The Joy of Racing: A Driver's Perspective

As I sat in my Miata, waiting for the green flag to signal the start of the racing event, I couldn't help but feel a sense of excitement and nervousness. My teammate, known for his skills behind the wheel of a 350Z, was about to take on the competition, and I was eager to see how he would fare. But as I glanced around at my fellow competitors, all of whom were also driving high-performance cars, I couldn't help but feel a twinge of intimidation.

I have always been fascinated by the art of racing, particularly when it comes to the nuances of handling and speed. Like any driver, I know that there are certain things that make a car faster – little tweaks here and there that can make all the difference in the world. And as someone who has spent countless hours on the track honing my skills, I have developed a keen sense of what makes a car go fast.

But what really sets me apart is my attention to detail. Like a fine-tuned machine, every part of my Miata must be precisely adjusted and tuned in order to achieve optimal performance. It's not just about throwing more power at the problem – although that can certainly help – it's about understanding how each component interacts with the others to create a cohesive whole.

As I waited for the green flag to signal the start of the event, I couldn't help but think back to our test day a few weeks ago. We had made some significant changes to the car in an effort to improve its handling and stability, and while it was certainly a challenge to get used to, we were all confident that it would pay off in the end.

And as the competition began, I watched with bated breath as my teammate tore around the track, his 350Z performing admirably. But what really caught my attention was how easy it was for him to drive – like a well-oiled machine, every part of the car seemed to be working seamlessly together in perfect harmony.

Of course, as any driver will tell you, there is nothing quite like the feeling of adrenaline that comes with racing. It's a rush unlike any other, one that can't be replicated by anything else. And yet, as I sat watching my teammate shred around the track, I couldn't help but feel a sense of relief – knowing that he was in his element, and that the car was performing as it should.

The real secret to success in racing, however, is not just about the car itself, but about the team behind it. The RCR team has been instrumental in helping me develop my skills, and I am forever grateful for their support and expertise.

As we took a break from racing to grab some dinner together, I couldn't help but feel a sense of camaraderie with my fellow competitors. We were all united by our love of speed and our passion for the sport – and in that moment, nothing else mattered.

Of course, as the evening drew to a close, we had to bid each other farewell. But before I went my separate way, one of my teammates caught me with a parting shot. "I'm tired of dealing with you," he said with a grin. I laughed and told him not to worry – after all, we'll be racing together again soon.

As I left the venue, still buzzing from the excitement of the day's events, I couldn't help but feel grateful for the world of motorsports. It's a tough competition, one that requires skill, strategy, and more than a little bit of luck. But when it all comes together – like it did today – there's no feeling quite like it.

