To be a racecar driver--professionally or not. Sounds crazy, but something about watching Formula 1 for the last few years has driven (haha) me to really want to get involved some kind of way. Saving up for lessons at the Skip Barber Racing School for next summer.
Current bottleneck: no time right now to dedicate to it. I just satisfy race longings now thru occasionally karting and flying around the backroads here in NC.
Do you know about Drivers Education (DE) and track days? I just got my $1500 "race car" running and am planning to do a DE event this fall with my local PCA (porsche club of america.) There are also Solo2 and autocross events everywhere you can do in your daily driver.
I think I have about $1600 in my autocross (and sometimes daily driver) car. It really isn't that expensive if you find something cheap (like a BMW E30 or Porsche 924) and do all the work to it yourself.
heh... mine is an '88 924S. For anyone who's interested, there is a ton of support for DIY'ers out there who want to build a car. The bmw and porsche forums are awesome. I imagine there's a great forum out there for any car worth racing.
Sweet. The 924S was greatly underrated in my opinion. I have an '87 that was my previous autocrosser but is in need of new struts, which are pretty expensive (more than I paid for the car).
I'll second this; it's a fantastic rush, and a good place to get started. However, you'll want to quickly graduate to HPDE's and other "big boy" forms of racing, once you've gotten your first fix. (Dare I suggest Rally? :)
Look to SCCA (http://www.scca.org/) and NASA (http://www.nasaproracing.com/) for events in your area (both autox and road racing). Also, be sure to look into local model-specific clubs (like BMWCCA, or Mini and Miata clubs); they often hold their own events, as their membership is large enough to sustain it, and are usually quite welcoming of folks of all makes and models at events (although you may find yourself in an "other" class of some kind).
Best of luck to you, but be warned: this is an expensive hobby. :)
There is nothing like professional instruction. On my first run I overheated my breaks and flew across the chicane. Second run, with professional instructor, was chasing down cars with +150 hp. This was at the annual Shelby bash in Vegas - cost of entry is a Shelby, so pretty high. A few weeks ago I spent a Saturday with a Porsche-owning friend at a PCA autocross day. So much fun. These are people who own Porsches because they are genuinely great race cars. The fastest car was a beat-up-but-loved 914. Plenty of people had 924's and 944's. As has been said here, $1500 will get you a fun track car, and if its a Porsche you have access to a solid community of racers who are more than happy to instruct: in fact newbies have to have instructors.
Current bottleneck: no time right now to dedicate to it. I just satisfy race longings now thru occasionally karting and flying around the backroads here in NC.
http://www.skipbarber.com/