Originally Posted by Abbey2

It is great to see that pilots are interested in auto racing. I am a retired driver that raced in the Trans-Am series as well as some selected Nascar races. I raced until I turned about 40 then said enough. I raced at many of the Nascar tracks and toured with the CART series. Those were powerful cars.The Trans-Am cars were a bit quicker than the stock cars at 2,600lbs and 700hp. Racing has some of the characteristics of Aviation. It goes in cycles. Finding sponser money was tough. I had 3 different sponsers for the last 5 years. A lot of meetings,autograph signings,car showings at local stores. We too did not have the funds for Wind tunnel and other tests so we made deals with other teams. I came thru racing the hard way. Building my own chassis's,learning set-ups,understanding all the technical sides. Even the braking systems which I always installed myself were very expensive. Just the Calipers were $3g a piece. Did some testing with the tire companys which can be very dangerous. Ya know,lets try this or that and see how it goes. Too many guys striking the wall,even a glancing blow,and loosing a few fillings or a broken wrist. One thing I can tell you all for certain is that you can't take the money out of racing. Even with what we call "crate motors" some one has the funds to buy 20 motors,dyno them and run the best out of 20.I know what it's like to go thru tech sweating bullets when they pump the motors and pull out all the templets. I only weighed about 170lb and my crew used to put quarters in my race suit to get us up to weight. It was crazy. I ran several race's at Sears Point(now Infineon Raceway) were I had several testing events with the NWC guys. This is back with Kenny Schrader,Johnny Benson,Ward Burton,Kyle Petty and many of the guys that are gone now. Back then Dale Jr was in Busch,Kevin Harvick was in a series below me(Winston West) Juan Montoya was in CART as I saw him regularly around our trailer. Friends of mine often think I have just gone into something as risky(flying) which is simply the opposite. I remember too well driving on a road coarse into a corner at 185mph and breaking down to 50 mph in 300 ft. If your brakes failed.....you were done. Of coarse there are those time flying iced up on a ILS down to minimums at night. I'll still take the ILS. Glad I found some racing pilots!