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enall right guys welcome to the video number two from the past so this is actually going to be two days of testing we're here at osw we're about to go take out the car and do the first ever pulls with new refresh motor uh make sure everything looks good on the logs and then start to do some testing whole crew's here rig's all set up excited dog what are we doing today oh we're gonna go do some shredding dude i'm gonna put you in the car get you drifting feel out some new front end changes oh i'm excited for those we need to drive a track that you're familiar with no we didn't do very good here though hey historically you did that you really did that to me no you're all good but you told me you're like oh osw is not my best track so i feel really good driving here but then i just i tend to get stage fright so okay yeah i think it's a little it's a little bit of that and then i forget what happened last time i think i just got a little overconfident if anything you got a mustang to hide behind now so you're good you're not wrong so are we doing any candies today or is that maybe tomorrow okay sick for sure first talking about that some logistical things ray's gonna set you up get you in some rips we gotta do a quick alignment changes then we're gonna have you go out and turn some laps can we see your car real quick sure dude the new livery is like nascar's heck here it is that's a good segway i know it is i haven't even seen my side of the pit cart right on the other side dude i haven't been over there yet yeah i'm already pretty pumped on this it's like a race car i love the light a lot of drift cars this first race car i feel like these little speed slats here and the white yeah did a good job thanks i think i love the gold bc and the rear i know good right yeah it looks good i'm pumped on it the cars are all ready i think they're good to go i want to check out this pit car i haven't seen the other side of it yet oh yeah yeah you almost can't tell when you look at it that's cool yeah it's pretty sick it's a neat idea sharon dude there you go dude sharon's karen oh yeah right left and right dude look at me my name's chelsea it's gonna be a good day that's the wrong chelsea though that's her everyone thought it was so funny my video i was riding by you guys i was like yeah there's two chelseas here i know people are like wait hey people always used to make a joke about like when we get married when you guys get married you're gonna have the same names so yeah that's how it works the internal trick is everyone i guess refers to is chelsea and yeah and chelsea yeah yeah easy enough or like just the demeanor of how they're saying it if they're being an ass they're definitely talking to me if they're being like really polite they're definitely talking to her love it one cool thing that i'm really excited about for testing today if you remember one of my biggest complaints of the car that has been a complaint of chelsea's as well is on transition you'll sometimes get a numb feeling and part of that was because the sway bar is tied to the shock which does have some advantages but they went and redesigned it so today it's not tied to the shock anymore so hopefully it will have a little bit better steering feel through transitions we're gonna do some stuff on the skid pad and kind of see how that changed made the car feel um but i'm excited for that one more than anything because everything a car feels sick but that was one thing i kind of struggled with first thing first we're going to go and just do some straight line pulls so ray can look over the logs make sure everything's happy ah um um nothing felt funny so that's a good thing uh the last thing i drove was the demo cars and those cars drive beautifully these cars if you remember a little bit weird on that transition but felt pretty good you guys will see for yourselves uh we're gonna take a gopro in here i think we're gonna do a little bit more just kind of feeling out the cars on the skid pad before we go out on the big boy oval what do you think about this hot rod i think it's sick i'm uh very very happy seeing is my first time seeing the flash just like you we've been right looking at judy it's bright i think it is absolute perfect match of us yeah i agree i think it looks super sick it's one of my favorite liveries was a little nervous about the like the greenish neon yellow on the front but i think it works really well with the red i think it works really well too some freaking weird way it works really well thanks for your feedback too between you lindsey and myself i feel like we got to a really really good place and i'm just stoked to see you singing and it's all happening long beach right around the corner orlando skidpad here we go that's it dude testing baby we're going big places home turf yep well at least we you know we start here and then we at least we get some testing at an actual fd round so rather than just going to where we normally go we figure this would be best yvonne won't be at every single fd around this year but you will be at long beach i will be at long beach i will be atlanta and then i think right now irwindale for sure unless for some reason you guys need me but i believe you guys are in great hands i know i'm going to be sad even just being here right now i'm like i want to drive i'm going to drive before i leave but take the turbo out take it for a rip so so foreign foreign so foreign this thing on we're it's raining but we're gonna go get some raining lab testing um yeah cause it rains a lot in orlando me oh first real bank in the mustang i was a little nervous just because the cars do handle quite a bit different than what i'm used to i would say you know given that what five or six laps that i did it's very it's a lot easier more natural feeling to get the car to do what it needs to do i played around a lot with kind of left foot braking to just kind of feel how the car reacts and like little