I spend a lot of time talking about the human side of motorsports, how we have to be rational and efficient if we ever hope to get close to our true potential. We are all fighting the clock to see how good we can be and to have fun along the way, to enjoy the process. We all have our heroes who we use for inspiration. We like their stories; we find them relatable and see some of their attributes in ourselves, and this provides useful motivation. Whether it’s Senna, Clark, Fangio, Moss, Villeneuve, Schumacher, Hamilton, or Verstappen, they are very different individuals with different personalities, but all ended up at the very top of the podium more so than most.
Motorsports has seen many changes over the decades that have opened track driving up to a much larger group of people. Motorsports have been made much more accessible, and, in many ways, that is a very good thing. Sadly, though, in the quest for cheaper and easier, some things were lost along the way. Since these changes are old enough to be considered generational, we have a different culture at the track than existed before. They don’t know what they are missing since the old guard isn’t there to remind them. It’s a genuine paradigm shift in the way things are thought of and therefore done.
You do hear of something these days called “traditional” motorsports, referring to Formula cars, sports cars, racing and the ladder system (how you progress up the ranks), and it is just now a much less popular subset of motorsports generally. The club-based track day groups dominate track rental and usage. The net is that the track day crowd has about a ten to one advantage, and they are two distinct and separate ways to enjoy motorsports, each having a different focus. Traditional has a career as the goal, while track day is a hobbyist.
We all share the same heroes, though, whether it’s track day or traditionalist professional racing that provides the motivation for enjoying driving on a track. That is the fantasy fulfillment part that pushes us all. The track day crowd hasn’t yet produced a hero. It’s a bit surprising, given its huge numbers advantage and, in my opinion, it seldom will produce a hero, because of its culture. Now, it’s important to say that’s OK, not everyone needs a shot at the big leagues, even if they idolize someone who did. Track days and the culture that grew out of track days are much more about having fun – maximum seat time in a safe environment based on mostly road cars.
There is a basic downside, though, because the standards of track access had to be made so much easier (no professional school required), because that was the big road block. Very few people could see the reasoning behind all of the required training. It seemed like an unnecessary money grab by the schools. Why? Because the very people that want to go on the track consider themselves excellent drivers already, and therefore don’t feel they need any training.
I know this because I have worked and managed several professional schools. Almost everyone who called wanted to know how quickly on the first day they got to go out on the track and how much total track time there was. Any “paddock exercises” or classroom sessions were considered to be beneath them, so we were under constant pressure from sales and marketing to reduce them and increase lapping time. The conundrum we were in is obvious, when you think about it. Then here come the track day groups, “track time for everyone, no minimal experience necessary.” This was the message every self-proclaimed excellent driver was dying to finally hear. “These guys get it; I don’t want to or need to go to school, I just want to get out on the track and drive.” Thousands and thousands of people flooded racetracks all over the world over the course of ten years or so. Track days won and traditional racing numbers dwindled; even karting suffering as a result. It was nothing less than a paradigm shift that financially helped get tracks built and keep them profitable (which is great), but at the same time traditional schools and racing in general suffered. The absolute irony of all this is that track days succeeded because they marketed to the illusion that everyone who really liked driving enough was ready to drive on the track. People unwittingly flocked in and, due to their lack of ability and experience, created an insular culture that would all but ensure they would never get the chance to become an actual excellent driver.
I’m probably sounding a bit like a bitter motorsports traditionalist whining about a battle he lost but won’t move on from. You know what? Now thinking about it, that’s pretty accurate! But it is for real reasons; it’s not completely my pride I’m trying to protect here. It is your potential I am most worried about; that’s what got thrown out with the new culture. Now I sound like a parent or, worse yet, a teacher – “If they would just apply themselves, they could reach their potential.” Yikes, is that me now? I guess I better own it so we can move on.
You just have to decide what’s important to you: having fun on the track or challenging yourself on the track (which, BTW, can be just as much fun). One is enjoying building your car, hanging out with buddies, all low stress relatively. It’s super fun and an experience, for sure. The other is the competitive side. We need to always be faster; when we spend a dollar, what gets us the best return in lap time? There always is competition on the track, whether it is spoken of or not. It’s just that one culture deemphasizes it, while the other cherishes it and holds it central in its culture. Are you more interested in having fun or chasing/creating the best version of yourself?
That track day culture I am referring to creates really weird car setups that don’t work in traditional motorsports, all because the drivers have skipped learning the fundamentals that everyone has to be taught (they are not natural); they haven’t been given the early guidance that gives you a process and a framework that teaches you to rationally, logically, and efficiently make yourself more complete and, yes, faster. As a result, most of us spend much too much money on our cars when we should be investing in ourselves. Again, this all comes from the culture. If there isn’t a real professional traditional racer running the show, all we are left with is more seat time and spending money on our cars to make them faster, while we dream of selling them and buying faster cars still. We can think we don’t need help because even the data shows we are as good as anyone else out there. We are trapped in an expensive circle of mediocrity, but the good news is we don’t realize it because everyone is doing it. That’s the good news; the bad news is that motorsports is slowly dying because no one wants to put in the work to really be good at it. We like experiences over real, gritty, hard earned adventures. We like the idea of being challenged but not the reality of it. We are missing out on life, as a result; it’s not about experiences, it’s about conquering adversity for personal gain in the form of skills and the wisdom it brings. Track days are artificial. They are just a detailed simulation of motorsports. What would our heroes say? Would they be impressed with our choices? To invest more in our cars than ourselves? Luckily, we don’t have to theorize about what they would advise. Almost all have written a book or done dozens of interviews, and the message between all of this collective wisdom is consistent, so let’s listen to our heroes and what they have to say.
It starts with the right environment, so that means finding the right culture for us. It could very well be doing track day. I generalize a lot (you have to when you write or it just gets too unwieldy and confusing), but there are heathy track day cultures of varying degrees. Find one that challenges you and puts more emphasis on your growth than your car, make sure they endlessly teach fundamentals, easy access to a skid pad, braking exercise, and classroom sessions. That’s better, but what they’re really saying is to go karting (not indoor karting, which is OK and better than nothing, but, in the grand scheme of things, doesn’t add up to much). Proper outdoor karting (like direct drive or shifter 2-strokes, to be clear) is the most productive fun that can be had in motorsports (until you can spend mid six figures on a purpose-built race car) and it costs less, is cheaper to run, and is faster than nearly any track day car. If we could shift the serious 10% of track day drivers into karting, we could keep motorsports growing, heathy, and alive. In actual fact, 75% would probably like it significantly better than track days, and you could go back to having a reasonable street car, not much of a trailer (if any; it’s optional), more garage space, cheap consumables, etc. Oh, and you’d actually be racing wheel to wheel and, instead of stagnating (and thinking you need a newer, faster car to fix that), you would have the consistent challenge to improve yourself and your process. Get professional coaching, go to professional schools. Once karting has spit you out a competitive driver, you head to Formula Ford, F4, F3, F2 and so on. You don’t ever have to leave karting; it has everything you need for a lifetime of love and growth as a driver, and that’s why our heroes always went back to it. You are never too good or outgrow it. It will always have the best bang for your buck in motorsports. Another path, though, to potentially follow is making the jump over to sports cars (after some F4 and F3) with LMP3 and on up that ladder. The point is that now you are well beyond the skill set of anyone at a track day, all because you pivoted and spent your time and money in a more beneficial direction. It’s the same you but because you put yourself on a more efficient path, this you is orders of magnitude a better driver than you would have been if you hadn’t taken this risk and gotten out of the loop. You’re now in an years long funnel of growth and on the other end is the potential for you to one day become someone’s hero.