Tim Sweet's blog

If you've read my blog or found me on Facebook or MySpace or various forums, you know that I recently picked up a 07 Corvette, which I love.

First, as the holiday season approaches (much faster than I am prepared for) I want to wish everyone a joyful one. Speaking of joyful, one of the things that tops my list of enjoyable events is car shows.  Attending either as an entrant or just showing up to wander around, I find it relaxing and fun.

So, let's discuss my autocross events.  Thus far there have been three.  My first was with my local ("local" as in all of Arizona) and informal Corvette club, "Arizona Corvette Enthusiasts" or "ACE".  These folks are great and if I haven't mentioned it in this forum previously, go join a local car club. The informal ones are the best in my opinion.

It's not very average that the Average Guy gets to go to racing school.  It's not very average for the Average Guy to attend a professional racing school event either.  In most cases it's not even close to being affordable, at least not for this Average Guy with an Average Budget!!!  Ok..that's not 100% true, and I'll mentions a couple good deals that I found at the end of this series of articles.

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.

In Part 1, I began talking about my experience and the costs of joining a Sports Car Club of America (SCCA) event.  So let's get to my runs.  As I mentioned before, there were 2 sets of runs, one for time and points and one for just time.  Each was five trips on the course.

The name of my blog includes "racing". This doesn't mean I'm watching on TV and reporting back; it's meant to be my events. My blog title also includes "Average" and includes budgets as well. (You might as well include 'time', as in the average amount of time to spend on the hobby.)

Being an average guy ...say it with me....."with an average budget and average tools"...I travel light to the drag strip.

We've established that street tires are OK to run at the strip, but not as effective as the true soft, no-tread drag racing slicks. So, if I wanted to take it a step further I'd be looking for something in the middle.

This is a tough one. Strictly, from a budget point of view...noooope. I run my Mustang and Vette with the street tires.