areas of throttle and no throttle um and every lap i'm building more confidence so we're gonna go back out there it's a little patchy now um but oh oh so so so i like to dry a lot better the car feels a lot easier to make it do what i want to do on the bank so i'm stoked about that for my first tandem chase with this thing on the bank i feel really good so so so so so all right so that concludes day one of testing i feel really good in the car it's the best that i've ever felt driving these things the new front end feels phenomenal i just got to work on my run-ups i'm a little bit slow on my run up and it's kind of causing me to fall a little bit behind and i want to be a little bit more confident on being able to start sooner so i can stay sooner throughout the rest of the lap overall i feel great brand new car first time driving on a bank it feels really cool and uh tomorrow we're gonna start do a lot more tandem and have a fresh day day two and we have the f-350 all loaded up i don't know if you guys can see i got steering wheels out the wazoo in the front and the back got some tires more steering wheels pit bike basically at some of the rounds this year rtr is going to be selling my merchandise under the fun haver section of their activation and then at other rounds of fd most of the ones that are closer to us will have our own setup so i'm bringing steering wheels so i can throw them in the rig and then i don't need to ship them out to long beach got some extra tires in case me and chelsea want to do more laps than we accounted for and i got my pit bike because there was a little bit more down time than i expected and my add had me going crazy so now i could do wheelies on my fit bike i'm gonna go get a breakfast sandwich we're gonna have a good day i wasn't joking about these steering wheels guys so so so um hey um one of the things i'm working on doing right now um i use the left foot brake a lot on the bank and part of it is just kind of like uh i don't want to call it a crutch because a lot of people use it but there's other ways to achieve more speed on the bank without left foot braking so chelsea have been helping me work through that and i don't know if you guys noticed on my last leads i picked up a little bit of speed there and he also taught me a little trick down in the apron to help me pick up some speed there i'm trying to navigate through the infield different so although it may look like i'm taking a few steps backward compared to my driving yesterday i'm trying to now take what i know and how to drive the track but be able to be faster using different tools in the same car so i gotta kind of re-learn the track in certain areas a little bit but i can definitely feel a big difference so i'm excited to learn more today it's gonna rain hmm i think the best part about this is all the steering wheels in the back seat flying around if you guys come to long beach and your steering wheel box has some dents in it that's what it was from so we're about to go back out in the rain one thing that you guys might see laying around sometimes the pits are these spare subframes they're all put together a lot of times at the track if something breaks or if an adjustment needs to be made it's quicker to actually swap the entire subframe than it is to make an adjustment chelsea how long does it take for them to swap subframe it's about seven minutes we've had some faster some slower but about seven minutes that's wild one of the things that's key to that we uh started running these in a lot of my cars pretty much every single car on the clutch line so uh these are like quick disconnects what are these technically called chelsea yeah so basically when you hook this back up you don't need to bleed the brakes because it's all ready to go you just pop it in and so on like the trans whenever we're pulling a trans for whatever reason when we pop the clutch like back on we don't need to bleed anything and it's sick hmm so so so wow so so so yeah excuses excuses that was a great way to end thank you chelsea yeah it was good that was a good time i'm pumped team kept the cars together uh didn't really have any major issues couple like little things here just dialing in trying some stuff yeah get some new settings and new little tweaks figured out yeah there was some i mean this was one of the most productive test days we've had in a while probably the most driving time we've had in a while too we turned a lot of laps we did like three times as many as we did on another test day yeah i did i think wet too that helped the conclusion that i think i've come to at least until i as they say unlock all the secrets of this chassis when i have a little bit more car than you i feel so much better but when we have the same car you just know like you know the car yeah he knows these like little things that make the car faster so i feel like i'm the miata behind the 350z wait for me the whole time but it's just a miata miata no i know but it's a miata you better drive you want the 350z when i'm in the miata i just ordered or like both yeah um but no that like a couple laps i just wanted to adore you and i did it and then you did i was like out the window you saw me i don't think i touched it i was like yeah come get me bro that's like the ticket too is that like when you just got to find that dry line like in the last turn if you run up on the bank yeah if you like on the lot proper line it's wet it's slick you don't go anywhere you got to run a little bit inside see what you guys missed is like i was i was being reprimanded because i was running the bro line and going through the water so i was nice and slow for him to chase me he's like dude you're supposed to run away from me in the chase and run on the dry stuff no you're just way offline sorry it was a joke but let's be realistic you're driving this weekend they're in the test ridiculous so good i'm pumped i'm super happy for you i think you have a good chance at long beach the first round which