I know NASA wants people to go through the whole Novice-Intermediate-Advanced HPDE's before going W2W.. What is the most common route for SCCA?
Or for NASA for that matter? I know thats what they want you to do, but you don't necessarily have to wait till your advanced to do a Comp school right?
I'm sort of in the same boat as you Dave...
What I'm doing.
over the next 2-3 years...
Building my street toy car. Mainly its just a project to learn on, have some fun with, but daily drive, and do HPDE's with. I wanna open my own shop one of these days, and having a car to tinker with is a great place to practice breaking stuff.. lol
Once I get settled with where I live, and My job, and what not, I am seriously thinking about buying an ITC or ITB car, or running like an H4 or H5 car in ECHC.. I don't plan on being competitive. I just wanna race. I really would love to run an ITA or ITS 240. Whatever I do, I plan to buy one prebuilt. I wanna be a driver. Not a mechanic. I'll turn wrenches if I have too.. but am in it for the driving. Turn-key is the way to go to get into it.
You can build up a lot of the "Comfort" stuff that bbp was talking about, going to HPDE's.. like the chairs, and coolers, and ez-up tents, etc.. I've already got a fairly large pile o-crap .
I know a REALLY good thing to do, is just go to the races.. even if your not participating. Meet the people, see if you can volunteer as a Corner Worker, etc. Meets some of the racers, and maybe even see if you can help crew for them. Awesome way to gain experience, and meet contacts that will GREATLY smooth your transition into racing.
I hope to see you at some of the events this year Dave.. I'll be at Summit in June with NASA..