a local autocross event.  I have found a number of issues that would have turned a track event into a profound waste of money and time.  

The effort to get to Lone Pine and run was rewarded by finding an issue with the rear sub frame bushings that would have ended a higher speed event with the potential of wadding up the car.  This event was flat out in third shifting into forth and experiencing the rear end moving around.  I mean the rear sub frame. The problem turned out that the aftermarket bushings has crystallized.  The sub frame was moving around and sluffing parts that allowed even more movement.

There have been other things to fix along the way but it has been worth it.  Not chasing room for wide tires, not an issue.

Though I had autocrossed a few DDs here and there over the years, my first regular car for autocross was a 2000 Maxima, running in MR, DSP, and EP back in the early 2000s.. Mostly stock drivetrain, but had a lot of suspension upgrades, z32 4-pots and bigger rotors up front, and a lot of underside chassis bracing (which caused the bump up to EP)...

It's amazing how many badly-driven Factory Five Cobras you can beat in a big FWD sedan. I usually finished in the top half of EP at any given event lol.