is sick yeah i feel like you're in a better spot than i was when i joined this team which is awesome to see the cars drive phenomenally like you guys i didn't really talk about it too much in my video but you could see me kind of struggling through that that transition on the test day that we did before yeah it was so hard to wrap my head around it the car just feels like a drift car now which is like i've never felt an nfd just that it just feels like a drift car yeah it's always felt like some freaking weird way to kill you yeah exactly yeah i'm just like i'm not trying to kill you anymore honestly like the changes we made in the off season coming here now i'm like i know it's fast but it's too easy to drive so it can't be fast so we started looking at the data and i'm like oh it's actually like a tick faster than when we won here last year he was like i'm having trouble keeping up with you blah blah and i was like dude like i won this event last year at this track and like we're faster than that right now so you're driving the fastest car you've ever driven at this point yeah it's just as easy to drive now so it doesn't feel fast even though it is that's good i know it's easy i'm happy because we've never really had that good of a car every off season we change some things it keeps getting better but it's always been it hasn't been a car where i jump in and just shred immediately i have to get used to it every time but now i feel like i jump in and just shred immediately it's more of like i have to meet the level of the car now instead of like bringing and elevating it together i think what's cool too is like we drove in so many different conditions it was like bone dry dry with puddles so slightly slick soaking wet and not once did i go an entry like second guessing the car every time it's just like it's very because when it fires off it's good every time yeah you know you never have to worry about the power band and the chassis always plants itself when you hit it yeah so yeah sick super stressful day uh i can't thank everyone involved making this happen enough i wish vaughn was here to see us shredding today yeah he missed out the rcr team put in work kept us together smiles on their faces smiles on our faces no complaints here they're so pumped yeah the team oh yeah vibe is high sick that's good yeah my vibe's high that's good i got it wrong we gotta i gotta go i got things to do all right you know somebody's trying to leave he's like i'm tired of dealing with you hey man i gotta go dude i wish i was just gonna sink back into the bushes if you guys go out tonight i want to come out are we doing alibi all right sick i think we were talking about getting dinner together and then we can go out yeah well just text me when you're done because i do have a thing right here guys i hope you enjoyed this video i need more content right this is only like a 45 minute video oh yeah we could talk about this all day it's all good thank you guys appreciate you watching and we'll see you next time isall right guys welcome to the video number two from the past so this is actually going to be two days of testing we're here at osw we're about to go take out the car and do the first ever pulls with new refresh motor uh make sure everything looks good on the logs and then start to do some testing whole crew's here rig's all set up excited dog what are we doing today oh we're gonna go do some shredding dude i'm gonna put you in the car get you drifting feel out some new front end changes oh i'm excited for those we need to drive a track that you're familiar with no we didn't do very good here though hey historically you did that you really did that to me no you're all good but you told me you're like oh osw is not my best track so i feel really good driving here but then i just i tend to get stage fright so okay yeah i think it's a little it's a little bit of that and then i forget what happened last time i think i just got a little overconfident if anything you got a mustang to hide behind now so you're good you're not wrong so are we doing any candies today or is that maybe tomorrow okay sick for sure first talking about that some logistical things ray's gonna set you up get you in some rips we gotta do a quick alignment changes then we're gonna have you go out and turn some laps can we see your car real quick sure dude the new livery is like nascar's heck here it is that's a good segway i know it is i haven't even seen my side of the pit cart right on the other side dude i haven't been over there yet yeah i'm already pretty pumped on this it's like a race car i love the light a lot of drift cars this first race car i feel like these little speed slats here and the white yeah did a good job thanks i think i love the gold bc and the rear i know good right yeah it looks good i'm pumped on it the cars are all ready i think they're good to go i want to check out this pit car i haven't seen the other side of it yet oh yeah yeah you almost can't tell when you look at it that's cool yeah it's pretty sick it's a neat idea sharon dude there you go dude sharon's karen oh yeah right left and right dude look at me my name's chelsea it's gonna be a good day that's the wrong chelsea though that's her everyone thought it was so funny my video i was riding by you guys i was like yeah there's two chelseas here i know people are like wait hey people always used to make a joke about like when we get married when you guys get married you're gonna have the same names so yeah that's how it works the internal trick is everyone i guess refers to is chelsea and yeah and chelsea yeah yeah easy enough or like just the demeanor of how they're saying it if they're being an ass they're definitely talking to me if they're being like really polite they're definitely talking to her love it one cool thing that i'm really excited about for testing today if you remember one of my biggest complaints of the car that has been a complaint of chelsea's as well is on transition