sorry to say, but I was "that guy". I was all about upgrading my TR-7, now it is to the point where I haven't driven it in 4 years, and I was worried about not having enough power.
Then I finally got involved in SCCA events with my bone stock 92 crown vic, and LOVED it. haven't looked back since.
I whupped ass last week during the autocross at a Mosport Porsche day...driving a borrowed MX-5 :)
Yah, I recently read a rant on an R/T forum about how disappointed a guy was in the Audi RS 4, that "didn't feel much faster than 14s". There were so many ways in which he didn't get it - there was no sense in even trying to explain. One of the high points of my life was riding a couple of laps around Mosport in an RS4 with Dindo Capello.
Yep, had a friend who was big into his STi. He was all about show and not go, didn't want to scuff up his 18" wheels and tires. Bought body kit pieces, etc Nice looking car. He didn't quite understand why I didn't go to the suby car shows with him.
The funny thing is that he's actually a good driver. We're usually at the head of the pack in rental karts. So if he came out he'd probably wipe me out.
Recently, I resurrected my CSX and did nearly an entire season of autocrossing in its ugly state. He was impressed with the in-car footage I took, so when I asked him when he was going to bring out the big suby, he told me that he was selling it. 
There's a guy on Honda-tech stuck in the same mind set. We've been trying to tell him to leave it "as is" and just autocross it.
His reply it's not ready (basically him not ready).
We have couple of our autocrosses at the local mall. We'll get people that do fly-bys in the 30mph zone, or burn-outs on the other side of the parking lot. In the past I've actually chased them down with my mountain bike :) At our driver's meeting I mention to EVERYONE that the local police always tour/park nearby and I recommend everyone on their best behavior. Then 2 guys in a RX7 and Mustang left and raced each other. The RX7 drifted sideways and hit the curb on the road around the mall.
Although when I had my 110hp 91 Civic Si setup for STS some people couldn't believe that little machine could be faster than their $50,000 machine with 500+ hp. People would ask me if it was supercharged, turboed, what it does in the 1/4 mile etc, etc.... I told them nope it's the stock motor with 110hp, street tires :)
Salanis wrote: You might be able to outrun a cop car. It's a whole other matter to outrun the cops.
I always heard it as " you can't outrun Motorola"
walterj wrote: I ran into a variant of this while instructing at a "High end eye-talian car club driving event" by invite from a buddy who I now owe a huge favor. The guys there were very nice, decked out in the finest red Sparco suits money could buy but they didn't really want to drive fast. They didn't even want to hear what I was trying to say. They drove around a little then asked ME to drive it fast. The catering was superb as well. Sometimes life throws you a bone.
WOW, nice gig if you can get it..... Where?
nasaregistrar wrote: WOW, nice gig if you can get it..... Where?
Pocono (of all the great tracks around here... they go to that sh1thole) with FCoA and since the facilities will be 1st rate I expect to see them at NJMP before too long.
i haven't run a rally in a while because im too lazy to weld up a new skid plate(old one has scary dent), but i know what you mean about ricers, except that isn't a fair thing to say. because i've seen plenty of idiots in camaros. revving at me at the stop lights and such, hooligans. i don't know why they would want to drag race anyway, none of them seem to know how to use a clutch, and of course they don't know how to turn and they can't brake properly. dsm's, pony cars and hondas seem to attract the most of these blasphemers. i think we should coin a new term for them.
tuffburn wrote: i haven't run a rally in a while because im too lazy to weld up a new skid plate(old one has scary dent), but i know what you mean about ricers, except that isn't a fair thing to say. because i've seen plenty of idiots in camaros. revving at me at the stop lights and such, hooligans. i don't know why they would want to drag race anyway, none of them seem to know how to use a clutch, and of course they don't know how to turn and they can't brake properly. dsm's, pony cars and hondas seem to attract the most of these blasphemers. i think we should coin a new term for them.
Morons?
That's not a new term.
There are three local car clubs where I live that host autocrosses. One of them is the Porsche Club, and I'm constantly amazed by how few of the Porsche owners can actually drive their cars at anywhere near the level that most of the other autocrossers can. The Porsche Club events are open to everyone, and on a regular basis I'm beating just about every Porsche that comes out (as are many of the other "non-Stuttgart" drivers). The whole thing has obviously now reached the point where the Porsche owners are tired of having their $100,000 machines showed up by Civics and Miatas, since the last event they hosted didn't have a single Porsche show up.
The Porsche club here is quite a different story. I auto-x'ed with them on Saturday. They actually do drive their cars hard and generally know how to drive them. Fastest guy was in a full-prepped 914.
