Lets Go Racing

Just to preface this- I have not been the one racing. I’ve enjoyed our jaunts out to said racing events and had a great time at them.

Noah is the one driving at the events, “What is Noah driving?” You may ask, a Honda Fit. Or a Jazz as those who love all things JDM might want to refer to it. Seems underwhelming I know, but wow is he having the time of his life. – He’s Jazzed. (Ha-ha. Terrible set up for this I know.)

Let’s back up a little bit to start, if you’ve read any other posts on this website, or know me in person, you’ve probably seen that we’ve gone to Gridlife in the past (multiple times) and Hyperfest (also multiple times). I need to ask him exactly when it was but I think it was right around after we got back from Gridlife Colorado Noah was all about wanting to get on the track himself. – I could be blatantly lying here but all the same. –

His brother has a racing sim at home so naturally that was his first step into “getting behind the wheel” which is a first step that many people take. I mean look, we’ve got a Gran Truismo Movie coming out soon that’s about how someone won a competition and went to drive actual race cars which is a dream come true.

Oh meanwhile all of this his 5XXwhp STI blew up for the second time – love Subarus.

The next step was figuring out the car he was going to take on track because one his Subaru was dead and two it’s apparently hell to learn to race in a high horsepower car. What’s the next step?

A Miata.

Wrong.

Well, I mean you could, they’re just super expensive. What’s the next option after that?

The Honda Fit. Yayyyyyy.

It’s honestly not much easier to get Honda fit’s anymore. They are also very expensive and that was the problem Noah was dealing with. I was helping him search Facebook marketplace in the surrounding area and we both still came up with nothing that would work. If it was cheap it was an automatic, broken, and or rusty.

Oh right, Copart is a thing that exists. That’s where he went to look for his trackable fit and he was also looking at C6 Z06’s. Perhaps one day my friend, perhaps one day. Right now you’re poor. ❤

He was also so committed to racing this year that he bought the Gridlife gold pass for HPDE before he even owned a car. A round of applause for commitment.

He was also in the middle of working night shifts so he was unable to bid on it himself, he handed off his login and password for the broker bidding site to me. I was in control of his bank account, me, I had the control, and the bidding was going to go off in a few days.

While Noah was fast asleep the bidding started, I had to spend an extra $69 dollars (nice) to be able to do live bidding for him, he understood, and I won the car at $1,150. The thrill of bidding using someone else’s money, but also knowing you couldn’t go higher than 2,000 was pretty interesting. With the car won it was a waiting game because as it turned out, the reserve hadn’t been met. They called him the following day and asked him to come up to $1900. Noah texted me saying how he possibly would’ve done $1,500 but he stood his ground. They came down to his bidding price and after all the taxes and fee’s it ended up being around $2000 anyways.

Noah drives up to Copart in New Hampshire to get this car sight unseen and oh wow was it rusty. What we couldn’t see in the pictures was that under the side skirts the rockers were ROTTEN. Really rotten, even the frame rails were affected. Cut to Noah cutting the rockers out and perhaps some of the frame rails. Home-Depot metal came to the rescue. A friend welded it all in for him and the Fit had a new lease on life.

Now we get to the fun part, the actual racing. Well, HPDE. Hello Watkins Glenn and hello downpour. We had a great time even though it was unbelievably miserable. Gridlife at Watkins Glenn brought a big GLTC crowd but not so many spectators because it wasn’t a festival event. We had a good time watching the wheel to wheel racing, time attack, and drifting. Not as many drifters came out which was expected. Noah had the time of his life and ended up with a very inflated ego after his instructor said that he was ‘One of, if not the fastest person on on track’ in his beginners session. (Sorry buddy, gotta keep you humble.) I missed getting a ride along in an e46 M3 because the conditions were so bad with the rain. A mustang had hit the wall in what I remember to be the first session.

The entire time Noah has been watching the Sundae Cup racers times and trying to get his times close to theirs. Their Honda fits are a bit more modified than his when it comes to power and suspension. So he’s got a challenge ahead of him and he’s ready to take it on as he wants to compete in sundae cup next year.

Now we come to our most recent event at Gingerman Raceway in Michigan, 12ish hours away from us. Gridelife Midwest Fest to be exact. Sold out event, huge lines, loud music, lots of cars, and LOTS of people. The racer paddock, which we got to be a part of was so much more organized than normal camping, it was cool being close to the GLTC guys and our neighbors ended up being super cool.

TJ hunt’s new livery got revealed, I got some sick shots of some drifters and my favorite GLTC drivers, and then it was Sunday. Most of the GLTC racers and drifters had packed up, the paddock was emptying out and all of the festival goers had left too.

I sat in at the drivers meeting this time around which was cool, all sorts of information about the flags and the track itself. I really appreciate how fun the Gridlife crew is.

Apparently one of the HPDE drivers blew up their Subaru, shocker, one of the people in Noah’s group overheated in is RHD 300zx, and the other person who was driving what seemed to be his grandparents Buick regal(?) from like 2009 got black flagged. He wasn’t allowed back on track either.

Our neighbor’s M3 did well until it spat oil out of a vanos bolt. Noah also did great, his fasted time was around a 2:01 which actually made it so he would’ve been in the back of the Sundae Cup pack but NOT last. The only bad part was that he must’ve ran over a rail or something in the paddock camping area because during a run he noticed that it felt like a tire had lost all sorts of air and that he was pushing around on it. It was in fact flat and it did in fact have a hole in it. We put a plug on it and drove with it in the 12 hours back home.

The next should be Mid Ohio, let’s hope I can make it to that one. Eventually I’ll race myself.

• Vince