BEST advice so far. A year stooging for a regular team, washing parts, breaking down/mounting tires, checking tire pressures and stagger, observing set up changes as the night goes on is better than anything somebody is going say to you or read in a book. Hands on is the best teacher. Buy a good torque wrench and learn how to use it properly. And unless somebody has some very expensive tools and knows how to use a TIG torch; few "build"sprint cars. They buy parts and put them together.
Originally Posted by motorhead748:
Sounds like you've taken the first steps correctly.... now take it a little further. Speak to the owner of the BOSS series and find one of his regulars that may be based close to you. Approach them and offer to help for a year, do the grunt work, buy them a tire or something every now & then. Listen & observe but stay out of the way. At the end of the year you will be light years ahead of where you are and for the most part on someone else's dime.
Show up with a mud scrapper and a bucket of water. Good luck to you
Originally Posted by motorhead748:
Sounds like you've taken the first steps correctly.... now take it a little further. Speak to the owner of the BOSS series and find one of his regulars that may be based close to you. Approach them and offer to help for a year, do the grunt work, buy them a tire or something every now & then. Listen & observe but stay out of the way. At the end of the year you will be light years ahead of where you are and for the most part on someone else's dime.
Good advice unless you happen to hook up with a team that doesn't know what they are doing. Because your a regular doesn't mean you have a firm grip. Once your in the pits you could learn lots by just hovering near a few different good teams during the night.
Personally I'd worry about getting a good solid car, pit help ect. and then I'd jump into the deep end.
If you buy a used car ask about a note book. It is worth more then it's weight in gold. Most good teams write things down. You should be able to hit the track with your car being very close the first time.
Originally Posted by Backitin:
Good advice unless you happen to hook up with a team that doesn't know what they are doing. Because your a regular doesn't mean you have a firm grip. Once your in the pits you could learn lots by just hovering near a few different good teams during the night.
Personally I'd worry about getting a good solid car, pit help ect. and then I'd jump into the deep end.
If you buy a used car ask about a note book. It is worth more then it's weight in gold. Most good teams write things down. You should be able to hit the track with your car being very close the first time.
Then the OP misses the most important part of racing... the preparation that is done in the garage. I've long said the race is won in the shop. Now if the OP has a fair bit of a gearhead background that may not be as necessary but I didn't get that impression by his statement that he wanted to hire someone to build him a sprint car.....of course he could do it like I did, I'd never bought a pit pass to a race, yet I wanted to race. So I bought a used car from a local guy, rounded up enough parts for a motor, screwed it all together, hauled it to the track.
Originally Posted by motorhead748:
Sounds like you've taken the first steps correctly.... now take it a little further. Speak to the owner of the BOSS series and find one of his regulars that may be based close to you. Approach them and offer to help for a year, do the grunt work, buy them a tire or something every now & then. Listen & observe but stay out of the way. At the end of the year you will be light years ahead of where you are and for the most part on someone else's dime.
...and if you are lucky, you might be able to buy their car at the end of the year. You will already know everything about the car because you helped with it all year.
