Father/Son Bonding

My dad just signed up to do his first track day with me, in three weeks. I'm really excited about this.

We're going to share the Miata. One of my goals for that was to have it be a great car to share motorsports with the people I love. My girlfriend drives it at events. Now, my dad will get to drive it in anger. I'm looking forward to some great father/son bonding over this.

I'll have more to report after the event, but I'm just so excited right now, that I felt the need to share.

Sounds great.

My son is only 8 months old so I have a few years before we can do track events together.

My dad played with cars a bit when he was my age. He used to have an AMX and later a Europa. He did a top-speed test of the AMX at a speedway, but has never driven a road course. This should be fun.

That's awesome! I got my dad to do his first HPDE for his 50th birthday. It was a ton of fun, and we're going back, better equipped, this year! Congrats!

Most of the father-son bonding here has been while working on my vehicles. He's a genius mechanically.

My dad shows occasional interest in my auto hobbies and I've heard bits and pieces of stories of his youth. Managed to convince him to copilot with me for a TSD rally a few years back, he seemed to love it. He's only been driving automatics for almost 25 years but now he loves driving my vehicles which are all 5 speeds. The f150 brings him back to his younger days when he had a few pickups.

He's never been to an autocross with me though, I'll have to try to drag him out to an event this summer and make sure his name is on the drivers list

I love this! Coming from the other end, I'm Dad. My son is slowly coming over to the 'dark side' of the auto world. I hope to see him do his first HPDE this summer with BMWCCA as he will be 18 then.

Good for you and your dad!!

My Dad and I still do car stuff together. I ran go-karts for years and he's currently installing the coilovers on my VW. He has a heated shop which is key in the Michigan off season.

Have fun! You'll always remember stuff like this.

onasled wrote: I love this! Coming from the other end, I'm Dad. My son is slowly coming over to the 'dark side' of the auto world. I hope to see him do his first HPDE this summer with BMWCCA as he will be 18 then. Good for you and your dad!!

There are quite a few orgs allowing younger then 18 drivers (NASA, SCCA, Seat-TIme, TurnOne, Chin, etc.) on a road course. I am on the Dad side - we (I have two sons infected...) have spent lots of time on tracks, in paddocks and in the garage the last 5 years - I hope to continue.

Varkwso wrote:

There are quite a few orgs allowing younger then 18 drivers (NASA, SCCA, Seat-TIme, TurnOne, Chin, etc.) on a road course. I am on the Dad side - we (I have two sons infected...) have spent lots of time on tracks, in paddocks and in the garage the last 5 years - I hope to continue.

I appreciate what you say, B U T .... unless my son had done a LOT more karting then he has, I would not want to see him doing HPDEs with anyone but BMWCCA. Though I race with the other clubs you listed, I don't respect their HPDEs with "beginners", at least with "my" son. BMWCCA is also where he will learn to race if he chooses to do so, as again they are the most conscientious program out there.

dan_efi wrote: Most of the father-son bonding here has been while working on my vehicles. He's a genius mechanically.

My dad is an engineering genius. I wouldn't call him a mechanical genius, but he knows more than me about wrenching on things. He's much better with electrical and computer stuff.

We've had lots of good time bonding over vehicles in the past, but not much since I went off to college. His big love is airplanes. I've rebuilt a Lycoming engine with him and finished off an RV-4. We've got well over a hundred hours of flight time together.

He really wants to get me back into flying, but I'm being really resistant of it. I can barely afford my driving hobby, I could not afford to fly. So I'm trying to not even get a taste of flying, because then I'd want more.

I'm really hoping he takes to driving the car with me. It would be great. Maybe I can impress with my vehicle control skills, even though I'm not flying acro anymore.

Oh, and I finally talked my girlfriend into signing up for her second track day. I kind of guilted her into it. Told her there was a track day coming up that was cheap enough that I'd pay for her to do it if she couldn't justify spending the money herself. She relented and refused to let me pay for her to do a track day.

dan_efi wrote: Most of the father-son bonding here has been while working on my vehicles. He's a genius mechanically.

With my dad, it's just the opposite. He likes to collect old cars (Cadillacs mostly of late; has a '40 and a '49), but bless his heart, he couldn't change a spark plug if his life depended on it. So as the family grease monkey, I get to work on them. We go to auctions and swap meets together, and it's a great bonding experience that I wouldn't trade for anything.

My Father was more of an enabler...go karts, motorcycles, Mustangs....

Now, he pretty much just shakes his head at some of my purchases....until he wants to drive them. He hated my '87 Saleen, but liked the Lightning.

He doesn't have the patience or desire for a car show/swap meet. But he's Pop, and that's fine with me.

You know, my Dad had a Tri-Power 348 in his shoe box back in the early sixties... I sometimes wonder if he'd get a kick out of autocrossing with me sometime.

I have to share, my oldest son who can whup my buttocks at mario kart(it has mario in it, it has to be really good) almost drove his mom's car into the side of the barn.(It is a big barn). My youngest maneged to get the quad started and run it out of gas without hitting a thing.(Eldest is 10 youngest is 8)

when my dad was diagnosed with cancer, i started dragging him to car shows. he was a gearhead in his youth but gave it all up when they started knocking out babies. he's responsible for my infatuation with corvairs, and for my being good at squeezing pennies. i am so glad i had that time with him.

i have two daughters, 7 and 3.5, and am very slowly bringing them into the hobby with me. Sarah (7) helped me with the wiring on the $2008 Challenge V8 944, and Helen (3.5) mostly just asks questions and takes parade laps around the neighborhood with me in the project of the week. i will teach them both to weld, just as soon as i learn how myself.

so yeah, the father / child bonding is invaluable. kids learn what they live.

