My Dad, my brother-in-law, and I started doing HPDE's together back in '98 and I autocrossed on my own in '98 and '99. For the 2000 season, both my brother-in-law and I bought '85 ITC Civic's. My Dad took on the duty of chief mechanic and crew chief. The two of us on track were pretty competitive but really, we weren't experienced to be gunning for wins against eachother. We generally tried to work together both on and off the track to advance ourselves and our cars to the front of the class. Unfortunately, after the 2001 season, divorce happened and my brother-in-law wasn't able to race with us anymore. So I ran 2002 pretty much by myself with my Dad as my crew chief.

For 2003, we built a new ITC car for me and my Dad jumped into my old car - we've been doing it together ever since. I actually enjoyed having to basically make him first realize that he had a lot to learn and then helping him learn it. For once, he was the student. So even though we were both in ITC for 2003, we were generally on opposite sides of the field so we didn't do much W2W against eachother. But again, we were always working together for the advancement of the team as a whole.

For 2004, we built another new car as I made the jump to ITA where I remain today. My Dad stayed in ITC, again racing my old car that we had built the previous year. I have to say that this is the sitution I have enjoyed the most. This way we are rarely in the same run groups and therefore get to see eachothers races and be eachothers crew chiefs. There's still some competition between us as he's gunning for my old ITC lap times. Every now and then he beats one of my old times. When he does, I'm very happy for him but also really feel the need to get back into an ITC car just to rebeat his time.

As for radios, GET THEM! They are invaluable between two drivers on track at the same time. If you guys are running together, you can be on the radio talking to eachother on how to work together to pass other racers or even just warn eachother of incidents around the track.

Honestly, you'll get use to driving and working on two cars with only the two drivers to tend to them. Also, remember, you're driving Honda's now - just put gas in them and go! My Dad and I do this by ourselves all the time. I'm sure being a father & son team, we also experience some of the shouting matches a husband & wife team may. But, it happens - get over it.