There was a prepped Civic and a couple of lightly modded Miatas. None of the Porsche guys were bothered with running slower than someone in one of these cars.
Really good group. I love running with them.
Everything he knows about cars he learned from a movie. Normal fare for me, I live in a college town. Sometimes they can be shown the light and sometimes they never will get it.
I had a guy get really torqued at me for beating his Cayman S's AX times with the Abomination. I just wonder what he would have done if a pro driver buddy of mine had brought his ratty looking CRX out and beat him with that. He probably would have had a heart attack. 
A couple of years ago, I was at an AX and after my run group was done I go back to my paddock spot and there's a heavily modified Ferrari in my parking spot. Hmmm. There were tools and stuff at the back of my spot and the Trooper and trailer were right next to it, I figured the guy just wasn't aware of autocross etiquette. No problem; it's not the end of the world. I stuck the RX7 in an unoccupied spot about two over, walked back to look at the Ferrari. The owner came hustling over when he saw me, I guess he thought I was gonna get a po' man's fingerprint on it or something. I said something about 'nice car' and asked if he planned to take it for a fun run, he said in a rather loud and condescending tone that the ONLY person who would EVER be allowed to drive his car was a certain pro driver who was there that day. Jeez, dude. I wasn't asking to drive it. Since he was acting like a butthead, I then gently pointed out that he was parked in my spot.
I'm more of a tinkerer than a driver. Its more of my personality, I like to modify all types of things from firearms to cars, tools to computers. I never really do it "right" and have yet to be super creative and do some super sweet modification. I just like the satisfaction of doing something that I think is fun.
On the lines of racing; I went to my first ever AX this Sun and did terribly. It was a very short and tight course, was raining and I took my "no way gonna class in anything except SM - corvette." I was humbled to the Nth degree by my lack of skill and too much power. My ability to kill off the end of what was once a clutch took away the fun buzz. I have no real motivation to get to the last AX of the year with one of my other cars, but I'm sure I will be back, at least for the driving school next year. But I am going to continue to fiddle with everything and not really worry about racing.
I think your friend likes cars. Not racing. Owning a sweet car doesn't mean you own a sweet race car. Sure they influence each other allot, but racing IS competition. Not everyone wants that. Just think of him as someone who would prefer an Autoweek over a GRM. Not bad, just different.
Most likely he never will supercharge his car, but no doubt, it would be cool if he did. And thats all there really is to it.
Most people I encounter can't even fathom why I'd race a protege wagon. Everyone asks why I don't race a faster car. You know why? I've got the protege now, and unfortunately not the moneys for a "real" race car. I have enough fun with this one as is.
I went to the drag test and tune with some friends and ran my protege. In the midst of running some lightning fast 16.7 second passes a rather drunk and bemulleted gentleman informed me that his Camaro would totally destroy my POS (I can't imagine a world where a camaro would have trouble beating a 130hp wagon in a contest of power...). When I asked him where this beast was so I could check it out I was told to "berkley" myself. Did he just come to the races to insult people? He almost seemed to be angry that I'd show up to test and tune with such a pitiful vehicle.
I did have a close run with a cool old guy in a really old, stock, and in very good condition caprice classic. He was just as surprised as I was. I don't think he thought his car would be so slow.
Some people don't understand that motorsports doesn't just have to be about winning. Some of us just have fun driving fast.
daytonaer wrote: I think your friend likes cars. Not racing. Owning a sweet car doesn't mean you own a sweet race car. Sure they influence each other allot, but racing IS competition. Not everyone wants that. Just think of him as someone who would prefer an Autoweek over a GRM. Not bad, just different. Most likely he never will supercharge his car, but no doubt, it would be cool if he did. And thats all there really is to it.
I understand that, but if you upgrade a car with a bunch of performance bits, presumably that is because you want the car to be able to perform. If you don't want to run your car in a performance setting, why are you upgrading performance bits. When someone tells you about how well their car handles now, but they never really take advantage of it...
I don't consider myself a racer. I will sometimes tell people I "race" cars because they understand that. Telling people I'm into "autosports" and love doing "track days" just gets blank looks. But I feel like I'm lying because the closest to "racing" that I do is Auto-X.
I don't have a desire to be competitive right now. I just want to have fun, challenge myself, learn, and push my limits. You don't have to compete to do motorsports.
Oh, that just reminded me of a similar sort of guy that I met at a Euro car meet. There was a guy with a Porsche Cayman S, who actually took it to the track and drove it, and was bragging about what fantastic cars they were and how fast these cars are and how well they've done in race series. But he was having trouble with his car not handling quite the way he'd like. So he was planning to make it faster by swapping in an 8cylinder engine.