My daughter is just about the age to act as tool fetch when I am working on the car. Her favorite place to be is behind the wheel while I am working on the car. It only gets difficult when I am trying to remove the wheels or working on the brakes.

she is very interested in the car and will need to get her own coveralls this year to keep her clothes grease free

In may respects my 12 year long Porsche odessy has been a father/son bonding experience.

Back 1997 we both picked up Porsche 944's. Mine was a 88 944 Turbo and his was an 84 944. He had 912 back in the 60's and would always tell me stories about taping the lights and running Lime Rock on wedensday afternoons. Fun stuff and we had thought those days were over. But through along string events found NASA and PCA in 1997 and started with autocross and track days. We always ran together in each our cars.

By 2000 we decided to build a 944 as track/autocross car as proper project. He was a mercedes benz technician for years and I a mechical engineer. So together we started a simple track car build. At first we shared the car, but in time he drove less as we put more prep in the car. By 2002 the car turned into a proper race car and my father and I have spend countless hours work on it, rebuilding motors and even doing paint/bodywork. To this day he still comes out to the track for my races and helps crew the car. We don't need much on a given weekend, but he is there for tossing ideas around.

It has been one of the best bonding things we have done.

onasled wrote:

Varkwso wrote: I appreciate what you say, B U T .... unless my son had done a LOT more karting then he has, I would not want to see him doing HPDEs with anyone but BMWCCA. Though I race with the other clubs you listed, I don't respect their HPDEs with "beginners", at least with "my" son. BMWCCA is also where he will learn to race if he chooses to do so, as again they are the most conscientious program out there.

I cannot speak for your region, but Northern California NASA runs a tighter ship than the other organizations that I've run with. Any organization's quality varies according to chapter, so it's not fair to disrepect the all based on the few.

Dad side here.

Have had classic cars, helped "my Dad" restore some neat ones. (1912 model t, 1926 model t PU, 56 lincoln MII that I drove in my wedding)

I restored a 59 bugeye that I still have, Drove bj8 had to have one, bought a project 66 bj8, never finished it b4 I sold it.

My Son bought a miata, and once I drove it, I had to have one. Son and I Ax'd together, and then went to w2w the same year (3 years ago) We put together a part time biz selling miata parts, and the bonding continues. in the summer time we Race together, in the off times we strip cars, and sell parts to pay for it. My Daughter Teddy Races Soap box derby (well did, now she is a preteen lol and well thats uncool ;) ) Daughter comes to track with me, and loves to ride with me when I Ax in the Windy City miata group!

with some friends help we came up with the name BTDTracing.com

which stands for Blake, Teddy, Dad, Thompson racing

And Now My Boys GF is racing with us in her own car, how the heck kewl is that?

My son introduced me to SCCA Auto X in 2000.

And I love getting back into "racing " at the grass roots level. Been there, done that in drag racing and circle track years ago.

And burned out.
Now, I can enjoy the social aspect and enjoy.

Take your dad to an event. It may lead to some great bonding for you as well

I'm on both ends of this scenario. My dad was a VW mechanic during college, built dunebuggies before I was born, picked my Mom up from the hospital when I was born in his E-type Jag (that he bought while she was busy giving birth), autocrossed his RX-7 and his Vette that he restored all through my early years with me as a spectator. I did my first autox at 14 (they didn't check my license since they knew us). Dad's hobby turned into my hobby and I started modding my own cars and doing track days. Dad got out of the hobby for a few years when I was off at college, but he got back into it when I sold him my old SE-R. He died a few years back in a single car accident. He was a great driver, but he still had his shocks set to full stiff in the rear from the autocross a few days before and we can only guess he was trying to avoid a deer or something when he spun off the road into an enbankment. He was a grassroots guy to the very end.

And now I have a 1 year old boy that I can't wait to share my hobby with. Lots of great memories in the past and more to come!

onasled wrote:

Varkwso wrote:

There are quite a few orgs allowing younger then 18 drivers (NASA, SCCA, Seat-TIme, TurnOne, Chin, etc.) on a road course. I am on the Dad side - we (I have two sons infected...) have spent lots of time on tracks, in paddocks and in the garage the last 5 years - I hope to continue.

I appreciate what you say, B U T .... unless my son had done a LOT more karting then he has, I would not want to see him doing HPDEs with anyone but BMWCCA. Though I race with the other clubs you listed, I don't respect their HPDEs with "beginners", at least with "my" son. BMWCCA is also where he will learn to race if he chooses to do so, as again they are the most conscientious program out there.

Wow - a BMWCCA groupie....

My dad was an old tyme hot rodder, he used to street race old flathead stuff. When I was a kid he had a 1932 Plymouth coupe with a SBC, then he got a couple of old Vettes that he and I worked on all the time. He egged me on during my motocross 'career' and we used to go trailriding together. So I guess he's responsible for my gearheadedness and I wouldn't have it any other way.

He's now in his early '80's and honestly is not interested in going racing with me, mostly because he doesn't think he could handle the G forces. I guess I can understand that.

Enjoy it while you can, dude, because he won't be able to forever.

Yeah... my grandfather hasn't been able to fly for several years. He really misses it. He is capable of handling the airplane, there's just no chance he could get a medical certificate.

Hopefully this can become a regular thing with my dad. Hehehe... if I do get him hooked... my dad can't do anything halfway. Whatever he does has to be done completely. I don't think he could go out and just get a cheap track rat, he'd probably have to prep a full racecar and get top quality professional instruction.

I can credit my dad with helping me to start the obsession by taking me to road atlanta when I ws a kid. I just got way more into it than he ever did as far as the participating side of things. One of my favorite daydreams involving the miata I am buying soon is me and my dad doing track events together.