Some thoughts to consider for racing parents
 

If you hope to have your child succeed in motorsports, and would not consider yourself a veteran crew chief, there are a few solid pieces of advice you must follow...
1. You will have to hire someone that has ate, slept, and breathed that discipline of racing for a minimum of a decade.
2. You must heed their advice on how to maximize your budget.
3. That person should understand that there is no magic setup that translates between other drivers, or even your two "identical" race cars. There is no such thing.
4. That person must be positive, and be part psychologist also. Attitude is everything.
5. Sometimes inexperienced drivers will never overcome their inexperience, but a good crew chief gives them a fighting chance.
6. Spend your money on maximizing seat time in the beginning, there is no hauler that will make up for a lack of it.
7. Never assume that since you know the setup you had on for one good run, you could duplicate that night without said crew chief and all the nuanced preparation and on the fly decisions.
8. Always insist the driver be involved in all of the teams responsibilities and learning all they can from said paid crew chief.
9. Ask as many questions as you can and develop a notebook of your own. You may discover it comes in handy to simply write things down.
10. As with everything, you get what you Pay for.
11. A crew chief that has experienced the whole of the sport with their own ass strapped in that type of race car will be able to interpret the race car by watching it with minimal driver input. Not that there's not bad ass non driver crew chiefs out there.
12. The driver must be in top physical condition or all they will do is fog their shield up.
13. If you’re not having fun, take a break and re-evaluate.

Excellent Thoughts. Right On Sprinter 56!
Best Regards,
John

#13 hit the nail on the head for me.

Someone told me once that the higher the level of racing the more it becomes like a job and less like a hobby. That's the God's honest truth.

Make it fun you will spend more money than you had thought that you ever would Speed cost money how fast you want to go But it’s better spending it on your child than ever at the county cub

Re: Some thoughts to consider for racing parents
 

I agree with about half of the list of "must haves". You forgot the biggest "must have" though, a truck load of money.

Or do as I was able to, build my own cars and motors, then made my own aluminum pieces and radius rods,and for a while did my own driving, bought a new trailer and an older diesel truck, and my wife and I had a great time
Only needed a half truck of money!

Re: Some thoughts to consider for racing parents
 

Number 8 reminds me of something I saw at Ocala several years ago.

The support class was 600 NW Micros and one was in the parking lot of our hotel. Dad and Grandpa were working on the car and I asked who drove it and they said he was over at the swimming pool!