Racing Your Collectible, Show and Daily Driver Car

On the pages of Racing in America, I’ve jotted down some of my escapades driving my 1970 Mustang and my 1984 Vette at drag racing events and auto cross events.  This is more fun that I could find the words to explain.  You just have to do, to know.

However, these events can have a toll on your cars.  This can be extremely expensive in terms of maintenance, parts, tires, wheels, glass, headlights and even paint and chrome work.  This is even a bit more work in my case: My cars are show cars as well, both winning trophies at local shows and enjoyed by the kids and, yes, even adults, as I allow the passersby to sit in and take pictures with both vehicles.  Upkeep is a killer and toss in the fact that my Vette is, was (I’ll explain in a bit) my daily driver.  That means that it raced on a Sunday and had to be in good repair for Monday.  True, I had the Mustang as a backup so that wasn’t so horrible.  But many average guys don’t have that fortunate option (yes, my wife is a saint).

Learning to race in them can just compound the issues above.  Rookie mistakes can cause transmissions, clutch and suspension damage.  Dents and dings are a possible no matter if you are rookie or profession, but rubber flying off the tires is assured and cleaning that off the paint takes some elbow grease (without damaging the paint), oh, and the tires themselves aren’t presentable for car show and last only a 1/3 rd of the mileage.

I began learning how to drag race with my Mustang and I began learning the twist and turns of auto cross with my 84 Corvette.  This turned a toll on both cars, but the corvette suffered the most.  If you follow my Average Guy’s Car Restoration, Mod and Racing, you’d know about the suspension problems and power steering, and rack and pinion issues.

This resulted in a difficult decision, with repairs mounting and the 84 Vette spending more time apart then together, forcing me to turn the Mustang into my daily driver, I need to either discontinue racing it or replace it with something more reliable. (And ‘NO’ getting a third car isn’t an option – the Ms. is saint, but I’m afraid that would be a little too much, even for her – I know this because, she told me so…she’s always seem to be .5 steps ahead me!!!) 

Then I came upon a deal on this:

2007 Corvette, LS2 Coupe, 6 speeds manual. 

So I found a home for my 84 and I purchased the 07.

Yes, it is my new daily driver and yes, I will take it to car shows and I will run it in auto cross and drag racing events.  However, I’m going to learn how to handle the 6 speeds and 400 horsepower (that’s got to change!!!!), from the professionals.

As you all know there is a growing number of racing schools and I’ve already explored one professional team, Bondurant School of High Performance driving (I’ll discuss that in my next piece) as well as the driving skills taught to me back when I was a  police officer. 

But for my latest  acquisition I’m learning from a Sports Car Club of America (SCCA) professional driver during EVO School coming up in one of our events (Oct. 16⁾  The  individual will drive you car  first, then you get 5 rides with the instructor and 5 on your own. 

But I’m going to learn the proper shifting, acceleration, braking and cone-killing avoidance techniques. I’ll provide the details when I done. 

- Tim Sweet

Read more from Tim Sweet at Average Guy's Car Restoration, Mods and Racing

Photo Credits: Tim Sweet