All,
While I may never use it, based on my experience last year, I applied for and received an SCCA PRO License.
Why did I do it when I'm racing in an amateur class? Who knows. It was cheap and I have this recurring dream. I'm at an SCCA professional race. A driver takes ill and the team has sponsorship commitments. I have experience on the track for the event and am a safe and competent driver. Probably not going to bring home the gold, but I'll get some points and bring the car back. They ask if I'm interested. I say my suit is in my truck. Then then they ask for my license...
Next time I have the dream, I'll be wearing my license around my neck.
I know my window to race was last year and this year. Next year I'll be back on sea duty and free time will be much harder to come by. If I have money left over at the end of this season (small chance of that - please buy more AMSOIL! ), I may splurge and buy myself a ride in one of the SCCA Pro series, like Pro Spec Miata. Then I'll put the license in the old scrapbook.
Then again, I'm going to Mid-Ohio this weekend for the SCCA World Challenge race... wonder if I should bring my suit, just in case.
That is the exact reason I attended the USGP F1 race at IMS last weekend. I stood around the entrance to Gasoline Alley wearing all my badges from the 6 DE events I've attended, thinking one of the F1 or Porsche Cup car techies or owners would notice me and use me as a substitute driver, if the regular driver was hurt or sick. The weather was almost perfect for driving and I guess they were in good shape for drivers as I got no offers and wound up watching the races from the grandstand. Someone please send a copy of this message to the Jordan team. Maybe they'll use me next year.
BTW, I have concluded that Michael S. and the other F1 drivers are insane. Those cars are amazingly fast! If you've never seen an F1 race, you are really missing something. TV doesn't even come close to presenting an accurate picture of the real thing. The noise alone is unbelieveable, not to mention the sensation of speed, braking and cornering you get from being there.
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"ROSSO Z"
02 TR/Blk Z06, '04 shocks, CAGS Defeat, JETTCO Cup Holder
Support our troops; bring them home.
Subdriver,
I follow your posts quite a bit and I do have to say you have a weird combination of work and fun. Literally stuck in an oversized can for weeks/months at a time and then you get in your Corvette and go like a bat out of heck around racetracks. From one extreme to another. I would think someone who enjoyed racing as much as you do, that you would feel trapped in a sub....
It must feel good to get back in the Corvette after being at sea awhile. I wish you well.......
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I stood around the entrance to Gasoline Alley wearing all my badges from the 6 DE events I've attended, thinking one of the F1 or Porsche Cup car techies or owners would notice me and use me as a substitute driver, if the regular driver was hurt or sick.
You are worse than I am!
Quote:
If you've never seen an F1 race, you are really missing something.
I agree totally! I saw the USGP at Long Beach every year it was an F1 event, and saw the French GP in the early 90s. You really can't appreciate how fast those cars are until you see one... or hear one.
Quote:
Literally stuck in an over-sized can for weeks/months at a time and then you get in your Corvette and go like a bat out of heck around racetracks.
Actually haven't been at sea since 2002 as I am on shore duty in Memphis right now, but I did have the Z06 as my daily driver for the last year of my last tour. It was always nice to come back from sea and stretch my legs in the Vette.
You'd be surprised how much similarity there is between the two seemingly opposite activities. Operating a submarine is an extremely technical and demanding activity where things can happen very fast, much like in the racecar. I use the same skills I learned in the Nuclear Navy for the preparation and maintenance of the Vette. The rack (bed) I sleep in on the sub is small enough that rolling over is an activity that needs conscious thought. But strapping into the Vette, with the six point harness, HANS device, radio earphone and microphone wires, and helmet cooling duct while surrounded by an eight point cage isn't any better.
All packed and ready to go to Mid-Ohio... and yes, the SCCA Pro License is in my bag because you just never know.
Tony,
Sorry we missed you. Probably were within 25 yards of each other about a dozen times!
I must've walked 20 miles this weekend wondering all over the track, the paddock, etc.
Had a great weekend catching up with several other T1 drivers who came to cheer on the three T1 drivers in the WC race (Heinricy, Oates and Gaples).
The strength of their qualifying and finishing positions gives a pretty good indication of the quality of driver in SCCA T1!
Brad: Don't you lose your amateur status once you obtain a pro license? Maybe that's just Olympic sports.
Hey.. Ya never know.. You could be hanging around someone's pits and they can possibly twist their ankle at the last minute. Then, they ask if anyone here has a SCCA pro license. You tell them that you do and they ask you to run the race for them. Hey.. It could happen.
I lived 35 miles away from Watkins Glen, and saw many F1 races there. That is where I got addicted to racing.
My first race was an ice race. One of the competitors whipped out his SCCA National License, and I asked how he got it. Right after I whipped him on the track ( frozen lake) I joined SCCA and have been in recovery ever since.
Then at the 76 USGP at the Glen, I was qualified on the outside pole in the Bosch Gold Cup Super Vee race. I thought for sure that the phone would ring off the hook with offers for this young Italian driver from Geneva NY on the outside pole. Well 28 years later they still haven't gotten around to calling. I am still racing, and in a fine Z06 race car in the World Challenge series. We racked up 3 World Challenge championships and 19 wins in the process. Won the Long Beach Grand Prix in 2001 Trans Am and the Daytona Paul Revere 250 in 2002. Living the dream. Still running up front, and I have my 20 yr old son as my crew chief. It doesn't get any better than that.
Racing has allowed me to build a company up from nothing to a state of extreme poverty. ( that is a marx brothers joke) but it has some truth in it. The old sayings are true. "I know there is money in racing because I put it there", and "how to make a small fortune in racing.......Start with a big fortune".
The only call I ever got connected to racing was the banker to make sure I paid the note off.
In 100 years it won't matter but in the mean time racing is what we do.
Thanks
Lou Gigliotti LGM
972-272-7753
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Last edited by L G Motorsports : 06-29-2004 at 12:44 PM.
Lou,
Nice summary of what this is about. Maybe someday after I retire from my current "day" job my little business will grow into something like what you have built.
Good luck with the rest of your season. I'm really enjoying watching WC this year like no other series I have watched in years... and I watch a lot.
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), I may splurge and buy myself a ride in one of the SCCA Pro series, like Pro Spec Miata. Then I'll put the license in the old scrapbook.
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