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View Full Version : Finally! IT is about time to go racing



shwah
03-22-2004, 11:30 AM
After much trial, tribulation, fanfare, knuckle bleeding, Chicago winters freezing in the garage, bench racing and just plain waiting – I will finally be driving in my first SCCA event this weekend in St. Louis. I will be driving down on Thursday for the double school and regional race that the St. Louis region is hosting at Gateway.

What started out as an A1 GTI race car project in 1997, morphed into an A2 GTI race car project about halfway through when I picked up a free parts car (wanted the wheels) and realized that a no AC, no sunroof A2 would make a better platform than an AC/sunroof A1. After a fair amount of parts trading, fabricating, bargain hunting and wrenching I have a car that can now be considered a ‘race car’. I know it took a long time, but what with changing cars mid stream, and taking financial time off the project to buy a home it took a while (did I mention that I love my wife in all of her patient glory?).

I spent time on the track when I could at open track days with my 16v Scirocco (miss this one!), my wife’s 8V GTI or (out of great fortune last April) an R32, but longed for the taste of true competition, which will likely soon put me in my proverbial place – confirming that at racing as with most other things I am painfully average.

Getting laid off last spring provided the time boost to get the car done and ready to run, but alas that same event made actually racing the car financially impossible. I did manage to run a few autocrosses with the local VW club (www.chicagovw.org) to make sure that the brakes work (did find a brake line leak at the first one), the wheels wouldn’t fall off and that the car generally worked.

My rough calculations show an expenditure of $3500 - $4000 and lots of time to build the car and purchase personal safety equipment. Really not bad, except that of course I could have purchased a car for that amount initially and been racing for a few years. In the end I am just the type of guy that would not have it any other way than to try and build the thing myself – expert advice be damned. Of course now I really hope that nothing breaks in the first weekend.

With any luck then, the next post I make will be as a legitimate IT racer, rather than bench-racer.

A big thanks to Chuck Mathis, Dave Corbitt and Rob Shertz for all their help and advice (oh Dave Tysson and Chris Albin too). See you all at the track!

Chris

Knestis
03-22-2004, 03:53 PM
Well done, Chris. Welcome to the sickness...

K

shwah
03-30-2004, 01:35 AM
Well I made it through. Big thanks to everyone who helped, instructed, advised and laughed with/at me.

The car was reliable but horribly slow. Need to figure out what it is, but it pulls like a diesel rabbit down the straights. I'll get that right and go do another event as soon as possible. What a blast.

Kudos to StLouis region for a well run event, to Chris and Patrick for loaning me ignition parts and to Chuck, Dave, Adam, Carl and Rob for helping out in various ways over the weekend.

Chris