you'll sometimes get a numb feeling and part of that was because the sway bar is tied to the shock which does have some advantages but they went and redesigned it so today it's not tied to the shock anymore so hopefully it will have a little bit better steering feel through transitions we're gonna do some stuff on the skid pad and kind of see how that changed made the car feel um but i'm excited for that one more than anything because everything a car feels sick but that was one thing i kind of struggled with first thing first we're going to go and just do some straight line pulls so ray can look over the logs make sure everything's happy ah um um nothing felt funny so that's a good thing uh the last thing i drove was the demo cars and those cars drive beautifully these cars if you remember a little bit weird on that transition but felt pretty good you guys will see for yourselves uh we're gonna take a gopro in here i think we're gonna do a little bit more just kind of feeling out the cars on the skid pad before we go out on the big boy oval what do you think about this hot rod i think it's sick i'm uh very very happy seeing is my first time seeing the flash just like you we've been right looking at judy it's bright i think it is absolute perfect match of us yeah i agree i think it looks super sick it's one of my favorite liveries was a little nervous about the like the greenish neon yellow on the front but i think it works really well with the red i think it works really well too some freaking weird way it works really well thanks for your feedback too between you lindsey and myself i feel like we got to a really really good place and i'm just stoked to see you singing and it's all happening long beach right around the corner orlando skidpad here we go that's it dude testing baby we're going big places home turf yep well at least we you know we start here and then we at least we get some testing at an actual fd round so rather than just going to where we normally go we figure this would be best yvonne won't be at every single fd around this year but you will be at long beach i will be at long beach i will be atlanta and then i think right now irwindale for sure unless for some reason you guys need me but i believe you guys are in great hands i know i'm going to be sad even just being here right now i'm like i want to drive i'm going to drive before i leave but take the turbo out take it for a rip so so foreign foreign so foreign this thing on we're it's raining but we're gonna go get some raining lab testing um yeah cause it rains a lot in orlando me oh first real bank in the mustang i was a little nervous just because the cars do handle quite a bit different than what i'm used to i would say you know given that what five or six laps that i did it's very it's a lot easier more natural feeling to get the car to do what it needs to do i played around a lot with kind of left foot braking to just kind of feel how the car reacts and like little areas of throttle and no throttle um and every lap i'm building more confidence so we're gonna go back out there it's a little patchy now um but oh oh so so so i like to dry a lot better the car feels a lot easier to make it do what i want to do on the bank so i'm stoked about that for my first tandem chase with this thing on the bank i feel really good so so so so so all right so that concludes day one of testing i feel really good in the car it's the best that i've ever felt driving these things the new front end feels phenomenal i just got to work on my run-ups i'm a little bit slow on my run up and it's kind of causing me to fall a little bit behind and i want to be a little bit more confident on being able to start sooner so i can stay sooner throughout the rest of the lap overall i feel great brand new car first time driving on a bank it feels really cool and uh tomorrow we're gonna start do a lot more tandem and have a fresh day day two and we have the f-350 all loaded up i don't know if you guys can see i got steering wheels out the wazoo in the front and the back got some tires more steering wheels pit bike basically at some of the rounds this year rtr is going to be selling my merchandise under the fun haver section of their activation and then at other rounds of fd most of the ones that are closer to us will have our own setup so i'm bringing steering wheels so i can throw them in the rig and then i don't need to ship them out to long beach got some extra tires in case me and chelsea want to do more laps than we accounted for and i got my pit bike because there was a little bit more down time than i expected and my add had me going crazy so now i could do wheelies on my fit bike i'm gonna go get a breakfast sandwich we're gonna have a good day i wasn't joking about these steering wheels guys so so so um hey um one of the things i'm working on doing right now um i use the left foot brake a lot on the bank and part of it is just kind of like uh i don't want to call it a crutch because a lot of people use it but there's other ways to achieve more speed on the bank without left foot braking so chelsea have been helping me work through that and i don't know if you guys noticed on my last leads i picked up a little bit of speed there and he also taught me a little trick down in the apron to help me pick up some speed there i'm trying to navigate through the infield different so although it may look like i'm taking a few steps backward compared to my driving yesterday i'm trying to now take what i know and how to drive the track but be able to be faster using different tools in the same car so i gotta kind of re-learn the track in certain areas a little bit but i can definitely feel a big difference so i'm excited to learn more today it's gonna rain hmm i think the best part about this is all the steering wheels in the back seat flying around if you guys come to long beach and your steering wheel box has some dents in it that's what it was from so we're about to go back out in the rain one