Originally Posted by dowmotorsports:
racing friends,
i need your help. I have a serious choice to make and who better to ask than the few people on this planet that would actually understand. See i’m from this large open country above you called “canadia” as grant likes to call it, where at one point a whole lot was going on due to the oil sands (massive amounts of oil). Unfortunately the price of oil is dropping faster than obama's approval rating, which essentially caused a recession in my country and our currency to weaken. I don’t doubt things will eventually get better but at the moment it’s looking grim, for example when i started racing in indy in 2014 $100 cdn was $105 usd, now $100 cdn is $58 usd and it continues to get worse. This is making life for me very difficult, mostly because i’m completely and totally obsessed with sprints and midgets and have spent virtually all my money in the past two years as well as some of the banks money attempting to go racing. With oval nationals being my 79th race since i started in 2013, i feel like i’m just starting to become not horrible, and i’d really like to see where i end up after a full season of racing (50-60 shows).
Sadly when i bring this issue up with my fellow canadian friends and family, the general consensus is to pack up my stuff and move back home to make money, which is logical and financially the obvious choice. But it’s not their fault, 95% of them don’t fully understand because they’ve never visited this magical place deemed “the racing capital of the world”. A place where typical chit chat consists of who just won and who’s racing for who, a place where race cars are on restaurant walls or on display randomly through out the city, a place where you step out of your house in the morning and can tell whether you’ll be richening or fattening up your motor later that night, a place where you can get rained out at 2 different tracks in one night and still have a chance to make it to another (tried it), a place where family sundays are spent at possibly the greatest track on earth, a place where the weekends don’t start until monday if they exist at all, a place that breeds champions and where legends are born, a place that i can only dream to call home one day. So to all the real race fans, mechanics and drivers out there, i ask you this, what should i do option a, or option b?
Option a
play it safe: Continue to work during a recession, race part time again, slowly progress as a driver, pay off debt, save money, plan for next year, and be responsible.
Option b
roll the dice: Work as much as possible until race season, quit my job, move to indy, take a shot at roty with usac, race as much as i can until i inevitably run out of money, then try and go back to work.
Thanks for your time,
lee dakus #75
yolo!