Guest Post: What Drives Car Enthusiasm

(Please welcome Bryce Himelrick, a teen-aged auto enthusiast who came out to our Saturday race with AER at Mid-Ohio. Photos are courtesy of Dave "Puppyknuckles" Burnett, American Endurance Racing, and eEuroparts.com --- JB)

Racing has been the glue that has held car culture together ever since the first contest between internal combustion vehicles. The Paris-Rouen event held in 1894 traversed 78 miles over public roads that, up until this point had been primarily dominated by horses and foot traffic. Since then, cars have become much more developed and race tracks have been established to give enthusiasts of the automobile a safe haven away from the looming shadows of the EPA and NHTSA's draconian regulations.

I have been a car enthusiast for as long as I can remember, but as much as I have consumed automotive literature and attended car shows, primarily to see double parked automatic C5 Vettes with toy cars and a plaque in front, there was something missing. What was missing was the lifeblood of car culture: racing.

There are many types of races nowadays --- Formula 1, Indycar and NASCAR, to name a few --- but those are races where the titans of industry sponsor multi-million dollar techno robot cars that sound like the worlds craziest Nutri-Bullet combined with a rabid hyena. Those races are where manufacturers get publicity with their paid teams and impeccably engineered cars.

Amateur races, by contrast, are the ones where enthusiasts can exploit the potential of whatever they have. There are leagues and classes for anyone or any car. The big dogs, SCCA and NASA, have become so heavily regulated and crowded that it has become more of a burden than a joy. In 2006, the 24 hours of Lemons was formed. An endurance race with a maximum car price of $500, it gave enthusiasts an option to exploit the full potential of cheap, beat up race cars. Most of all, the priority is fun. Most recently, American Endurance Racing(AER), a league run by a handful of ex-BMW club racers from the East Coast, has provided a frontier for fun endurance racing. Most any race car can run in AER.

I was called to the track to fill the hole in my vast palate of car enthusiasm one night as I awaited my dinner. I checked my Instagram and saw that Sam Smith and Jack Baruth, two automotive journalists that I greatly admire, would be at Mid Ohio Sports Car Course for the season-ender of American Endurance Racing the following weekend. They were going to be there along with Travis Okulski and Matt Farah. I politely asked Sam if I would be allowed to come up, observe and meet the team named "Road & Track And Friends". Sam said yes and we corresponded in email about schedule and logistics.

Something I may have omitted earlier is the fact that I do not currently posses a drivers license, so going to this race would entail my father driving me 3 hours from our house in West Virginia to Mid Ohio Sports Car Course. I had some convincing to do for sure. I did lots of research leading up to the race, none of which gave me a big picture of what it was like. I knew that there would be heavily modified cars, many of which would be BMWs. I knew there would be garages and pits, but nonetheless I was entering into the abyss of the unknown.

I left my house in West Virginia at around 6:30 AM, I packed cameras, lawn chairs and a few snacks. I had a dry McBiscuit for breakfast and we were on our way. Along the drive, traversing rural, urban and suburban Ohio, I had a plethora of questions left unanswered. Will this be enjoyable? Are there other spectators? Are the cars going to be interesting? What will the teams be like? Is the Jalopnik commentariat right about Jack Baruth? (Yes --- JB)

As we got off the Accord-and-Panther-filled highways of the Greater Columbus metro area, we drove through rural and rather quaint Morrow County, Ohio. We passed as many horse-and-buggies as we did cars. At one point, I looked at my father and said “You sure the stupid GPS didn’t get us lost?” as, from the surrounding area, it was hard to believe that anything cool with cars happened here. Was this a 3 hour mistake?

When I pulled onto the road leading to Mid Ohio, you could see over a hill, you could see cars and more cars and hear the sound of motors being flogged. The moment we pulled into the parking lot, I immediately scratched the notion that nothing with cool cars happened here. The parking lot itself was a reminder that this is an enthusiasts event, there was a mint 997, a brand new m3, a slew of older m3s, a couple of 944s and an Audi TT-RS to name a few.

I looked into the pits, looked for Jack or Sam, and noticed Jack. I walked over and introduced myself and my father asked where the best vantage point for taking photos of the race is. I was starstruck, as most people my age would rather look up to and follow movie stars or maybe a musician, automotive journalists are my versions of celebrities. Some of the team was getting food and Matt Farah, of the Smoking Tire, was driving, so I figured that this would be a good time to observe the track and get a good look at the cars. We drove our car to the place recommended by Jack, a spot overlooking "Madness" which is kind of middle Americas mini-Corkscrew. A slew of race cars drove by: a CTS race car running a Tahoe V8, an ex-challenge corvette, as many spec e30s as you can count, a few spec e36s, a few Jettas, a few spec Miatas, fox bodies and a pair of Audi 90s. It was around 40 degrees out and the wind was directly in my face. I put my hood up and watched the race. It was mostly smooth out here. A Jetta spun out, as well as an e30, but for me, this was just taking in the sound and pace of an amateur race. I was freezing, and in most cases standing in the wind in these temperatures for this long would cause me to do a Usain Bolt-esque sprint to my car and turn the heated seats on. Not now, I had an ear to ear smile on my face as the cars tackled madness, occasionally popping a wheel off the ground.

After observing and taking some pictures, I messaged Jack and asked if everyone was there and if it was a good time to come back, he said yes. I came back an hour later with my face as red as a tomato from standing in the wind for an hour and a half, Christian “Mental” Ward and Sam Smith introduced themselves and advised me to go grab some food and come back. I grabbed some barbeque, it was rather good, and came back and ate it. I chatted with Matt Farah, Sam Smith and Jack Baruth. It was time for a change of drivers. The icy blue spec Miata being run by our team pulled into the pits, Jack and Sam grabbed the gas cans and filled it up rather frantically and switched drivers.

I observed the race at the pits for quite a while, watching cars zoom by, the sounds of the engines piercing my ears as much as the brisk temperatures. Other cars showed up in the pits as well, each team frantically sprinting to preform quick maintenance checks and fueling up and changing drivers. We changed drivers a few more times, I checked out the garage and saw some of the other teams' cars as well as the Miata. The race was over for the day at 4:30. It was around 4 that Jack motioned me over towards the pits to run the stopwatch on my phone between our Miata and the Audi to see if we could catch up.

I ran it, there was a 1 minute and 12 seconds difference between the cars, I did some quick math to analyze. It was nearing the end of the race, we stepped over into the pit lane against the wall to see the final lap, the brisk fall air against my face. As the cars zoomed around the track one last time, I quietly watched and observed. That day, as I folded the chairs and walked out of the pits, the sounds of the cars were gone, but the faint smell of gasoline was still fresh, I got in my car and headed home. As I went home, I traveled the same accord lined highways I had been on early in the morning. But it was not the same, as before, I had been merely a car enthusiast, a spectator of car culture. But on the way home, I was a car enthusiast who had seen the light, the light that carries car culture forward with roaring engines and smelly pits, I had seen the frantic pace of the volunteer teams that make it happen. I had seen a race, the vast void had been filled. It was my first time experiencing the marvelous spectacle, and it will not be my last.