thing that you guys might see laying around sometimes the pits are these spare subframes they're all put together a lot of times at the track if something breaks or if an adjustment needs to be made it's quicker to actually swap the entire subframe than it is to make an adjustment chelsea how long does it take for them to swap subframe it's about seven minutes we've had some faster some slower but about seven minutes that's wild one of the things that's key to that we uh started running these in a lot of my cars pretty much every single car on the clutch line so uh these are like quick disconnects what are these technically called chelsea yeah so basically when you hook this back up you don't need to bleed the brakes because it's all ready to go you just pop it in and so on like the trans whenever we're pulling a trans for whatever reason when we pop the clutch like back on we don't need to bleed anything and it's sick hmm so so so wow so so so yeah excuses excuses that was a great way to end thank you chelsea yeah it was good that was a good time i'm pumped team kept the cars together uh didn't really have any major issues couple like little things here just dialing in trying some stuff yeah get some new settings and new little tweaks figured out yeah there was some i mean this was one of the most productive test days we've had in a while probably the most driving time we've had in a while too we turned a lot of laps we did like three times as many as we did on another test day yeah i did i think wet too that helped the conclusion that i think i've come to at least until i as they say unlock all the secrets of this chassis when i have a little bit more car than you i feel so much better but when we have the same car you just know like you know the car yeah he knows these like little things that make the car faster so i feel like i'm the miata behind the 350z wait for me the whole time but it's just a miata miata no i know but it's a miata you better drive you want the 350z when i'm in the miata i just ordered or like both yeah um but no that like a couple laps i just wanted to adore you and i did it and then you did i was like out the window you saw me i don't think i touched it i was like yeah come get me bro that's like the ticket too is that like when you just got to find that dry line like in the last turn if you run up on the bank yeah if you like on the lot proper line it's wet it's slick you don't go anywhere you got to run a little bit inside see what you guys missed is like i was i was being reprimanded because i was running the bro line and going through the water so i was nice and slow for him to chase me he's like dude you're supposed to run away from me in the chase and run on the dry stuff no you're just way offline sorry it was a joke but let's be realistic you're driving this weekend they're in the test ridiculous so good i'm pumped i'm super happy for you i think you have a good chance at long beach the first round which is sick yeah i feel like you're in a better spot than i was when i joined this team which is awesome to see the cars drive phenomenally like you guys i didn't really talk about it too much in my video but you could see me kind of struggling through that that transition on the test day that we did before yeah it was so hard to wrap my head around it the car just feels like a drift car now which is like i've never felt an nfd just that it just feels like a drift car yeah it's always felt like some freaking weird way to kill you yeah exactly yeah i'm just like i'm not trying to kill you anymore honestly like the changes we made in the off season coming here now i'm like i know it's fast but it's too easy to drive so it can't be fast so we started looking at the data and i'm like oh it's actually like a tick faster than when we won here last year he was like i'm having trouble keeping up with you blah blah and i was like dude like i won this event last year at this track and like we're faster than that right now so you're driving the fastest car you've ever driven at this point yeah it's just as easy to drive now so it doesn't feel fast even though it is that's good i know it's easy i'm happy because we've never really had that good of a car every off season we change some things it keeps getting better but it's always been it hasn't been a car where i jump in and just shred immediately i have to get used to it every time but now i feel like i jump in and just shred immediately it's more of like i have to meet the level of the car now instead of like bringing and elevating it together i think what's cool too is like we drove in so many different conditions it was like bone dry dry with puddles so slightly slick soaking wet and not once did i go an entry like second guessing the car every time it's just like it's very because when it fires off it's good every time yeah you know you never have to worry about the power band and the chassis always plants itself when you hit it yeah so yeah sick super stressful day uh i can't thank everyone involved making this happen enough i wish vaughn was here to see us shredding today yeah he missed out the rcr team put in work kept us together smiles on their faces smiles on our faces no complaints here they're so pumped yeah the team oh yeah vibe is high sick that's good yeah my vibe's high that's good i got it wrong we gotta i gotta go i got things to do all right you know somebody's trying to leave he's like i'm tired of dealing with you hey man i gotta go dude i wish i was just gonna sink back into the bushes if you guys go out tonight i want to come out are we doing alibi all right sick i think we were talking about getting dinner together and then we can go out yeah well just text me when you're done because i do have a thing right here guys i hope you enjoyed this video i need more content right this is only like a 45 minute video oh yeah we could talk about this all day it's all good thank you guys appreciate you watching and we'll see you next time is\n"