So I looked at his tires and immediately saw his handling problems. His tires were worn horribly unevenly because they had obviously been pushed too hard while under-inflated.
The other problem was that he was bragging about this to two guys who were talking handling dynamics of their different cars. One discussing how he planned to keep his car stock to learn to drive well before doing any upgrades (me), and the other who had a recently refreshed 914-6 wearing a set of DOT-Rs, and obviously saw a lot of use.
fiat22turbo wrote: Yep, had a friend who was big into his STi. He was all about show and not go, didn't want to scuff up his 18" wheels and tires. Bought body kit pieces, etc Nice looking car. He didn't quite understand why I didn't go to the suby car shows with him. The funny thing is that he's actually a good driver. We're usually at the head of the pack in rental karts. So if he came out he'd probably wipe me out. Recently, I resurrected my CSX and did nearly an entire season of autocrossing in its ugly state. He was impressed with the in-car footage I took, so when I asked him when he was going to bring out the big suby, he told me that he was selling it.
Those people are great! They fix up cars and sell them basically unused!
Hey fritz_the_cat is this you?
http://slashdot.org/~Fritz_the_cat
Everyone has their thing I guess. I think it's like dating a super model and never attempting to kiss her.
WHAT'S THE POINT?!
Some of those Ferrari guys it sounds more like dating a super model, that you have a trained porn star you keep on hand as the only person to have sex with her.
Salanis wrote: Some of those Ferrari guys it sounds more like dating a super model, that you have a trained porn star you keep on hand as the only person to have sex with her.
Keeping her to yourself just ruins some of the best kinds of porn.
That's why I share with friends (driving a C-Mod car this weekend).
Well, my Miata is the dirty slut! She was disappointed to only have me drive her at the Auto-x this past weekend.
And I was likening the guy that won't drive his own Ferrari, but has a driver to do it for him, to a person who won't have sex with their supermodel girlfriend, but will watch someone else shag her.
GameboyRMH wrote: Hey fritz_the_cat is this you? http://slashdot.org/~Fritz_the_cat
Nope, although I'm just about in the right industry!
Salanis wrote: Had a big company Town Hall meeting yesterday, with a social afterwards. Free food and booze! Yay! Anyway, started chatting with a guy who had identified himself as being "into cars". So I had to chat with him.
I've started ignoring guys like that. I've run into several guys that think because they like whatever's the latest Corvette, that makes them a car guy.
I rank them slightly higher than the guys who've never driven anything but a truck, and want to talk down to me because my 240SX isn't as fast as whatever they had on a poster in high school.
Maybe I should start carrying a "Bull$#!+ flag", wrapped around a fist-sized rock...
I've also run into some guys that saved up, bought their dream car (often a Corvette or Porsche) and finally came to an autocross. By then, they're often retirement age, and the learning curve is steeper than if they'd raced whatever they had when they first heard of autocross. Even if they can learn, I don't think they ever catch up to the Corvette owners who worked their way up from a 4-cylinder beater.
When I lived in southern New Mexico, it seemed that the local Mustang club, Corvette club and Porsche club had the common trait that they sat around and patted each other on the backs for having "The world's best sportscar" and few members actually did any sports.
The ones that raced got an extra pat on the back, but it seems the rest of the club owned the car for the sake of owning it.
If new people from one of these clubs came to an autocross, I tried to give them some respect for showing up (they're way ahead of the armchair racers watching TV) but they often have to unlearn a lot of crap that other club members have told them for years.
The local paper did an article on my wife and I after we ran the Targa. Everybody in town read it, apparently. She's been having all sorts of encounters with people who had absolutely no idea what she did for fun :) She's getting a lot of respect because people just can't imagine doing that, no matter how much they're into cars.
Around here, we used to get a lot of the guys who could never autocross or come to track days because their cars "weren't ready". That's when we only had an event once or twice a year. It was a big deal. Then we started getting autocrosses once a month, and word got out that it was okay to race your car as long as it was safe. So we get a lot more participation - and the drag racers are starting to figure out that corners are kinda cool as well.
Our local Corvette club lets "metal cars" run on an invitation-only basis. It's not a snobbery thing, it's that they don't want to run events for everyone else in the valley. So I basically call up, tell them how many cars we're bringing, and we make sure to be good guys by working the cones etc. The funny thing is that we always destroy them with our Miatas or the Locosts. Last time, I took FTD and my coworker was about a tenth behind me , both in the LS1 Miata. The fast Corvette was nearly 4 seconds behind. But they don't mind at all, they seem to have their heads on straight and appreciate cool cars - although the wives are dismissive of the little cars, and Janel won't run with them any more.
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